6 Conversations All Christian Parents Need to Have With Their Kids

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Despite being founded on Judeo-Christian principles, modern day America is not always very friendly to Christians. Honestly held beliefs are mocked as fairy tales and foolishness. Attempts to live by a Christian worldview are seen as old fashioned and repressed. Christians may be dismissed as bigoted without reason, and when young Christians try to explain their side of the story, people automatically assume that the Christian is trying to convert them to Christianity even when that is not the case.

This anti-Christian culture is often extremely strong on college campuses. Many classes assume or expect students to adopt an atheistic worldview, and recent years have seen a rash of colleges and universities forcing Christian groups off campus. Most teens and children are not prepared to face such attacks on their faith as soon as they leave home, and many end up with either a lukewarm faith or abandon their religion altogether. In order to keep that from happening, Christian parents need to talk to their children about how to handle living in an anti-Christian culture before the kids are forced to navigate it alone. Those discussions also cannot take place the night before a teen leaves for college. They should be spread out over the years in order to give children and teens time to digest the conversation and ask any follow-up questions or divulge any further concerns. Here are six conversations Christian parents need to have with their children before they leave the house.

Science and God

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It may seem like a rather minor issue when teens are facing a very real crisis of faith down the road, but the illusion of incompatibility between modern science and faith is often a large part of why young, intelligent, highly educated Christians struggle with their religion. They are raised in a culture where science is king, and many of them support the careful, objective system of study that science uses to explore the world. Most young Christians believe both science and Christianity, but as they get older, they begin to need ways to reconcile them. Otherwise, science begins to win out in many cases both because of the cultural bias to it and also because too often teens are given rote answers and platitudes to religious questions instead of the rigorous testing and detailed answers that science provides. Help teens and children understand that science and religion are not enemies. Many famous scientists were Christians and many major scientific theories are perfectly compatible with the Bible and Christianity if one is willing to really think about both the scientific and religious sides of the equation.

Sex

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Like it or not, sex is something that will likely need to be discussed with teens and children repeatedly over the years. Sex and sexuality are everywhere in modern culture, so there is no way a parent can bury their head in the sand and pretend that their little, puberty-ridden angel is not being bombarded with sexual thoughts and curiosities.

Frankly, the Church does not have a great history when it comes to dealing with the very real issue of sex. Too often, children and teens spend their whole lives hearing that sex is evil, wrong and sinful but are given no real way to deal with the inevitable surge of hormones and sudden awakening of the biological drive to reproduce. Then, after listening to endless sermons about the evils of looking twice at that really attractive classmate, they are expected to suddenly and miraculously have fulfilling sex lives when they marry.

Change the conversation about sex by actually having a conversation. It may not be the most pleasant topic to discuss with children and teens, but if parents do not talk about sex with their children, those children are going to learn about it from other sources. Many sex education programs in schools are little more than a joke, and no child is going to ask honest questions about sex in front of all their classmates. That leaves them looking for answers in other places, and no parent with any sense wants other teens, television shows or, God forbid, the internet, to be their child’s primary guide when it comes to sex and relationships.

Friends of Other Faiths

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No teen or child is going to spend their life surrounded solely by Christians, and frankly, no parent should be praying that the only people their child ever meets are Christians. Living in an echo chamber denies children and teens the chance to learn from others and limits their growth. It is also simply not possible in the West today to live one’s life without ever encountering or having to deal with people of other faiths. As such, parents need to talk to their children about how to handle having non-Christian friends. Children may not understand at first why their friend does things differently or refuses to eat certain foods. Parents need to help their children understand that people practice many different faiths and how to navigate the multicultural waters that form modern American culture. This will give children a support system to help them craft an apology the first time they put their foot in their mouth and let them practice skills that they will need when they inevitably enter the workforce.

Sharing vs. Converting

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Christians should have no fear of sharing their faith with other people and should embrace such opportunities when they arise. That said, young Christians do need to understand that not every chance to share their faith with other people is the time to work on winning converts to Christianity. Frankly, most young people are likely not prepared to put in the time and energy that are required to truly convert someone or to walk beside and support someone throughout that difficult journey. Unfortunately, many teens and children take an all or nothing approach. They either never discuss their faith with others, or they attempt to convert everyone from their classmate in English class to the mailman. There is a time and place for conversion attempts, but parents need to help their teens and children learn how to share their faith without conversion overtones. Otherwise, teens and children are going to start losing friends who are irritated by the constant evangelizing, and the child is going to wonder why everyone seems to hate Christianity.

Living a Christian Life

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Faith is not meant to be the sort of thing that simply sits trapped in a person’s head, and Christianity does not start and stop at the threshold of a church. If a person is truly a Christian, they need to live by the values in which they claim to believe. On the surface, this seems like it would not be too difficult, but many Christians live non-Christian lives and justify it easily. For proof of this, ask a room full of young Christians how many songs they have on their phone or iPod. Many of them will say that they have 500, 1,000 or more. Act surprised that they spent over $500 on music, and listen to the truth come out. Most of them did not buy all their music. They bought some and used a variety of websites and applications to download the rest straight off the internet for free. Essentially, they stole the rest. Make that comment and most of the room will be in an uproar claiming that they are not thieves. Teens and children will face flagrant temptation at some point, that is true, but most of their opportunities to sin are not going to be open challenges to their faith. Instead, they will be times when doing wrong is simply easier and no one is around to tell them ‘no.’ Teach them how to listen to their faith in such moments and consider what they are really doing and how they are living.

Clinging to Christ

Modern culture is not terribly friendly to Christians which means that young Christians are eventually going to have to defend their beliefs, even if only to themselves. Help children and teens learn how to think through challenges to their faith and understand that dealing with doubts and spiritual uncertainty is normal especially as they begin to develop their own personal relationship with God instead of relying on what others have told them that relationship should look like.

Make sure children and teens also learn the lost art of disagreeing civilly and agreeing to disagree. Today’s culture is full of people who would rather wail about being offended than teach the baffled person they claim insulted them how to avoid giving offense in the future. Thin skins and loud voices win more arguments than reason these days, and few people seem to remember how to have a debate or discussion without it devolving into screaming and insults. Help teens and children learn how to have a civil discussion with people who disagree with them and how to walk away gracefully if the other person keeps trying to pick a fight. Teach them how to differentiate between when to take the high road and remove themselves from a situation and when to stand their ground and cling to Christ especially when they are asked to sacrifice their beliefs on the altar of political correctness.