“How Can I Talk to My Teen about Religion?,” Liahona, Mar. 2022, United States and Canada Section.
How Can I Talk to My Teen about Religion?
From our research, we’ve found several practical suggestions to help parents have positive religious conversations with their teens.
Despite what many adults and social scientists think, youth and young adults are very interested in talking with their parents about spiritual and religious matters. As part of our American Families of Faith project, we interviewed parents and youth from various denominations across the United States to discover what’s happening in our conversations with youth and how we can improve those conversations.1
The parents and youth we interviewed said that religious conversations were the most meaningful religious activity their families engaged in. As you participate in regular family religious gatherings and other discussions (such as family scripture study and home evenings), you may ask how you can improve the religious conversations you have with your teenage children.
The Problem
As children mature into adolescence, they tend to spend less time with their parents in joint activities but more time engaged in conversation. The youth want to have these conversations, especially if they believe parents will listen respectfully to their honest questions, doubts, and dilemmas.
But youth report that too often, parents are too directive and fall back into preaching, telling, bossing, and lecturing. They also reported that their parents tend to talk too much about mundane things (chores, homework, grades, money) instead of the things that matter most to the youth themselves.
The problem escalates when parents feel that their children are pushing back, drifting away, or being outright hostile. In these situations, parents are understandably likely to feel afraid or threatened and therefore more likely to become defensive, aggressive, or preachy and even make ultimatums.
What can result is a perfect storm of conversational misunderstanding, frustration, anger, resentment, conflict, and hurt feelings.
How do we converse in a way that results in our children feeling good about the Lord, themselves, their relationship with us, and their religious beliefs, practices, and commitments?
How to Make Conversations Youth Centered
There are two types of conversations we can have with our children: parent centered or youth centered.
Find out which type of conversation you tend to have by asking the following questions:
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Am I dominating the conversation?
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Does it focus on my own concerns or those of my child?
Not surprisingly, most youth reported that they preferred the informal, youth-initiated, youth-centered religious conversations. These kinds of talks are more engaging, enjoyable, and effective in helping adolescents understand their parents’ religious beliefs as they explore their own religious beliefs. Youth-centered conversations often showed the following characteristics:
The adolescent talks more and parents listen. Most youth love to talk. They are constantly engaged in conversation. In your next conversation, ask yourself, “Am I letting my child say what is on his or her mind?”
Parents seek to relate religion to the adolescent’s life. One mother of three spoke of how she looks for opportunities to relate gospel teachings to her children: “I think we’re pretty open and verbal about what we believe and teach about Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost and what’s happening in the world today.” Just as the Savior was able to relate His teachings to those He taught, consider the ways you can customize your teaching moments to the individual needs and circumstances of your children.
Parents allow children to express their views. As youth mature, they are more likely to challenge parental values, boundaries, and directives. The key is to create an environment where youth and parents can express their views without the conversation becoming hostile. A mother of 11 children describes how to create open conversation: “[My children] have their opinions. And we’ve always told them that you can say what you need to say, but just say it with the right tone. So they’re allowed to express themselves, even if they disagree with us.”
Parents nurture the relationship with their children. One mother articulated the importance of being there for her children when they needed her: “Talk to them and help them through things and love them … through hard times that do come and good times as well. Spend time together.” The time you spend with your children both inside and outside of conversation is one of the best ways to show them that you care. When they understand and feel this, they are more likely to engage with you.
How to Have Constructive Conversations
Based on extensive research, we have compiled a list of practical principles that can help you evaluate and improve your conversations with your teenage children.
Engage in sacred conversations. Sacred conversations are deep and meaningful interactions between two children of God who treat each other with profound respect and discuss things that really matter: things of the soul, the things of God.
Listen more, listen better. We are unlikely to hear a youth say, “My dad listens to me too much” or “I sure wish my mom and dad would preach to me more often.” We need to listen more and listen more deeply.
Have formal and informal conversations. Church leaders have encouraged parents to have regular, meaningful, enjoyable one-on-one interactions with children.2 Based on our research and our experience as fathers, a sacred conversation is a free-flowing, non-demanding exchange between two persons. Youth can become uncomfortable if they feel they are expected to give the “right” answers to obtain some kind of consequence (for example, to get a reward or to avoid punishment or withdrawal of privileges). Then it doesn’t feel like an authentic conversation—it feels like an investigation or even an inquisition.
Reason together. The Lord often teaches, guides, and corrects His children through conversations with them. Think of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well (see John 4), with Mary and Martha (see Luke 10:38–42), and many times with His disciples. In modern revelation, the Lord said:
“Let us reason together, that ye may understand;
“Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:10–11).
The phrase “let us reason together” suggests that both people in the conversation are engaged in a mutually edifying experience as opposed to, “Let me give you the reasons why you should think/feel/believe like I want you to.”
Converse one-on-one. The Savior taught by word and by example the importance of ministering to the one, including the one who is struggling or even lost (see Luke 15). It was one-on-one that He taught the power of patience, the power of humility, and the power of kindness. He taught by example that even though it is time-consuming to do so, love is best given one-on-one (see 3 Nephi 17:9, 21).
Always be willing to have a conversation. After the Lord gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, He said, “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Be open to conversations in various contexts rather than mostly in more formal settings.
Sit side by side. Many are more comfortable in conversations that take place side by side while doing some other activity, such as driving in the car, since they feel less eye-to-eye pressure. We have found that sitting side by side, youth may be more likely to open up and share what they are thinking or feeling than when they are sitting face to face.
Be prepared to stay up late. Often the best conversations with youth take place in the evening when they return from various activities. Parents who are willing and able to stay up late and mostly listen will often be rewarded with great conversations with their teens.
Build a relationship of love and trust. When you talk with your teens, make sure both parents and kids are engaged in a mutually edifying conversation. When you build a relationship of love and trust, children will ask questions and listen. While serving in the Young Men General Presidency, Brother Douglas D. Holmes said, “As the youth feel your love and trust, as you encourage and teach them … they will amaze you with their insights, abilities, and commitment to the gospel.”3 The late Brother Stephen R. Covey observed that one of the most important principles in human communication is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”4 There is wisdom in these words for us all, especially for parents.