JustAdvice

This mother’s plight is not unusual.  I watched many chil­dren openly rebel against their par­ents’ beliefs, and some­times they were pretty hate­ful – prob­a­bly because they were so angry.

Youth­ful­ness is a time when chil­dren begin to think for them­selves, which is why it is a good idea to instill spir­i­tual prin­ci­ples before chil­dren reach ado­les­cence.  A child’s spir­i­tual expe­ri­ence nat­u­rally begins as rote obe­di­ence and, ide­ally, it pro­gresses to a deeper, more per­sonal ide­ol­ogy as he or she matures.  If your daugh­ter has not pro­gressed beyond rote obe­di­ence, it could be one rea­son why she is rebelling.  It is also pos­si­ble that she is not rebelling against your beliefs as much as your tac­tics.  It’s dif­fi­cult to hear the mes­sage when you can’t get beyond anger toward the mes­sen­ger.  

Your actions need to pull her to you, not push her away, if you want her to be drawn to your way of life.  Do you prac­tice what you preach?  What is she see­ing in your behav­ior that would attract her to your beliefs?  If she sees only restric­tions, con­dem­na­tion or threats, she will assume that is what the church stands for and it won’t appeal to her, because that doesn’t appeal to most peo­ple.  To be attrac­tive, faith must be rich in courage, com­pas­sion and joy, and offer real answers.  It must be pos­i­tive, not negative.

As par­ents, you main­tain the rules of the house­hold, which may include attend­ing church and you can, and should, require her to con­form to your beliefs while she is under your roof.  Don’t cram them down her throat though, because she’ll choke on them.  Spoon feed her, if you have to, and do it in a non-threatening man­ner.  She isn’t in the mood to lis­ten, so your lead­ing will have to be on a more sub­tle level, and will, no doubt, be mostly one of exam­ple, rather than lec­tur­ing.  Don’t nag and don’t yell.  If you do, she won’t hear a word you say.

Your daugh­ter sounds very angry and extremely dis­ap­pointed and there may be an even deeper prob­lem.  I’ve known many teenagers whose rebel­lion was rooted in some­thing they had done, of which they were ashamed.  Some admit­ted they thought they could never again approach wor­ship, so they rejected every­thing reli­gious because they didn’t under­stand the restora­tion that comes from faith.  It may be painful for both of you, and dif­fi­cult to address, but you prob­a­bly should explore the pos­si­bil­ity that she is expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing along those lines.

With­out ran­cor, ask your daugh­ter what she doesn’t “like” about what you believe, what she thinks reli­gion is all about, and what is unrea­son­able about your requests.  Then lis­ten to what she says, and make any nec­es­sary adjust­ments in your rou­tine or your atti­tude.  Your faith should be firm, but it should also be kind, and grounded in love and encour­age­ment.