Parenting is not easy. Helping children and teens know and follow the will of God is both very challenging and very important. Nurturing young children in God, guiding carefully their education, leading them into knowledge of the Bible, involving them in worship and the fellowship of believers often seems more manageable than influencing them later on to maintain their faith as they grow through their teenage years. There are so many negative influences in the culture and among the people who impact their lives that it is not surprising that many mothers and fathers accept the popular belief that after their children reach about 18 years old, parents are irrelevant in the awesome choices their offspring must make.
However, the idea that parents are not important after their children reach age 18 is a myth. A national study of young adults found that even though there are often strains as parents and adolescents adjust the nature of their relationship in preparation for adulthood, the relationship matters. “What the best empirical evidence shows . . . is that even as the formation of faith and life play out in the lives of 18- to 23-year olds, when it comes to religion, parents are in fact hugely important.” (Christian Smith with Patricia Snell, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, Oxford University Press, 2009, page 285)
It has been quite a while now since I made a rather stormy transition to adulthood. There was a period, as I recall, when it was by no means certain that I would retain the faith of my earlier years and become a responsible Christian adult. Some people probably make the transition from teenage believer to faithful young adult without much struggle. Others probably make it successfully without much adult help.
For me, a caring pastor was important. Other adults in our church were helpful. I was positively influenced by Christian friends my age. Most significant of all, though, my family helped me survive and grow. Thank God for parents who demonstrated holiness, loved me in spite of myself, and helped me emerge as a Christian young adult with a faith that has challenged and sustained me all these years.
Mothers and fathers—be encouraged to know that when it comes to religion, careful research shows your influence to be “hugely important.” Your teens make their own choices, of course, but your faithful influence continues to be vital in their religious choices as they work through their transition into young adulthood.
Questions:
If you have made a successful transition to adulthood, would it be good to thank your mother and/or father for their role in helping you?
Who were the people who supported you in your journey to faith?
What are you doing to support the parents of teens in your congregation?
By Kenneth E. Crow
Kenneth E. Crow is a native of Nebraska. He graduated from SNU with a major in religion and later, while pastoring in Boulder, Colorado, earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology at the University of Colorado. He has served as a Nazarene missionary in South Africa, as a pastor of Nazarene churches in Minnesota and Colorado, as a professor and registrar at MidAmerica Nazarene University and Nazarene Bible College. He recently retired from serving as the manager of the Research Center at Nazarene Headquarters.