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Encouraging Spirituality in Your Teenager.
By Troy L Parrish
As our boys begin to turn into young men, we as parents are faced with a number of challenges, some more pleasant than others, some difficult some easy. Beside the typical challenges of dealing with teens is the challenge of moving your child's faith from something that is his because it is yours to a faith that he genuinely embraces for himself. Unquestionably, one of the main tasks in the adolescent period is the development of an indentity that is seperate and unique to the individual. Each child must become his own person, no longer an extension of mom and dad. A part of this process is the child's struggle with just how he is going to deal with his faith.
Children typically embrace the beliefs, values and attitudes of family (specifically mom and dad). What parents believe will be what the children believe. This touches many issues including the attitudes towards moral behavior such as lying, respect for others, work ethics, alcohol consumption, sexuality and drug use to name a few. It also touches on the metaphysical as well including such issues as spirituality, questions such as does God exist, what responsibility does man have towards God and what is the meaning of life. Consequently, what we as parents model for our children is significant in that what we live will be what they believe. The deeper these values penetrate our lives the deeper they will be ingrained in our children.
However, despite the fact that our children will adopt our values and beliefs, they will also reach a period in their lives where they will naturally begin to form their own beliefs and value system. A part of the argumenative nature of teens is their increasing ability to think for themselves and evaluate "truths" that they had previously accepted without question. It is not enough for them to embrace some value, belief or moral stand simply because mom or dad does or says so. When teens begin to question what has, up to this point in time, been understood this is a normal part of the process of growing up. It is important for parents to recognize this process and to respond appropriately to this challege to the status quo.
When this challenge comes to parents it can be very tempting to clamp down and make requirements of adherance to values and spiritual truths in order to assure that the child does not go to far astray. Depending on the nature of the child, this approach may meet with some external success but in no way indicates what is going on in the heart of your son. It is at this significant time that parents need to help thier child make decisions to embrace their faith.
Begin by acknowledging that your son is at a place in his life that he is thinking for himself and that as a result of this independent thought that he is also morally responsible for his decisions, including the value system that he adopts. Most societies recognized an age in which an individual becomes an adult. In America that age is 18 but the process that we are talking about takes place much earlier in life. In the Jewish faith a child is recognized as a son of the Law at the age of 13 for boys and age 12 for girls. These ages represent a greater recognition of the process a child of that age is undergoing. At this age Jewish children are required to observe to the Law and are confered rights that we would most often equate with becoming an adult.
Having this understanding of moral responsibility and accountability, parents then need to check the assumptions that your child has concerning issues of God and faith. Does your son believe in God? You may believe that you know this for sure about you son but you don't until you ask. If he says no, then you know where you need to start in terms of winning your child for Christ. If he says yes, then you know that the issue is one of how willing your son is to submit his life to God's direction. If your son states that he believes in God and accepts Christ as his savior but that he just doesn't want to live a Christian life at this time, your job is to understand his objections and to guide him through these obstacles. If your son states that he wishes to have God be in control of his life the task is one of helping your son discover what this actually looks like in his day to day life.
The importance of doing this when you begin to discern that your child is showing that spark of defiance or rebellion can not be over emphasized. Your son is still very open to the direction that you offer while being far enough along in his development of self to be able to adopt values for himself. By reaching your son in a timely fashion you can head off a number of problems with major rebellion and abondoment of faith that is often associated with the teen years. A methodical approach to encouraging faith in your son can be found in the book Raising Modern Day Knights by Robert Whatever.
The value of passing our faith onto our children is important for our culture, but more important to them and their future. There are those that believe that parents shouldn't pass their faith onto their children but that children should be exposed to all sorts of beliefs and then allowed to choose whatever appeals to them. We would not use this line of thinking with children when it comes to choosing what to eat, why with something far more significant would we approach it that way? If you are dilligent, and you work with your son you can have the peace knowing that your son has fully embraced the faith of his childhood.
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