Do you think that it is reasonable for parents to force their kid to go into conformation...?

Question

...when their kid has proclaimed themselves a Buddhist and truly believes in their ways? What do you think the parents have the right to do?

Answer 1

Parents try to do what is best for their children. No child will be confirmed who does not want it. If the preparation classes fail to influence the child, then that child has the right to tell the teacher that he/she does not wish to be confirmed.

Answer 2

I'm wondering if "conformation" was a tragic typo. Did you mean Confirmation?

Anyway, parents don't have the right to control their kids' religious beliefs. It's a terrible violation of their human rights. How do you force someone to believe something, anyway? You can't. Parents who do this are only trying to keep up appearances.

Another thing. If a kid tells a priest that he/she doesn't want to be confirmed, the priest won't do it, no matter what the parents want. Kids don't have to go along with ANY religious ceremony with which they are uncomfortable, the clergy will not allow it.

Answer 3

The parents have missed the whole point of our faith. Confirmation is supposed to be voluntary and i don't see how it can even mean anything otherwise. The kid should go to the priest and tell him that he is Buddhist and does not want to do confirmation. The priest won't make the child go through with it.

Answer 4

Well, I would want to discuss with my child why he/she chose Buddha over Christ. I would make a comparison of the two with the child. Most children are fairly young when they make their conformation, so they may have been influenced by something they saw or heard from a friend or movie. To force the child, to be confirmed, no. That does not lead to salvation anyway, so it wouldn't be worth the fight.But I would definitely do some research with the child.

Answer 5

Conformation is what public schools teach. Confirmation classes are taught at church. The parents have the right to force their kids to go. The kids have the right to conform to what many public schools are teaching and keep a closed mind to their parents' faith.

No one can force you to have faith in God or to love and honor your parents. It's your choice.

Answer 6

It is a parents job to tell their child what to believe until they are old enough to be on their own. Children don't have the right to decide for themselves. They are generally not mature enough, no matter how much they, and others, beg and plead. Parents are such wimps these days. Parents need to once again do their jobs (whatever religion they may be) and bring up their children with the beliefs they hold.

Answer 7

Not at all.
The parents have the divine duty to lovingly and patiently guide their children into the way of their own development, and not to put them into any fixed frames. Even parents are kings, preachers, billionnaires, inventors, or philosophers...they have no rights to force their chidren to follow their ways or to live like them. If Bill Gates and other Digital dreamers were forced to live like their forebearers, how could we have this wonderful means of communication?!
Yes each child, who will soon reach adulthood, is a geater world full of talents and capacities. Parents should guide them personally and particularly, not considering them as pets among other creatures.
And also importantly, children have the divine duty to obey their parents until the time they reach adulthood to make their own responsible decisions. Children must obey parents, not parents to obey them.

Answer 8

Every person has the right to choose a religion that suits them or to have no religion at all if that suits them. Parents tend to indoctinate and brainwash their children into one religion when the child might have other ideas as s/he grows up and learns more.

No child has to take part in any religious ritual if s/he prefers not to and any parent who forces a child to do so is abusing the child. Once the child has stated his/her views regarding religion, the parents have no right to ignore it or to attempt to force the child into another religion.

Answer 9

Don't worry too much about it. Just going doesn't change your belief. And your parents have a right to ask you to do anything until you are 18.

Answer 10

No. They can make him go to church, inthe same way they make him go to school. They can even make him take religion classes if they want (such as confirmation classes). But to ask him to say "I believe", or whatever, when he doesn't believe, is downright wrong. And in confirmation, he does have to say he believes.