Parents and Family Faith Formation
Articles for Parents
How To Talk To Your Kids About Social Media and Mental Health by Wired
Worried about your teenagers’ mental health? Here are 7 conversations to start having at home by Fuller Youth Institute
How parents can have better conversations with teenagers by Fuller Youth Institute
What You Wish Parents Knew About Their Teens: Guidelines for Parents to stay engaged in their teen’s spiritual lives. - A quicksheet from PC(USA)
One of the Most Important Things Our Teens Need From Us — What, Why, and How To Give It To Them by Hey Sigmund
Pandemic Parenting: Starting New With Your Teenager and Young Adult Kids by Fuller Youth Institute
The Technology/Social Media Rules Teens Wish Their Parents Would Follow by Hey Sigmund
Books for Parents
Working with Parents
Empowering Parents to Practice Faith at Home with Rev. Traci Smith and the Yale Youth Ministry Institute (May 5, 2021)
Five ways to engage families as partners in ministry from Fuller Youth Institute (August 18, 2017)
Faithful Families by Traci Smith
“Add family faith moments to your daily routine with little or no prep, and share meaningful spiritual experiences with your children. Traci Smith, a pastor and mother of three, offers creative ways to discover and develop new spiritual practices as a family, whether you're a new seeker or a lifelong follower.
Brimming with more than 50 easy, do-it-yourself ideas to share with your family throughout the year, Faithful Families will help transform your family's everyday moments into sacred moments!”
Growing With by Kara Powell and Steven Argue
“Filled with brand-new research and real-life stories from remarkable families, Growing With shows you how to close the family gap, giving parents courage to take the next faithful step on a mutual journey of intentional growth that trusts God to transform you all.
Discover strategies to help you invite doubt, rather than avoid it. Growing With will show you how to help your kids keep their roots, even as they spread their wings.”
Parenting Forward by Cindy Wang Brandt
“In Parenting Forward, Brandt equips Christian parents to model a way of following Jesus that has an outward focus, putting priority on loving others, avoiding judgment, and helping those in need.
Parenting Forward shows how parents must work on dismantling their own racial, cultural, gender, economic, and religious biases in order to avoid passing them on to their children.”
The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family by Kara Powell
“The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family addresses one of the top current concerns about youth and the church: the reality that nearly half of all young people raised in Christian families walk away from their faith when they graduate from high school. That’s the bad news. But here’s the good news: research also shows that parents are one of the primary influences on their child’s faith.
This book arises from the innovative, research-based, and extensively field-tested project known as “Sticky Faith,” designed to equip parents with insights and ideas for nurturing long-term faith in children and young people. Because of the Fuller Youth Institute’s six years of research with more than 500 young people, 100 churches, and 50 families, four of this guidebook’s unique qualities make it a “must have” for families eager to point their young people toward long-term faith.”
A sympathetic, compassionate, and inspiring guide for parents, from the founders of one of the first Christian ministries for parents of LGBTQ children.
Greg and Lynn McDonald had never interacted with members of the LGBTQ community until they discovered that their son was gay—and without resources or support, they had no idea how to handle this discovery. At first they tried to “fix” him, to no avail. But even in the earliest days of their journey, the McDonalds clung to two absolutes: they would love God, and they would love their son.
Brainstorm by Daniel Siegel
“Between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, the brain changes in important and, at times, challenging ways. In Brainstorm, Dr. Daniel Siegel busts a number of commonly held myths about adolescence--for example, that it is merely a stage of "immaturity" filled with often "crazy" behavior. According to Siegel, during adolescence we learn vital skills, such as how to leave home and enter the larger world, connect deeply with others, and safely experiment and take risks.
Drawing on important new research in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, Siegel explores exciting ways in which understanding how the brain functions can improve the lives of adolescents, making their relationships more fulfilling and less lonely and distressing on both sides of the generational divide.”
Navigating our Digital World by Kara Powell, Art Bamford, and Brad Griffin
“Every Parent's Guide to Navigating our Digital World helps you think and talk differently about digital media, as you learn from inspiring and creative parents like you who navigate these ever-changing waters day after day.
How to teach your kids to use social media responsibly.
How to handle the tough stuff: inappropriate sharing, bullying and porn.
How to set limits on when, where, and how much you use devices in your family—without isolating your kids from their friends.
How to make digital media a force that knits your family together rather than ripping you apart at the seams.”