On this week’s ‘Parenting’ segment, one family is struggling to explain to their daughter why she can’t make her First Holy Communion alongside her classmates.

“I have an eight-year-old daughter who’s in second class,” the child’s mother told Moncrieff.

“My husband and I are Atheists and decided not to Christen her. As a result, she will not be making her Communion with the rest of her class this year.

“Over the last few weeks, the girls in her class have started talking about the lovely white dresses they’re going to get.

“It’s become rather a topic now at home. She keeps asking why she isn’t making her Communion.

“She talks about it before she goes to bed and is very upset that she doesn’t get to wear a princess dress and go to Church with the rest of her classmates.

“She doesn’t understand why we won’t let her participate, and she seems to think we’re just being mean.

“How do I explain this to her, and how can I make her feel she’s not missing out?”

Catholic boys and girls receiving the sacrament of First Holy Communion.

Family psychotherapist Joanna Fortune said the girl clearly doesn’t understand what her family being Atheist means.

“That’s going to be the basis of this conversation, that you talk about your family’s beliefs – or lack of religious beliefs,” she said.

“You believe in other stuff – but talk about your family’s beliefs, that you don’t practice religion in your family and that the Communion is a religious ceremony."

Special day

Joanna said that while this is a religious ceremony, to children, it's just an exciting day where they get to be the centre of attention.

“How kids are talking about it in school, because they’re all, what, seven, eight years old, they're not sitting down – no matter how we like to think they are – they're not sitting down and talking about its religious gravitas," she said.

“They’re talking about the party and the dresses and the money and all of those other bits that go along with it.

“So, of course she’s going, ‘Hey, I want that too, why am I not getting that?”

Missing out

Joanna said that from the child’s perspective, she is missing out, and there is no point in denying this.

“When you say, ‘How can I make her feel like she’s not missing out? - I mean, she is missing out,” she said.

“I think you have to stop going, ‘How do we convince her the thing that is happening is not happening?’ It is happening.

“So, focus on helping her to manage that feeling rather than [trying to] magic it away for her.

“It might be that you say to her, ‘You’re missing out on Communion’, and then you frame that within, ‘Because we’re Atheists and Communion is a religious ceremony, and we don’t practice religion – but we are going to have a nice family day, we’re going to have a family party, we’re going to celebrate you’.”

According to Joanna, giving the girl a similar experience, even without the religious ceremony, will at least allow her to participate in conversations with her classmates.

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