How to raise your kids into faithful adults

"I did all the things," said Carli, mom of four grown children who have stopped practicing the Catholic faith. "We went to Mass as a family. We sacrificed to send them to Catholic school. They went to youth group. We did everything we thought we were supposed to do. What happened?"

It's one of the most common questions we get from callers to our radio program and clients in our pastoral counseling practice. And despite its frequency, it never gets any less heartbreaking to hear.

The Catholic Church is facing a spiritual epidemic. A recent study found that only 15% of children raised in Catholic homes will grow up to be faithful Catholic adults. The conventional wisdom about raising Catholic kids doesn't work, but until recently, no one knew what to do instead. As a result, we've clung to giving the same old advice to parents (go to Mass, send them to Catholic school and youth ministry, and hope for the best). Then, when it fails 85% of the time, we chalk it up to our kids' "free will." Of course, that's true as far as it goes. We can't force our children to be faithful adults. But it's cold comfort, and parents need better answers.

To try to provide those better answers, The Peyton Institute for Domestic Church Life (an apostolate of Holy Cross Family Ministries) worked with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate to create the Future Faithful Families Project. First, we looked at data from the Global Social Survey, a representative sample of 2,600 Americans, to identify the general characteristics of families that successfully raised faithful adult kids.

More importantly, we identified Catholic families that successfully raised all of their children to a faithful adulthood, and we interviewed both parents and faithful adult children from those families. We found that while things like regular Mass attendance, Catholic education, youth ministry and parish involvement were important, they were seen by these families as secondary and supportive of the way they lived their faith at home.

I want to clarify the last part of the above statement because when people hear us talk about the importance of living their faith at home, they tell us that they imagine that these families are always on their knees in prayer and somehow immune from the pressures of the real world. That is not true.

While families who successfully raised all of their children to a faithful adulthood did have regular family prayer times (usually some kind of morning, mealtime, and/or bedtime prayers), that doesn't appear to be the main factor responsible for their success. What mattered most was a family dynamic in which the family (especially the children) experienced their faith as the source of the warmth in their homes. Children raised in these households experienced their family's faith as something that drew them together in good times and bad.

Of course, these families faced the same stressors and conflicts that all families encounter. Still, they felt their family prayed about these problems in a way that led to better conversations and stronger relationships.

Because these were subjective interviews, we want to validate the responses participants gave. We asked them to complete three standardized tests that examined relationship health, religious commitment (i.e, the degree to which their faith was lived in real life), and healthy attitudes toward God. These families scored on the highest ends of these instruments, indicating very healthy relationships, a practical faith and a healthy attachment to God.

So, obviously, these families just won the spiritual lottery, right? Well, no. The good news is that the things these families do can be taught to any family. Likewise, other research suggests that the more a family struggles to be happy, healthy or holy, the more they can benefit by cultivating the habits these families practice, which fall into three categories: relationship, rituals and reaching out.

In general, families who successfully raised all of their children to a faithful adulthood were intentional about scheduling regular family time and not letting extracurricular activities squeeze out time for things like family meals, a family day or other important family rituals throughout the week. These families allowed their children to participate in activities in ways that supported their family life rather than competing with it.

Second, the families were generously affectionate. Participants often used the word "huggy" to describe their family dynamic.

Likewise, these families practiced gentle guidance approaches to discipline. They created structures to encourage good behavior but did not shame their children for failures or use heavy-handed punishments. Instead, they treated misbehavior as an opportunity to teach better approaches to handling emotions or challenging situations. And when parents didn't immediately know how to respond to their kids' questions or struggles, they worked through things together. The adult children interviewed reported feeling "listened to" not "lectured."

Overall, these families felt that the above practices helped them share God's love with each other.

Families in our study had strong family rituals. They regularly worked, played, talked and prayed together. They did assign individual chores, but they also had times when they worked together as a family, washing dishes, cleaning up the house, doing yard work or doing special projects together.

They also made a point of having fun together regularly. They reported using screens less often than they saw other families doing. Instead, they played games and did activities together, sometimes daily, but at least weekly.

Additionally, these families made time to talk about meaningful things like how God was showing up for them or how they could take better care of each other. They scheduled regular mealtimes, family meetings, parent-child dates and other times to make space for real conversation.

Finally, they prayed together regularly. Many families in the study reported some kind of brief morning time, mealtime and bedtime prayers. A family Rosary was a popular prayer on these occasions. Still, beyond this, the interviews showed that these families don't think of prayer as something they do at specific times of the day. They found little ways to make Christ part of their family, asking him for help throughout the day, thanking him for blessings and trying to discern God's will for their family in big and small decisions.

Finally, these families regularly discussed ways they could be a blessing to others. They encouraged good manners at home and with strangers. Sometimes, they mowed their neighbor's lawn or shoveled their driveway just to be kind. Sometimes they cooked together to make a meal for a sick neighbor. Some respondents said they housed refugee families, or welcomed foster children, and many discussed ways to save money as a family for charitable giving. These families recognized that God called them to be a blessing to others in big and small ways.

Collectively, we call the practices these families employed "the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life." This framework consists of 12 practices in total that transform common, struggling families into dynamic domestic churches, outposts of God's love and grace in a hurting world.

Although these kinds of practices tend to be hidden in plain sight, they are becoming increasingly countercultural. In the training we've done, both family ministers and parents expressed the need for help in living out these habits.

That's why my ministry (the Pastoral Solutions Institute) and Holy Cross Family Ministries collaborated to create the CatholicHOM (Households on Mission) App that gives subscribers daily access to Catholic parenting coaches and a wealth of resources like downloadable activities, training videos, podcasts for Catholic moms and dads, as well as a community of other families supporting each other in living out this plan.

The good news is that there are families raising faithful Catholic kids, and any family can use their practices to build more faithful, loving, joyful and satisfying family lives. Of course, there are no guarantees, but with the results of studies like the Future Faithful Families Project, there is solid evidence to suggest that we can do much to stack the deck in favor of a more faithful future.