Religious post, so please just ignore if you don't care/don't agree.
Our church is what you could call a moderately granola church. It's pretty free and chaotic on Sundays, and most kids stand up at the front and worship with their parents or just kind of hang out in their chairs doing whatever, but no one notices or cares if they're walking from place to place. They're all pretty respectful for the most part, and most of them participate and raise their hands and stuff. We have these flags with scripture painted on them, and little mini gold fabric flags for the kids to wave around once they're old enough to understand what they symbolize. Communion just sits on a table at the front, and kids can go up and get it when they want...most kids go multiple times haha. It is very go-with-the-flow, and the general belief is that "there is no Jr. Holy Spirit, so kids should be encouraged to worship and experience the presence of God the same way adults do." So that's where my kiddos will be raised.
The other day I was talking to my MIL, who goes to a very traditional and very conservative church where they don't even use instruments in worship. She was telling me all about how well-behaved her four kids were, and how she would pack Bible-specific activity bags and how her kids would just sit quietly and color their Bible stories. She told me this hiiilaaaarrriooous-to-her story about ONE time her oldest son told her no in church and she scolded him and it never happened again because they were all just soooo quiet and perfect in church. She kept encouraging me to do the same things and would NOT stop talking about how good her kids were at sitting still. Okay.
Y'all she has been to my church. She knows that NO ONE sits still, let alone kids.
I won't be bringing my kids to her church for ideological reasons (they don't let women hold leadership roles or speak and it is bullshit discrimination that I refuse to expose my kids to) but I'm sure she'll take them when they stay with her, and I WISH I could be there to see how confused they are the first time she says they're going to "church" and they get there and people AREN'T sitting on the floor hahahahaa sorry Brenda, not winning this one.
Sorry for the rant...I haven't even had my first baby yet and my MIL is already trying to tell me how to discipline them her way. I spent last weekend with them, and, well, WTF, Brenda.