I just read Jennifer Beste’s article in Sociology of Religion on Catholic second graders’ experience of the sacrament of reconciliation. It is a delightful article that helps us to view the sacrament of reconciliation through the eyes of the Catholic second graders engaging in it for the very first time. Beste took inspiration from Susan Ridgely Bales’ When I Was a Child: Children’s Interpretations of First Communion. As a result, her approach is child-centered, and she describes it as rooted in a childhood studies approach that sees children as co-constructors of meaning.