A few years back, as I was planning orientation for our High School Youth group, I
found myself trying to figure out how to address an issue we’d experienced the
year prior, where many of our upper class students (Juniors and Seniors) has dropped
out of church.
It was an unexpected departure of a large portion of the
group, and it had been disruptive, as you might imagine, for a number of
reasons, and it was complicated in ways that I don’t need to dig into here, but
one interesting thing I had discovered as the year had played out, was that
many of the parents of those youth were also dismayed at the choice their
children were making. In a variety of interactions over the year, I found
myself in conversations with these parents, and repeatedly, heard them say
something along the lines of:
“I’m
really disappointed, but I had told X that after Coming of Age ended,
they could choose if they wanted to continue attending church. I wish they’d
made a different choice.”
Every time I encountered a variation of this message, I
found myself feeling increasingly curious as to what this meant in relation to
our congregation, the RE program, and Unitarian Universalism. I wondered if there was a lesson in what I was
hearing from these parents.
As a parent of a teenager, I understood that parenting
through adolescence requires us to walk a confusing line between asserting
family expectations and values while granting new autonomy and independence. We
are preparing our children for the transition they will soon be making into
adulthood. Parents are regularly observing the day to day of their teenaged
child and determining whether or not to get involved- whether to enforce an
expectation, follow up on a task to see if it’s been done, or help our teens
out of a mess they’ve made. Sometimes multiple times a day, we are called to
evaluate and determine a path, and often times when we make a choice to step in or speak up we are met with resistance. It is mentally exhausting work.
Essentially, we are looking for things we can cut loose, new
privileges and responsibilities, and hoping that we choose the right things and the right time. Perhaps this means we stop checking their
school grades and following up on missing assignments with them. Perhaps we stop helping
them remember sports schedules, or suggesting strategies for managing their
time. Some parents choose to let go of monitoring bed time, or ‘screen’ time. Our
teens may now find themselves responsible for their own laundry, a job out of
the home, even car insurance or gas money. Some of us stop requiring presence
at family meals, or family vacations, and some of us tell them they can make
their own choice about church.
None of those decisions are necessarily wrong. Not even the
church one. This is what I found myself sharing with the parents of our high
school youth group at orientation that evening a few years back. And I have had
variations of this talk with many groups of parents since. It is a part of our coming of age orientation in 8th grade, and we return to it in the high school years.
As I listed off that not-at-all-exhaustive list above, of
things we might renegotiate as our children move through adolescence, you might
have heard things you would also have passed off to your own teen, and you may
have heard other things you would never have let go. Every family is different,
for a million reasons, and every family has to make their own decisions about
how to navigate this beautiful, difficult, imperfect journey of raising
children to be adults.
But.
Do not forget that your answers to all of those questions
and so many others, are deeply tied to your values. And the choices you make
around which expectations you continue to require of your teen, as well as the
way that you frame those things you are passing off to them, it all communicates
your values to your teenage child, and they are listening.
So, if it is important to you that your teenager is a part
of their church community, then you may want to be more nuanced about how you
give them autonomy in that arena. It is not all or nothing, I am not suggesting
that you go to the mat and force them to come to youth group if they don’t want
to do so, but be thoughtful, and don’t underestimate your influence.
Perhaps, instead of telling your child they can decide if
they want to be a part of church, you might say, they can decide how they would like to be involved in
church; That church is an important part of your family, but if they don’t want
to participate in youth group, they can choose to come to service on Sunday
mornings instead, or to volunteer in the nursery. In my family, I have given my
son 3 Sundays a year (not counting the occasional school event conflict) where
he can choose to opt out on youth group. This allows him to choose to
prioritize a concert or other social event on occasion but he knows to choose
carefully. That works for us, but as I
said before, every family is different, raising kids is a tricky, imperfect
process, and if I’m doing my job right, this talk is helping you feel empowered
not making you feel like you’re missing the mark.
The first time I shared these thoughts with a group of
parents was an awakening for me as well, because I realized as these words came
to me, and as I saw my fellow parents relax into the message I was sharing with
them, that this was another way that we learn from each other. My insight grew
directly from deep sharing moments with multiple parents- from a relationship
of trust and respect we shared with one another- and through that bond, and
those conversations, I found the thread of something that can help buoy families still rising through our faith. It isn’t about finding one path and
setting everyone upon it, it is about seeing patterns, and helping others
anticipate them. Parents are the primary religious educators for their
children, but none of us always feel confident in that role, and so
we lean on one another, encourage one another, learn from each other, and we move forward together.
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