Book tells how parents raise religious kids

We all know that more young people are leaving religion today, and there's a wealth of research about the characteristics of the ones who stay versus the ones who leave. What do the most religious kids have in common? Why do they stay involved in their parents' faith?

There's far less research, however, about those people's parents. Amy Adamczyk, a professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, wanted to turn the usual questions around and focus on parents: How do they go about raising faithful kids?

With Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, Adamczyk combed several national surveys for information and conducted over 200 interviews, resulting in the book “Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation,” from Oxford University Press.

One of the main findings of your research is that parents are still the most influential drivers of whether their children will grow up to be religious, and that this is an ongoing, daily thing. How does that happen?

The parents can't be just putting on a show for their kids. The parents who pass down their religion really believe this stuff. It's very important to them. And so they are looking for opportunities to talk with their kids, where religious topics are regularly engaged in conversation.

Those conversations have to be two-way. A lot of parents might want to just preach to their kids or give a little sermon to tell them how it is. That might be the easier path, but the most successful parents are the ones who let the conversations grow from the kids' own questions.

The book contrasts four main parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and less engaged. What was the best style for raising religious kids?

The authoritative parenting style, where they mix a strictness about religion with warmth, with a lot of love. That seemed to be most successful for passing on religious beliefs, whatever those beliefs were. The authoritative parents set clear expectations with regard to religion. They were going to church if they were Christian, they were having Bible study, they were doing various things and encouraging their kids to attend.

At the same time, they had a lot of love and warmth. They encouraged their children's questions; they had those two

You said in the book that successful religious transmission isn’t just a one-way street. Parents are also being influenced by their children’s faith.

When parents are looking for openings where they can engage religion with their kids, they're learning too. As they're trying to explain this information to the kids, they're kind of thinking it through themselves.

It might be about questions that the kids are raising, like what happens to a decomposing body or why is it that we do this thing. And of course, a lot of adults don't know why we do certain things or have a tradition, so they get excited to find out.

What surprised you most from your research?

How small the role was of religious congregations. Almost none of our parents said congregations

were primarily responsible for transmitting religious belief to their children. They want congregations that can give kids a community of young people so their kid won't feel like the only one.

But successful religious parents don't just drop their kid off at church. and then expect someone there will take care of everything.

You make the point, though, that most parents also don’t want their kids becoming too religious — fanatics or extremists.

It was across a range of different religions, everybody from Muslims to Hindus to Mormons — a lot of them were very clear about saying, “We don't want our kids to be too religious.”

Religion has been shifting the last 100 years. It's more about having a good and happy life. When parents would talk about their kids, it was very much about how they wanted them to be good people, and religion was a tool to help them do that.