Oh Des! Nothing could be farther from the truth. She views the teachings of the church as fantasy. This from a child raised in a catholic home and educated in catholic schools. A year ago, she would have eagerly embraced the sacrament.
As for the 10 and 12 year olds, I was in 6th grade when I made my Confirmation (granted that was a long time ago, in antiquity). The bishop came once every two years to confirm the 6th and 7th grade classes., I was 10 when I made my confirmation and I remember that day as though it were yesterday. We processed into the church to take our places. My greatest fear was that the bishop would slap us hard across the face. In his address to the confirmandi, he called us Soldiers of Christ. That message struck home like a laser beam (before it was ever invented).
During my teen years, I abandoned the faith, like my daughter ...... and consider it perfectly normal. Once my life settled down in the post 20 years, my faith returned, along with the memories of my confirmation. Those 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit are critical in our lives. Actually the church places Confirmation in between Baptism and First Eucharist. It is supposed to be administered any time after the age of awareness - in other words, any time after age 7.
I apologize but at times I feel like an old dinosaur. Having been raised in the pre VCII church when nuns were truly religious and priests were anything but gay. My daughter attended mass beginning the week she was born. At age 3, she would bring little gifts to the statue of the BVM outside the church. These 16+ teen years are a painful burden to a mother who loves her daughter with all her heart. Thank you, Colleen, for the rosary. We certainly need it.
Well, yes there is. Remember, the Grace of God is the chief effect of this, and all, the Sacraments. The argument would be similar to those non-Catholics who assume you can't baptize infants because they haven't reached the age of reason. The reality of the Grace of God working in the soul of an individual is not dependent on the age or current knowledge of the recipient of the Sacrament received.
There are many in the Latin Church who are arguing for the Church to give the Sacraments of initiation in their proper order, i.e. - Baptism, Confirmation, first Holy Communion. In the Eastern Churches infants are Chrismated (Confirmed) right after Baptism and even receive their first Holy Communion at that time as well! This assumes, of course, that the child is a member of a practicing Catholic family and will be receiving the teachings of the Church continuously as they grow - in their homes (the Domestic Church) as well as formal catechism. I think this last statement points to where the problems of the Church really are in terms of ignorance. It also points to the importance of correct liturgical practices, particularly in their wider significance of following the life of Christ throughout the year in the various feast days and seasons.
The liturgy, in it's totality and balance, is a very powerful catechetical tool among it's other purposes. It is precisely here that dissidents attack the beliefs of the Church through their selfish, self-centered, and self-serving "developments" of the liturgy, which is the locus of the Sacraments.