Importance: 10%
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What are struggles parents have teaching the faith?
We are at the generation Parents today werenât taught so they donât know where to start really.
We make a lot of assumptions about people knowing more about how to teach the faith than they do.
We need to approach them the way we would want to be approached ourselves or our spouse.
Need to help it be a priority compared to other pressures.
Parent role doesnât need to end as kids get older but change and shift to being supportive but definitely engaged.
We invest a lot of time and energy in youth to think about maturing youth but we donât do the same for adults so there is kind of a drop off point when they become adults so there is not a strong focused on mature adult community
Adult discipleship and youth discipleship need to go hand in hand. Because if parents donât have a strong faith life they canât pass on what they donât have
Back to the idea that we need to focus on family units first and then age groups
Need to have strong faith formation in youth and adults
It is hard to get parents of older kids connected with youth ministry. It needs to start as early as possible.
Drop off programs are good for kid independence. But you need parents to be involved in faith formation as a whole too.
Trust has to be developed over time not just with youth but also with parents
Mckluxâs theory of margin learning. Parentâs ability to learn is determined by the power over their load. If they donât have enough power to mange the load they canât take or learn anything new. So the ability to learn new is in the margin of having enough power to push the load.
In other words a program cannot solve a process problem like trust or relationship. You need to change the process
Faith conversations should happen in every day life. Teaching that is important
Idea: family time sheet, one question a day to have a faith conversation per day if the week.
Malcom knolls. Adults come to learn things that are applicable to their role and responsibilities that is what actually motivates them. Not like kids who learn for other reasons
Need to help adults see that faith formation is for the present and eternal health of there kids and their way of life
The internet has taken away rites of passage from kids because they have access to so much stuff all at once
Communicating with parents.
You almost need to do every form of communication to get everyone. Mail, email, text, are main ones
Face to face communication is also super important for more connected information giving
Twice a year is a good goal for parent info nights. Also consistency is a good idea to make things easier to know what is happening
Creating support between parents is also helping if you can get parents to support each other
Short communication is also better to just get key things across
Need to communicate longer in advance for things so that people have opportunities to plan for it.
Pastorâs like is a way to send out texts Remind is another option Text in church another option
It needs to be talked about that there are people who come to a school because itâs a paid service vs because itâs a faith based learning environment
Connecting with parents who are absent over things like safety or other stuff related to trips or events can be a good starting place to even just meet them
Parents vs kids sports is a fun idea for older families
You donât always need to over think or over-engineer community time and connection
Post event recaps are a good way to show fun stuff happening and get people excited for future stuff
Need to also be aware of over involved parents who want to dictate or be in control of things. Need to keep saftyism from taking over so need to help them see that the church is a safe place for their kids to grow and take their own responsibility for things as well.
It is a good process to have kid permission from kids if they want there parent involved in youth stuff with them.
Could also find jobs for parents that are not as high stakes
Book: the coddling of the American mind - Jonathan height same author as the anxious generation
In the physical world we have tended to over protect but horribly under protected in the digital world
Parents doing memory work with confirmation kids is a good way to get that connection between parent and child started