The two credit card applications I expected.
The handwritten letter was a surprise.
It was my first day on campus as a college freshman.
With the help of my parents and two RAs, all of my belongings had been carried from my Toyota to my dorm room that morning.
I had unpacked my clothes, plugged in my Macintosh computer (a light-gray tower about the size of three cereal boxes), spread out my new blue and white bedspread, and strategically placed my Bible on a visible but not too obvious shelf above my desk.
About the time I was wondering what to do next, my roommate walked in.
I immediately liked Tammy.
Not only was she cheerful and friendly, but she was also a Christian (a rarity at my college) who was taller than me (I’m six feet tall, so that’s even more of a rarity).
A few other freshmen on our floor swung by our room and asked us if we wanted to walk a few blocks with them to check our PO boxes.
Not having anything pressing to do and wanting to get to know our floormates, Tammy and I agreed.
Upon opening my PO box, I immediately discarded the two credit card brochures.
My mom had warned me about those.
While I didn’t know much about money, I knew I didn’t want to drown in credit card debt.
As I chucked the applications, I was surprised to find a handwritten note.
It was from Pamela, one of the high school small group leaders in my home church.
The week before I had packed up my car for the drive to college, Pamela had asked my mom for the address to my PO box.
She wasn’t even my small group leader, but she knew enough about life at college that she wanted a cheerful greeting from home to be waiting for me.
I walked back to my dorm room and taped that note from Pamela to the right of my mirror.
Her note stayed there until Christmas, a daily reminder that my home church was thinking about me and praying for me.
I had not been forgotten.
In the twenty-five years since I opened my PO box, technology has expanded the quantity and quality of pipes we can use to shower high school graduates with our care and concern.
Our research team recently heard from Sheila, a mom who asked a number of her church friends to write to her son Matthew, who was heading to a college fifteen hundred miles from home.
A week later Matthew posted on Facebook, “I’ve only been at college for a week, and I have already received countless letters, texts, and posts from my home church.
Thank you all so much!
Every letter has encouraged me to keep my faith strong.
With all the ‘options’ out there at college, it’s comforting to know that I have a church family back home supporting me and my beliefs.
If you haven’t written to a college student yet, I encourage you to do so.
It will make their day!”
To Sheila’s delight, Matthew received letters from folks she hadn’t directly asked to write him.
Upon hearing from others about her invitation, they had decided to pick up a pen to let Matthew know that while he was out of sight, he wasn’t out of mind.
Sticky Findings
Reach Out and Stay in Touch with Someone
Pamela’s note to me and Sheila’s mail bombardment for her son are more than just fun ideas; they are actually faith-building.
Our Sticky Faith study of youth group graduates indicates that contact from at least one adult from the congregation outside of the youth minis
try during the first semester of college is linked to faith maturity.
Whether it’s through newer technology like texting or something you’ve perhaps heard of called the US Postal Service, adults who keep in touch with your emerging-adult child send faith-building messages that can still be reverberating three years later.
Avoid the Silent Treatment
The last several years have revealed a tendency among many parents to overparent.
In a practice commonly referred to as “helicopter parenting,” parents will often take too much initiative in relationship with their child and in shouldering responsibilities that could and should be borne by their maturing child.
Iconic examples of helicopter parenting include parents who contact professors to complain about a grade their college-age child has received, or parents who communicate with a child’s potential employer during the job interview process.
Multiple studies indicate that helicopter parenting can hinder an emerging adult’s maturation.
The more that emerging adults feel controlled by their parents, the more difficulties they experience in establishing committed choices.
Even more discouraging, emerging adults who feel overparented are less likely to identify with or feel certain about choices they
do make.
In her book
A Nation of Wimps, Hara Estroff Marano describes the psychological effects of parental interference: “Intrusive parenting undermines children in the most fundamental ways.
It spawns anxious attachment in the children, setting them up for lifelong fragility.”
In an effort to avoid helicopter parenting, many parents are tempted to swing to the other extreme.
They give their kids excessive space when they head to college, by “observing radio silence.”
Our research indicates that this lack of communication can damage young people’s faith.
Regardless of whether the student or the parent initiated the contact, and regardless of whether the communication was by phone, email, or text, there is a positive relationship between a student’s ongoing contact with their parents and their emotional and practical adjustment to college.
From a Cruise Ship to a Dinghy
The vast majority of seniors — six out of seven — say they are not prepared for what they will face after they graduate.
As one first-year college student vividly described, “Transitioning out of high school into college is like you’re leaving on a giant cruise ship from this harbor and everyone is waving you off.
This ship is your faith, but as soon as you start sailing out to this port called college, you realize you’re in a dinghy.
You’re not prepared, and your boat is sinking.”
Our research indicates that for students there is a link between feeling prepared and having a thriving faith.
So when students don’t feel set up for success in their transition to college, their faith may suffer.
Failing to Find Church
The good news for college freshmen living away from home is that getting connected with either a church or an on-campus ministry is linked to Sticky Faith.
Now comes the bad news.
During the fall of freshman year, only 40 percent of the youth group graduates we studied were attending an on-campus fellowship once a week or more.
Slightly
more encouraging, approximately 57 percent of youth group graduates were attending church once a week or more.
Does it matter whether my child goes to a Christian high school or a Christian college?
This is a great question, and it’s one we’re often asked.
Answering that question wasn’t a primary goal of our study, so we didn’t recruit the right ratios of students to address what type of high school (public, non-faith-based private, Christian, or home school) or college (public, non-faith-based private, or Christian) was most closely correlated with Sticky Faith.
What we have learned in our ongoing discussions with students and parents is that each type of school has its faith challenges.
Regardless of the type of school, we encourage young people to get plugged into a supportive, Christ-centered group of friends as soon as possible.
Perhaps the percentage of students engaged in a college ministry or church isn’t higher because youth group graduates lack the tools to get plugged in.
Less than 40 percent of graduating seniors feel prepared to find a new church.
Finding a church was one of youth group graduates’ top three difficulties in transitioning to college.
Managing Daily Life Is Overwhelming
In his study of college freshmen, sociologist Tim Clydesdale found that students often become stunned by all they have to tackle in their “daily life management.”
Away from parents and the stability of home, young people can be somewhat shell-shocked by the lack of boundaries and the abundance of new choices.
Add to that emotional roller coaster the additional pressures of finances, schoolwork, meals, and even laundry, and many students are fighting hard just to physically and emotionally survive.
For those students consumed with basic survival, pouring energy into faith development is a bridge too far.
Our own research seems to confirm this preoccupation with daily life management.
Nearly half of the college freshmen we surveyed felt anxious that so much was suddenly up to them to decide.
Interestingly, the students we surveyed found two areas especially challenging for their faith integration: time (they now spend far less time in class than they did in high school) and money (creating challenges for freshmen who are greeted by enticing credit card applications, as I was).
The First Two Weeks = the Next Few Years
A common theme in students’ descriptions of their college experience is the importance of their first two weeks.
It is during those first fourteen days that students make key decisions about sex, drinking, and other high-risk behaviors as well as about allegiance
to a local church or on-campus ministry.
The decisions they make during those two weeks can set them on a trajectory that lasts for the rest of their college experience.
As we have shared that trend with college pastors and college parachurch leaders, they have often responded that it’s not really a two-week window.
It’s a four-day window.
The decisions students make in the first four days set them on a path they will likely follow for the next four years.
Sticky Ideas
Preparing for College
Given the data about the first two weeks of college — and even the first four days — wise parents help their young-adult child envision and prepare for their new lifestyle as well as develop a plan for those key early days.
Whether their college-bound child is staying at home for school or moving away, they try to discuss the following questions with them.
• Where will you be living?
How will that affect your friendships?
• What church or on-campus ministry will you join?
• What will your class load be?
• When will you study and do your homework?
• What extracurricular activities interest you?
How much time will that involve?
• How much time can you devote to a job?
• What is your budget for school expenses?
For personal expenses?
• What will you do when someone invites you to a party?
• If you decide to go to a party, what will you drink?
• What kind of person will you date?
How will you learn about that person’s character?
• Where will you go for help if you are struggling academically, physically, emotionally, practically, or relationally?
• What can you do those first few days and weeks to connect with God?
• How much communication do you want to have with your family those first days and weeks?
If the flavor of your relationship with your child means that talking over these questions would feel forced or awkward, don’t discard them.
With your child, identify another caring adult conversation partner to help them develop a vision and plan for those pivotal first days.
Your Family
• Which of these questions is most important for you to discuss with your child?
• What additional questions that aren’t on the list do you need to talk over with them?
• If you aren’t the person to have this conversation, which adult would you hope can discuss these questions with your child?
How can I help my child transition to the job force and independence?
While much of this Sticky Faith guide unpacks our research on young people headed to college, at some point those same young people will graduate from college (hopefully) and find employment (double hopefully).
Plus, many young people head straight to the workforce after high school.
As we have talked with parents eager to support their emerging adult’s transition to the job force, three questions repeatedly surface.
We asked one of our FYI Advisory Council members, Steve Argue, who serves as a pastor and theologian in residence at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to share his best answers to those questions.
I’m hearing more about students taking a “gap year.”
Why are students doing this, and how can I help my child make sure it’s a gap year and not a gap decade?
More emerging adults are opting to take a year to work, serve, or travel before heading to college.
Many need the break, don’t know what they want to study, or are seeking a bit of adventure.
The parents I have talked with who have been successful in helping their children go this route have established clear on-ramps and off-ramps for this experience.
In other words, with their emerging adult, they have mapped out plans before and
after their gap year experience.
You do not want the gap year to turn into gap
years, delaying the important next steps that young adults need to take toward education and career.
The job market is tough these days for all young people, including my child.
How can I support my child without putting undue pressure on them to find a job?
It’s not easy for young people to transition to the job force today.
They’re regularly accused of being lazy or feeling they’re entitled, but often the reality is that emerging adults are competing against a large number of applicants worldwide, including older workers who cannot yet retire.
While you may assume that asking questions about the job search is a way to encourage your child, they may read that as pressure and lack of trust.
So talk with your child about how you can best support them, and when.
Let your child know you’re available to talk with them and pray for them.
And encourage them to articulate their needs with you.
That is, in itself, an important part of growing up.
My child is working but doesn’t make enough to rent their own place.
Even if they live with me at home for a while, how can I prepare them for eventually living on their own?
Whether your child chooses to go to school or work while living at home, or returns home between semesters or after college, it’s important that you define the new relationship you have with your emerging adult.
It’s too easy for all of you to default back to old parent-child relationships that don’t prepare them (or you) for the future.
So make sure you establish clear guidelines for what it means to live together — how you respect each other’s schedules, share household chores, handle rent, deal with having friends over, and so on.
Check with each other on a regular basis (monthly or quarterly) to revisit these mutually established expectations.
This provides opportunity for constructive feedback and may prevent arguments.
Further, help them with longer-term skills, like keeping a budget and saving for future goals.
Odds are good you should refrain from getting too involved in the personal choices they are making (friends, use of time, priorities, and so on), unless they ask for your input.
However, if their choices affect you, then it’s important that you remind them of your expectations.
In some cases, you may even want to establish a timeline for their moving out on their own and help them work toward that goal.
“Take a Senior to Church” Day
Realizing that their family’s home church was all his son knew, Curtis decided to take his son, who would soon be graduating from high school, on a handful of Sunday field trips to churches near where they lived.
No, they weren’t church hopping.
Instead they were visiting unfamiliar churches so Curtis’s son could experience what it feels like to walk into a new church, worship with a new music team, and learn from a new lead pastor.
Every weekend after visiting a new church, Curtis and his son would go out to lunch to debrief what they had experienced.
They talked about their impressions of the worship service, what they appreciated about the church, and what they wished were different.
Curtis’s hope was that these field trips with his son would increase the odds that after the young man left home, he would visit a few churches on his own until he found one that felt right.
Your Family
• What are you doing to prepare your child to find a new church?
• How would visiting the worship services of some local churches perhaps predispose your child to do likewise after they move away from home?
On-Campus Ministry Connection
Since God had used on-campus ministries to deepen both Danny’s and Cindy’s faith in college, they wanted their children to be exposed to parachurch campus ministries as a vibrant Sticky Faith option.
Once each of their children chose their college, Danny and Cindy took them on a tour of that college during their senior year.
Not only did they visit the library, dorms, and classrooms, but they also scheduled the dates of the trip to align with the large group meeting of a dynamic on-campus ministry.
When possible, Danny and Cindy contacted a staff member (often an intern) of that ministry ahead of time and invited them to dinner prior to the large group fellowship.
That way they and their child could ask all sorts of questions about the ministry.
As
a bonus, their child usually ended up sitting with that staff person at the large group gathering (which was way more hip than sitting with Mom and Dad) and was introduced to a number of students who were already involved.
As Cindy summarized, “Visiting an on-campus ministry often meant we had to spend one additional night on campus, which translated into more money for a hotel room.
But it was so worth it, because our child knew where and when that ministry met.
More importantly, they knew some of the staff and students who were already involved.”
Your Family
• As you think about visiting potential college campuses, or the college campus your child ends up choosing, how big of a priority should you place on visiting on-campus ministries?
• What are the schedule and budget ramifications of your answer to the first question?
Interviewing College Students in Front of Your Kids
When we asked Lynnea, a mom of three current college students, how she prepared her daughters for life in college, her answer was simple: “I basically interviewed college students in front of them.
I invited college students from our church over for dinner and asked them questions in front of my girls, like, How did you handle the pressures of alcohol?
or, How did you try to make good dating choices?
Indirect communication seemed to be the best way to get through to my girls.”
Lynnea’s daughters knew what she was up to, but since her daughters were going to hear it from someone, they seemed to prefer advice from young adults who were a few years older than them instead of advice from Mom.
Your Family
• What young people do your kids look up to who you think have made good choices in college?
• How could you involve them in the discussions you want to have with your kids about life after high school?
What if my child is headed into the military after graduation?
Each year, families send off high school graduates to serve in the military.
While much of our research at FYI has been focused on Sticky Faith in college and beyond, we are aware of the need to explore how faith can be nurtured for graduates who head off to serve in one of the armed forces.
*
FYI Advisory Council member Mark Maines serves as a Marine Corps chaplain, currently assigned to a USMC infantry battalion.
We recently asked Mark to describe the unique Sticky Faith issues facing military personnel and their families.
What does Sticky Faith look like for a new military member?
What are some of the common features you have seen among people whose faith seems to survive the transition well?
Connecting to a faith community is monumental in helping faith stick in this environment.
Marines, soldiers, and sailors are warriors.
They pride themselves on being the “first to fight,” and they are the best in the world at it.
They are trained to be at war, so when service members are in garrison (a noncombat or training environment), we pay particularly close attention to the command climate because this is the environment in which they are more likely to make poor decisions.
This is what makes connecting to a community of likeminded people (even just two or three others) so important.
The service members whose faith seems to be thriving are usually those who have connected with other service members who take their faith seriously.
What else have you seen that helps faith stick for high school graduates entering the military?
The presence of a mentor also makes a remarkable difference in service members’ lives.
In the particular battalion I serve, which supports about 1,300 marines, there is a strong mentorship program that covers everything from core values, physical fitness, and financial well-being to marital wholeness and spiritual vitality.
Our primary goal is to shape them into better marines and better citizens of America, but a secondary effect of this mentoring effort is that it lowers negative behaviors across the battalion.
Simply stated, fewer marines do fewer bad things when leadership engages a strong mentoring program.
What are some of the most common struggles you see among young service members?
How do you see these struggles affecting their faith?
The military reflects society as a whole.
So any struggle that exists outside of the military certainly exists inside of it.
Alcohol abuse, drug use, and sexual abuse are all everyday issues.
It’s no secret that the military can be a harsh environment.
Perhaps the most serious struggle currently facing service members is the tension between taking life and valuing their own.
According to data collected by the Community Counseling and Prevention Services for the Marine Corps, in 2012, 179 marines attempted suicide and forty-eight actually did commit suicide.
**
Although Marine Corps leadership is taking proactive action, we still have yet to determine how to best reach out to marines and sailors who are thinking about harming themselves.
When a service member returns home, what should parents do?
Depending on where this person was deployed, parents have to acknowledge that the person now standing in front of them is not the same individual who left home.
Military service changes you.
Deployments change you.
War inevitably changes you.
However, we often do not know how or to what extent.
We need to create the kind of relational space where service members are allowed to be who they have become.
Henri Nouwen writes powerfully, “Hospitality . . . means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.”
***
We need to be willing to hear these young people’s stories.
We need to engage, to inquire, to listen without judgment, and to welcome them back to a truly hospitable home.
We may be proud of their service, but I think it is more important to truly understand
how they served.
Returning service members need to tell their story, and we need to hear the stories they tell.
*
This sidebar is adapted from an FYI E-Journal article titled “Sticky Faith Deployed: Helping Students Prepare Faith for Military Service,” http://stickyfaith.org/articles/sticky-faith-deployed.
**
Adam Walsh, “Marine and Family Program Prevention Services Update July 2013,” slide presentation by the Community Counseling and Prevention Services Headquarters, Marine Corps.
***
Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (New York: Doubleday, 1986), 71.
This Is How a Washing Machine Works
Sprinkled throughout the responses to our interview question about the transition out of the home were wise parents’ accounts of their efforts to prepare their kids for adulthood not only spiritually and emotionally but also logistically.
Before their kids left home (or were granted more “adult” independence, for those who stayed home after graduation), they made sure their kids knew how to
• do laundry
• do dishes and basic housecleaning tasks
• use an ATM machine
• write a check
• conduct online banking
• perform basic first aid
• hang a picture (a skill that many college freshmen lack but almost all need)
• grocery shop with a budget
• cook a few simple meals
• understand routine car maintenance and access emergency road service
• utilize public transportation
Your Family
• Leaving aside spiritual and emotional preparation for a moment, how prepared is your child to handle the logistics of life after high school?
• What two skills would you like to teach your child this next month?
Full Freedom for Not-Quite College Students
Desiree, a mom of three young adult sons, prepared her sons for life after high school by treating them like college students
during twelfth grade.
What did this look like?
Desiree and her husband,
Oscar, made two major changes.
First, they eliminated as many rules as possible.
Second, they shifted the responsibility for making wise choices from their shoulders to their sons’.
Instead of a curfew, the boys told their parents when they wanted to be home.
If they were going to deviate from that significantly, they needed to call home and let their parents know.
It was up to the boys to figure out how to balance homework, friendships, and jobs.
It was up to the boys to figure out how long to sleep in on Saturday morning, given what they needed to get done that weekend.
While Desiree and Oscar relinquished some rules, they never relinquished their relationship with their sons.
They remained relationally involved and connected, available for conversation and input whenever the boys wanted.
Did the boys make some mistakes?
You bet.
But Desiree was glad that she and Oscar were there to help them learn from their mistakes while the stakes were relatively low, instead of after graduation when the stakes grow higher.
Your Family
• How can you give your kids more opportunities to make their own choices — and fail — while you’re still around to help pick up the pieces from any mistakes they might make?
• If Desiree’s plan feels like too much freedom for your kids, would it make sense for your children when they are high school seniors to have a weekend, or a week or two, during which you treat them like college students?
Sundae for Your Senior
After hearing about our research on high school seniors, Craig and Sherri decided to do a special “starting college ceremony” for Annika, their soon-to-be college freshman daughter.
The summer before she headed to the local junior college was so hectic for Annika that they almost punted on the idea, but they figured that
they had enough time and energy to pull together a simple one-hour dessert with five adults who had been especially significant to her.
Ahead of time, they asked these five folks to write a blessing or Scripture passage for Annika on an index card and send that card, along with a photo of themselves, to Craig and Sherri.
The night of the sundae dessert, all of the adults as well as Annika’s entire family (including four younger siblings) sat in a circle.
The adults shared their words of advice, blessing, and Scripture for Annika, and then each prayed over her.
Before leaving, the adults committed to keep in touch with her as she started this new chapter of her life.
Using an online photo album service, Craig later created a memory book of that night, including the five adults’ words of encouragement, for Annika to take with her.
While Craig and Sherri realize there are no faith guarantees, they are sure of this: Annika knows that they and five other amazing adults are there for her to help her when her faith flounders.
Your Family
• What adults can you involve in some sort of graduation or sendoff event?
• If a gathering doesn’t fit your family, what adults could share some meaningful advice that you could compile and present to your child?
A Plan for When You Fail
Normally an optimist, Art knew that while his daughter, Amanda, generally made good choices, it was only a matter of time before she made a choice that she’d regret.
Amanda had decided to do a gap year after high school, meaning she had delayed heading to college for a year and was living at home.
Although much of her life was familiar, many of her closest friends were going away to school, leaving Amanda on her own to find new friends.
It didn’t help that while their church had a thriving high school ministry,
the college ministry there was rather anemic.
Given Amanda’s stage in life, as well as the sin nature we all struggle with, Art knew it wasn’t a matter of if she would flounder or fail, but when.
So right around the time Amanda graduated, Art took her out for coffee and asked her a few questions:
• When you flounder or fail, what wise friend or adult will you talk to?
• What Scripture verses do you think will be especially helpful?
• How can your mom and I help you in the midst of your struggles?
Art knew that he couldn’t prevent Amanda from stumbling, but when she did, he wanted her to have a plan to dust herself off and continue her faith journey.
Your Family
• What can you do to prepare your student to recover after a moral or personal failure?
• How might staying at home after high school graduation be helpful for a young person’s faith development?
How might it be challenging?
Our Family’s Steps toward Sticky Faith
Take a few moments on your own, or with your spouse, your friends, or your small group, to reflect on some potential next steps toward Sticky Faith.
Sticky Findings
On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being “we stink at this” and 5 being “we rock at this”), rate your family on the research findings presented in this chapter.
1|
My child would say they are very prepared for life after high school.
2|
I can name at least five adults who would keep in touch with my child after graduation if I asked them to.
3|
My child knows how to connect with a church or on-campus ministry after graduation.
4|
My child can successfully navigate the tasks involved in daily life management after high school.
5|
My child has a plan for the first four days in their new environment.
Sticky Ideas
1|
If your child is in high school, what elements in your family or church are already preparing them for life after graduation?
2|
Given your ranking of the findings in the previous section, as well as the ideas you’ve read in this chapter, what one or two changes might you want to make in your family?
3|
What can you do in the next few weeks or month to move toward these changes?
