Your teen's growing spirituality

Spiritual questing

As your child marches into adolescence, he starts trying on new identities and questioning family beliefs. Even if your family has no religious affiliation, adolescence may be the time when your teen suddenly starts going to a prayer circle or sitting in the back pew of the church on the corner. If your family belongs to a mosque, church, synagogue, or temple, you might expect your adolescent to begin questioning your religious practices. He may drag his feet to worship services or flatly refuse to go.

As part of a teen's questioning of beliefs, she might even consider changing religions. She may wonder whether she really is Roman Catholic, even after a Catholic upbringing and education and confirmation in the Catholic faith. A movie or book may lead her to wonder if under her Catholic school uniform beats the heart of a Buddhist. If your teen studies world religions in high school, she may change religions every few weeks, even if your family are atheists. Consider that this is normal behaviour for a teenager.

Of course, you want your children to embrace the religious beliefs and practices that your own family cherishes, and you may feel surprised, hurt, and even threatened by their spiritual questing. But trying to make teens adhere to values and practices they have begun to question usually doesn't work. All religions have a version of the golden rule: "Treat other people exactly as you would like to be treated by them." During his exploration of other beliefs, values, and practices, your teen needs your tolerance and your continued respect and love.

The apparent break with your family's beliefs may not be as significant as your teens lead you to believe. They won't necessarily give up on learned behaviours, showing concern for extended family and neighbours or making efforts to maintain or improve community life and society in general. At some point in their late teens and twenties, young adults begin to consolidate their moral, religious, and ethical beliefs and values. In their adult years, like many people who rejected their family beliefs as teens, they may begin to drift back to and embrace the religion they grew up with, finding that it, too, has changed in some ways to meet the changing needs of its adherents.