CFF21 Course 3 - Presentation #1
- 1. + Family Faith Formation Certificate in Faith Formation for the 21st Century Course #3
- 2. + Overview Session 1. Research Part 1. Parents, Families, and Faith Session 2. Live Presentation #1 Session 3. Families Today: Research Insights Session 4. Parents Today: Research Insights Session 5. Family Faith Practices Today Session 6. Faith Transmission in Families Today
- 3. + Overview Part 2. Strategies for 21st Century Family Faith Formation Session 7. Live Presentation #2 Session 8. Strategy – Forming Family Faith through Community Session 9. Strategy – Forming Faith thru Milestones Session 10. Strategy – Forming Faith at Home through the Life Cycle Session 11. Strategy – Developing a Strong Family Life Session 12. Strategy – Empowering Parents & Grandparents Session 13. Application: Designing a Families-at-the- Center Plan Session 14 - Live Presentation #3
- 7. + Presentation #1 1. Research: What do we need to know? 2. Faith & Families: What are the practices that make a difference? 3. Transforming Our Narrative: Families at the Center
- 8. + Changes in the American Family The 1950s Family The 2010s Family
- 9. + The Changing American Family
- 10. + The Changing American Family
- 11. + The Changing American Family
- 12. + The Changing American Family
- 13. + The Changing American Family
- 14. + Part 1. Research: FamilyToday What do we need to know?
- 15. + What do we need to know? #1. Diverse Family Forms There is no single family arrangement that encompasses the majority of children today. Two-parent, married couple households are on the decline. Children and adolescents live in a variety of family arrangements that change and evolve over the course of a child’s life.
- 16. + What do we need to know? 1. Married Couple with no children 2. Married Couple with Children (biological family) 3. Married Couple with Children (blended family) 4. Single Parent with Children 5. Unmarried Couple with Children 6. Unmarried Couple without Children 7. Same Sex Couple with Children (married/unmarried) 8. Same Sex Couple without Children (married/unmarried) 9. Grandparents & Parents with Children 10. Grandparents as Primary Caregivers 11. Parents with Single Young Adults Living at Home
- 17. + What do we need to know? #2. Diverse Financial Situations One-third of parents say they live comfortably. Roughly the same share (32%) say they are able to meet their basic expenses with a little left over for extras. One-in-four parents say they are just able to meet their basic expenses. 9% say they don’t even have enough to meet their basic expenses.
- 18. + What do we need to know? #3. Mothers Working Outside the Home 70% of all mothers of children younger than 18 and 64% of mothers with preschool-aged children work outside of the home About three-fourths of all employed moms are working full time. About thirty percent of mothers living with children younger than 18 are at home with the children.
- 19. + What do we need to know? #4. Some Children Start Out with a Disadvantage Nearly 15 million children in America live below the official poverty level. Low-income families with children age 8 and under face extra barriers that can affect the early years of a child’s development. Parents in these families are more likely than their higher-income peers to lack higher education and employment, to have difficulty speaking English and to be younger than 25.
- 20. + What do we need to know? #5. Being a Parent – An Important Part of Identity The overwhelming majority of mothers and fathers say that being a parent is extremely or very important to their overall identity and a rewarding experience. Parents are busier than even—and often “overwhelmed”—managing and balancing work, education, family life, young people’s activities, and their own personal lives.
- 21. + What do we need to know? #6. Parents Engaged in their Children’s Lives A large majority of parents young people say that get along well or pretty well, have fun together, and feel close to each other. Even though many parents feel rushed in their daily lives, most (59%) say that they spend about the right amount of time with their children and a third (36%) say they spend too little time with their children.
- 22. + What do we need to know? #6. Parents Engaged in their Children’s Lives Young people are very involved in a variety of extracurricular activities, but parents with higher income and higher education are more likely to report that their children participate in activities. A majority of parents—across income levels— are involved in their children’s education (talking with teachers, attending school meetings, going on class trips.)
- 23. + What do we need to know? #7. Parents Are Concerned about Children’s Well- Being and Safety Parents’ biggest concerns are about the well- being and safety of their children: being bullied struggling with anxiety of depression being kidnapped getting beat up or attacked getting pregnant/getting a girl pregnant getting shot getting in trouble with the law
- 24. + What do we need to know? #8. Parents Want Honest, Ethical, Caring Children Parents want their children to be honest and ethical as adults, caring and compassionate, and hardworking. The top values that are important for them to teach include (in order): 1) being responsible, 2) hard work, 3) religious faith, 4) helping others, 5) being well mannered, 6) independence, 7) empathy, 8) obedience, 9) persistence, 10) creativity, 11) tolerance, and 12) curiosity.
- 25. + What do we need to know? #9. Parents Have Different Approaches to Digital World There is a widespread adoption of new digital technologies and mobile devices that are transforming the way parents and children relate, communicate, work, and learn. Parents can be divided into three groups based on how they limit or guide their children’s screen time with each group representing about one-third of all parents: digital limiters digital enablers digital mentors
- 26. + What do we need to know? #9. Parents Have Generational Parenting Styles In general Gen X parents approach child-rearing as a set of tangible practices that will keep their children safe, reasonably happy, well-behaved, and ready to take on life’s challenges. They practice protective parenting.
- 27. + What do we need to know? #9. Parents Have Generational Parenting Styles In general, Millennial parents, reflecting their values of individuality and self-expression, focus more on a democratic approach to family management, encouraging their children to be open-minded, empathetic, and questioning— and teaching them to be themselves and try new things. They are moving away from the overscheduled days of their youth, preferring a more responsive, less directorial approach to activities. (Responsive Parenting)
- 28. + What do we need to know? #9. Parents Have a Diversity of Spiritual-Religious Identities Parents reflect an increasing diversity in religious beliefs, practices, and affiliation. 23% of Generation Xers and over 34% of Millennials are not religious affiliated and the number of unaffiliated Millennials is growing. Families of Generation X and Millennial parents are participating less in church life and Sunday worship. Religion and spirituality may be important to families today, but for many it is not usually expressed by participation in churches.
- 29. + What do we need to know? Unaffiliateds Spirituals (but Not Religious) Occasionals (Minimal Engagement with Faith and Community) Actives (Vibrant Faith & Active Engagement)
- 30. + What do we need to know? #10. Religious Socialization and Transmission Is More Complex. Significant indicators, such as religious identification as a Christian, worship attendance, marriages and baptisms in the church, and changing generational patterns, point to a decline in family religious socialization across all denominations. There is also a decline in religious traditions and practices at home. Gen X and Millennial parents often lack the religious literacy and religious experiences necessary for faith transmission.
- 31. + What do we need to know? #10. Religious Socialization & Transmission Is More Complex In her book Losing Our Religion: How Unaffiliated Parents Are Raising their Children identifies four distinct worldviews among unaffiliated parents: 1. Secular (believes there is no God that influences the world or human life) 2. Seeker Spirituality (believes there is no God but there is a higher power or life force) 3. Unchurched Believer (believes in a personal God who listens and can intervene in human affairs; and prays or attends services) 4. Indifferent (no beliefs or practices).
- 32. + What do we need to know? She identifies 5 different strategies that parents use to incorporate religion in the lives of their children. 1. Nonprovision: These are parents who do not incorporate religion into their children’s lives – at home or congregation. (unaffiliated) 2. Outsourcing: These are parents who rely on other people to incorporate religion into their children’s life. They do not intentionally incorporate religion or spirituality in the home, enroll the child in formal program like CCD or Hebrew school or Sunday school, and decline to become members of that religious institution. There was a common theme: they felt a duty as a parent to provide religion, regardless of their personal ambivalence about it, because their child “had a right” to this information.
- 33. + What do we need to know? 3. Self-provision: These are parents who try to incorporate religion into their children’s upbringing without institutional support. They remain unaffiliated, do not enroll their child in formal religious education program, and intentionally incorporate religion or spirituality into home. 4. Alternative: These are parents who were unaffiliated before they had children and reported searching for and eventually affiliating with a community such as the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). They enroll their child in a “worldview education” program; intentionally incorporate religion/spirituality in the home but do so in a consciously pluralistic way. 5. Traditional: Some unaffiliated parents decided to return to the religion they were raised in and enroll their child in a conventional religious education program. Parents are Traditional if having children leads them to return to the community they were raised in and re-affiliate, a child is enrolled in conventional religious education program, and they incorporate religion in the home.
- 34. + What do we need to know Manning found that in most cases, there was a great deal of consistency between the parent’s religious or secular identity and how they raised their children. She observes, “the fact that most parents in the study took steps to incorporate religion into the lives of their children is surprising only if we take None to mean the absence of any religious, spiritual, or philosophical worldview. Once we discover the more substantive dimensions of unaffiliated parents’ worldviews, we see that they transmit those beliefs and practices to their children much as affiliated parents do.”
- 35. + Part 2. Faith & Families
- 36. + What are the practices that make a difference in faith transmission? 1. Parents’ personal faith and practice 2. Parent-child relationship: close, warm 3. Parents’ modeling and teaching a religious faith 4. Parents’ involvement in church life 5. Grandparents’ religious influence & relationship 6. Religious tradition a child is born into 7. Parents of the same faith 8. Family conversations about faith 9. Embedded family religious practices
- 37. + What are the practices that make a difference?
- 38. + What are the practices that make a difference? 85% chance of being Highly Religious as an emerging adult if you were in the top 25% on the scales of: 1. parental religion 2. prayer 3. importance of faith 4. Scripture reading
- 39. + Approximately 70% of youth who at some time or other before mid-emerging adulthood commit to live their lives for God, the vast majority appear to do so early in life, apparently before the age of 14. Most make their first commitments to God as children or during the preteen or very early teen years. Many religious trajectories followed in the course of life’s development seemed to be formed early on in life. What are the practices that make a difference?
- 40. + “Emerging adults who grew up with seriously religious parents are through socialization more likely (1) to have internalized their parents religious worldview, (2) to possess the practical religious know-how needed to live more highly religious lives, and (3) to embody the identity orientations and behavioral tendencies toward continuing to practice what they have been taught religiously.” (Christian Smith & Patricia Snell) What are the practices that make a difference?
- 41. + “At the heart of this social causal mechanism stands the elementary process of teaching—both formal and informal, verbal and nonverbal, oral and behavioral, intentional and unconscious, through both instruction and role modeling. We believe that one of the main ways by which empirically observed strong parental religion produced strong emerging adult religion in offspring is through the teaching involved in socialization.” (Souls in Transition: The Religious & Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults by Christian Smith with Patricia Snell) What are the practices that make a difference?
- 42. + Parental Faith Life & Practice Family Harmony Parental Affection toward Children Parental Help with Problems What are the practices that make a difference?
- 43. + What are the practices that make a difference? Parents possess and practice a vital and informed faith – understanding the Christian faith, participating in worship, praying, and engaging in service and mission. Family members’ expressions of respect and love create an atmosphere promoting faith. Parents engage youth and the whole family in conversations, prayer, Bible reading, and service that nurture faith and life.
- 44. + What are the practices that make a difference? How have your parents influenced your faith life? 1. Values are focused on serving others and God. 2. Positive influence on my religious faith 3. Talk with me about my relationship with Jesus Christ 4. Attending Sunday worship 5. Talked with my parent about religious faith 6. Reading the Bible
- 45. + What are the practices that make a difference? “Effective religious socialization comes about through embedded practices; that is, through specific, deliberate religious activities that are firmly intertwined with the daily habits of family routines, of eating and sleeping, of having conversations, of adorning spaces in which people live, of celebrating the holidays, and of being part of a community. Compared with these practices, the formal teachings of religious leaders often pale in significance. Yet when such practices are present, formal teachings also become more important.” (Robert Wuthnow, Growing Up Religious).
- 46. + Eating together – especially the power of Sunday meals and holidays Praying – bedtime rituals and prayer, grace before meals Having family conversations, talking about God Displaying sacred objects and religious images, especially the Bible Celebrating holidays and rituals Providing moral instruction Engaging in family devotions and reading the Bible Serving others What are the practices that make a difference?
- 47. + “The daily round of family activities must somehow be brought into the presence of God. Parents praying, families eating together, conversations focusing on what is proper and improper, and sacred artifacts are all important ways in which family space is sacralized. They come together, forming an almost imperceptible mirage of experience.” (Robert Wuthnow, Growing Up Religious) What are the practices that make a difference?
- 48. + What are the practices that make a difference? 79% - Praying as a family 77% - Participating in Sunday worship as a family 76% - Eating together as a family 71% - Celebrating rituals and holidays at home Engage in the practice at least once a week or more. 80% - Praying 80% - Sunday worship 91% - Eating together 74% - Celebrating rituals Top Four Practices Frequency
- 49. + What are the practices that make a difference? Next Highest 58% - Serving people in need as a family (23% once a week+) 55% - Having family conversations (77% once a week+) 51% - Taking time to grow in your own faith as a parent (74% once a week+)
- 50. + Part 3. Families at the Center
- 51. + Transforming Our Narrative How do we engage meaningfully with today’s complex and diverse families? How do families transmit faith at home to the next generation in today’s world? What does a vibrant family faith look like?
- 52. + Transforming our Narrative 1. Programs 2. Parenting as a strategy 3. Pathologizing or idealizing families 4. “Passing on” the faith 5. Serving families 6. Congregation-centered ministries 1. Relationships 2. Parenting as a relationship 3. Tapping their strengths and resilience 4. “Living into” the faith 5. Empowering families 6. Community-centered ministries From an emphasis on. . . Toward an emphasis on. . .
- 53. + Transforming Our Narrative Evolution of Family Approaches 1. Extended Approach 2. Age Specific Approach 3. The Family Involvement Approach Parent/Family Parallel Model Family Small Groups Model Family Connected Model Family-Intergenerational Whole Community Model
- 54. + Transforming Our Narrative: Families at the Center Family & Parents Church Life & Ministries Community Seeing the home as the essential & foundational environment for faith nurture, faith practice, and the healthy development of young people. Building faith formation around the lives of the today’s families and parents, rather than having the congregation prescribe the programs and activities that families will participate in.
- 55. + Transforming Our Narrative: Families at the Center The Family-at-the Center Approach recognizes that parents and the family are the most powerful influence for virtually every child and youth outcome—personal, academic, social, and spiritual-religious; and that parents are the most important influence on the social and religious lives of children, youth, and emerging adults. Given the central role of families in shaping the lives of children and youth, the value of engaging, supporting, and educating families should be self- evident to all of us.
- 56. + Transforming Our Narrative: Families at the Center See the home as the essential and foundational environment for faith nurture, faith practice, and the healthy development of young people. Reinforce the family’s central role in promoting healthy development and faith growth in children and youth, and enhancing the faith-forming capacity of parents and grandparents. Build faith formation around the lives of the today’s families and parents, rather than having the congregation prescribe the programs and activities that families will participate in.
- 57. + Transforming Our Narrative: Families at the Center Address the diversity of family life today by moving away from “one size fits all” programs and strategies toward a variety of programs and strategies tailored to the unique life tasks and situations, concerns and interest, and religious- spiritual journeys of parents and families. Overcome the age-segregated nature of church and its programming by engaging parents and the whole family in meaningful intergenerational relationships and faith formation that involves all ages and families.
- 58. + Transforming Our Narrative: Families at the Center Build upon the assets, strengths, and capacities present in parents and families, rather than focusing on their deficits and solving problems. Partner with parents in working toward shared goals and aspirations for their young people by supporting, equipping, and resourcing them.
- 59. + Transforming Our Narrative: The Family as School of Discipleship It is in the domestic household that we eat, sleep, bathe, get dressed, relax and converse with others. In the context of the household we learn basic social conventions, from table manners to the demands of hospitality toward guests. In the household we learn how to be accountable for our lives; we learn when we are expected for dinner (or to prepare dinner); we learn what chores and other miscellaneous responsibilities are assigned to us and how the smooth functioning of the household depends on the fulfillment of those chores and responsibilities. More importantly, in many households we learn about the possibilities for committed, appropriately vulnerable relationship with others and the privileges and responsibilities that those relationships bring. It is in this nexus of patterned relationships which constitutes the household that we can better understand the image of the Christian household as a “school of discipleship.” (Richard Gaillardetz)
- 60. + Families at the Center: Eight Strategies 1. Discovering God in Everyday Life 2. Forming Faith at Home through the Life Cycle 3. Forming Faith through Milestones 4. Celebrating Seasonal Events through the Year 5. Encountering God in the Bible through the Year 6. Connecting Families Intergenerationally 7. Developing a Strong Family Life 8. Empowering Parents and Grandparents
- 61. + Families at the Center: Contextualizing our Strategies Diversity of Family Forms: no dominant family form in U.S. Variety of Spiritual-Religious Identities: Engaged--------Occasionals---------Spirituals--------Unaffiliated Generational Parenting Approaches Gen X parents—tangible practices that will keep their children safe, reasonably happy, well-behaved, and ready to take on life’s challenges. Protective Parenting Millennial parents—a more democratic approach to family management, encouraging their children to be open-minded, empathetic, and questioning—and teaching them to be themselves and try new things. Responsive Parenting Diversity of Ethnicities: distinctive ethnic identities, histories, and religious traditions and practices