How are parents involved in the spiritual lives of their teens? We just finished a preliminary poll of 227 teens between 12-19 and asked them two things. One, how often do your parents talk with you about faith? And secondly, how often would you want then to talk with you about faith?

 The chart below just takes into account the 80% of teens who attend church at least twice a month.Here's what teens said. On the right, is how they answered the first question. So, of the teens who said that their parents never talk with them about faith (in red) 35.7% of them want their parents to talk with them weekly, 14.3% monthly, 28.6% every so often and 21% wouldn't change it.

 What stands out to me the most is how many students want more from their parents.  41% of students who's parents currently talk with them monthly want to talk about faith weekly. 44% of students who talk about it every so often want to talk weekly or monthly and the most shocking is that 36% of teens who never talk with their parents about faith want to talk about it weekly and 50% want to talk at least monthly. 

 The overwhelming majority of teens want to have faith be an active part of the relationship they have with their parents or at least drastically more active than it currently is. As parents and leaders, what steps can be taken to help this become a reality? For those of you who work in the para-church setting, a large percent of teens who are not churched also wanted faith to be a more active part of their lives. I was surprised at the number of teens who never talk about it but want to talk with their parents weekly about their faith.

 As I said in the beginning, this is a preliminary poll. By that I mean that I used it to find areas that teens feel are weaknesses in their faith and now we will begin to craft a survey specifically about the relationship between teens, their parents and faith. A few of the things we want to find out are; What holds parents back from talking about faith?, Does the church (and para-church) do a good enough job in empowering and equipping teens to live daily in their faith? and What should the church (and para-church) do differently to better equip parents? You may have a few other questions that would help us get a grasp on what to better focus on so feel free to send us your suggestions and we will be sure to take them into consideration. 

 We have much more to share from this first poll and as we look through and better understand the data, we will share it with you.