Why your CONNECTION with your kids matters for their FAITH

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If you’ve ever been worried by the statistic that two-thirds of youth stop attending church as young adults, you’re not alone. But there’s hope!

Recent studies show the ONE thing that’s most important in developing your child’s faith…and you’re probably already doing it!

In this episode, we’ll leave behind the pressure of “perfect” spiritual routines and focus on cultivating everyday moments of closeness with our children. I’ll walk you through a simple faith growth cycle—seed, sprout, and root—to help you start a new habit of connection that fits right into your daily routine. Whether it’s a quick hug, a silly handshake, or intentionally looking up when your child interrupts, these little moments add up, creating family warmth that deeply shapes faith for generations.

Sociological studies reveal that deep family connection (not just spiritual activity) plays a huge role in helping kids develop faith that sticks as they grow. Here are my top three takeaways:

🔹 Relational warmth is the real game-changer. Studies show kids who feel genuinely connected to their parents are far more likely to hold onto their faith as young adults.

🔹 Tiny, intentional habits matter. Simple acts—like a daily hug, a lunchbox note, or sharing day’s highlights at dinner—don’t take long, but they add up and help build lasting connection.

🔹 Personalize your efforts. Every child is unique! Find small ways to connect based on what your child loves—whether it’s music, silly handshakes, or talking about video games.

Building deep roots in our families doesn’t require perfection—just small, consistent steps and a willingness to keep showing up. Let’s celebrate the little shoots that become strong, lifelong roots!

If this resonates, let’s connect! And check out my free connection challenges and resources to help families grow together.

📚 FOLLOW-UP RESOURCES

• ⁠Little Habits, Big Faith:⁠⁠ find the right habits for this moment in your family life
• ⁠5-Day Fun With Your Son Challenge⁠
• ⁠Mother Son Prayer Journal⁠

Subscribe on your favorite listening platform for practical tips, real parent interviews, and encouragement as we become faith gardeners together!

📝TRANSCRIPT

In this podcast, we’ve been talking a lot about explicitly spiritual habits like prayer and Bible reading, but there’s something else that has just as big an impact, and it’s something you’re probably already doing! 

But let’s back up a bit. 

Have you ever heard the statistic that 2/3 of youth stop attending church when they’re young adults? It’s a little disconcerting, isn’t it? But there’s great news to be found when we dig into that statistic. That number comes from a 2007 Lifeway study. They wrote, “more than two-thirds of young adults who attend a Protestant church for at least a year in high school will stop attending church regularly for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22.”

 But that’s not the end of the story. A few years later, data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) showed this unexpected result: 82 percent of children from Christian parents who walked the walk and talked the talk, considered their beliefs very important, and participated in their congregations were active in their faith as young adults.

What accounts for the difference between studies, between the 30 percent and the 82 percent? The NSYR study looked specifically at teens with spiritually active parents, whereas the Lifeway study looked at any young person who had attended church regularly for at least a year as a teenager. That means parents play a key role in helping their kids grow a faith that sticks. 

I like to phrase it like a math problem: 30% + parents = 82%

Why do parents have such influence? Because faith development isn’t just about passing on correct theology or doctrinal points, and it’s not about having the perfect curriculum. Faith grows inside relationships, like the ones Jesus had with his disciples, the kind that are hard to build in an hour-a-week program. 

A few years ago I discovered another study, this one called Families and Faith. That study followed more than 3,500 individuals in over 350 families across four generations, beginning in 1970 and running for over 35 years (with data collection continuing into the 2000s).

One of the most fascinating results to me were their findings on something called “family warmth”. 

The study showed that the health of family faith is directly connected to how connected kids feel to their parent. They called this connection “family warmth.” The more family warmth, the more connected kids feel to their parents, the more likely they are to continue in the same faith as their parents. 

This means, sharing Jesus is just as much about the relationship you’re building with your kids as it is about the overtly spiritual habits you implement in your family. 

So today, we’re going to let go of the explicitly spiritual habits and focus just on having a better connection with our kids! If you’re listening to this podcast, you probably already have a pretty decent relationship with your kids. But we can all improve in that area, right?

The Faith Growth Cycle: Prayer Edition

In my book, Little Habits, Big Faith: How Simple Practices Help Your Family Grow in Jesus, I teach the Faith Growth Cycle which helps us make tiny changes in our lives that add up over time. Today, we’ll apply the Faith Growth Cycle to connecting with our kids and discover simple ways to deepen this practice in our lives and families.

1. The Seed Stage

The Seed stage begins with a desire for deeper connection. We bring this longing to God, asking Him to guide us. Hopefully the studies I’ve shared have given you a thirst for deeper connection with your kids. Let’s pray together:

God, thank you for embedding this need for family warmth into us, and for giving me the means to have a close, loving relationship with my kids, even if I’m not experiencing that right now. Plant in me a deep longing to connect with you, and may your love flow through me to my family. Show me a small step I can take today to grow that helps me improve my relationship with my kids. In the name of Jesus, amen.

2. The Sprout Stage

In the Sprout stage, we take that desire and turn it into a small, practical habit.

Here’s the 5-step process:

1. Choose a habit: Connection.
2. Pick an anchor, which is something you’re already doing. You’re going to attach your new habit to it like velcro, so pick a time of day when you’re regularly interacting with your child already. For example, mealtime, bathtime, bedtime, or driving time are all times of day you might already be with your child.  
3. Make it smaller: Start with just 30-60 seconds of connection. There are lots of different ways to do this!
   • In the morning, smile and offer a big hug
   • As they go out the door, do something they love – make a silly face, give a high five, or a hug
   • Put a note in their lunch kits
   • At dinnertime, invite everyone to share the highs and lows of their day
   • At bedtime, say something you love about them
   • Create a special handshake or hand signal for whenever you say goodbye. I have done this with one of my boys. We don’t do it ever night now, but for a while we did and when I start it, my teenage son still grins and does it with me.
4. Celebrate: Normally I would encourage you to create an instant celebration for after a habit in order to leave with everyone feeling positive, but connecting with our kids usually has it’s own rewards and leaves us feeling positive. 
5. Set yourself up for success: What do you need to do one time so you can get started? The best way to think of what you need is to ask yourself, “what will make this hard to do/hard to remember?” Maybe you need to buy some fun lunch kit notes so you have them unhand. Maybe you want to write yourself a post-it note, or put a timed reminder on your phone to be gentle with your son when you pick him up at school. Do what needs to be done this one time in order to set yourself up for success.

3. The Root Stage

If you already have a habit of connecting with your kids, ask God how He wants to deepen it. Here are a few ways to grow:

• Connect Longer: Instead of a 30-second habit, what could you do that takes a little longer? Could you take time each day to paint with your art-loving child? Or to listen to your child practice their instrument? I used to love when my parents would listen to me practice piano. 
• Personalize to each kid: If you have multiple kids, instead of doing the same thing with each child, personalize the habit so it’s more meaningful for each kid.
  • Recently, one of my boys began to learn the bass guitar so he could play on the church worship team. I sometimes play piano on Sundays, so I asked the worship director to put us on at the same time. Every month or so, we get to practice together, and it’s been so sweet to play with him as he learns! We have begun connecting over music, which is fun. 
  • With another of my teens, I always say goodnight pray his blessing over him. It’s really important to him that I do it every night, so I make sure I do it even if I’m going to bed before him!
• Stop intentionally: Instead of picking a time you’re always with your kid, consider your responses when you’re interrupted. Our natural tendency is to say “I’ll see it later” or “can it wait a minute?” But what if we trained ourselves to look up, smile, and give them one minute of our time? I know that’s not always practical, but it’s been a game changer for me. I often work in my office in the evenings, and often my kids will wander in. Sometimes I do need to cast them out because I’m on a tight deadline, but more often, I can look up, smile, and give them a minute or two of attention. It may be a pain to pull my focus away from what I’m doing, but I think it’ll reap the benefits of a more connected relationship. 

Practical Tools for Connection

A few years ago, I created some connection-based resources for moms of boys. I don’t have parallels for moms of girls yet…mostly because I don’t have daughters or a book about daughters, but I hope some of you might find these resources helpful. 

1. A 5-day “Have Fun With Your Son” challenge. When you sign up, you’ll also receive the printable Conversation Cards, a page of jokes that will make you the coolest mom on the block, and a prayer for your son.
2. The Mother and Son Prayer Journal, which contains conversation starters, prayers, and devotions that help you connect with each other and with God. 

Coming Up Next

In the next episode, I’ll be talking with SarahRuth Owens, who lives this priority of connection in amazing ways. You won’t want to miss it!

Closing Blessing

Let me pray a blessing over you. If you’re able, hold out your hands to receive it:

May God give you the desire and ability to connect with your kids in regular, small ways. May you feel it not as a burden on your time, but a gift from God, creating a family with so much warmth it draws others in! In Jesus’ name, amen. 

Thanks for joining me here at Little Shoots, Deep Roots. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I’d love if you’d take a minute to leave a review. And please download the free prayer resources linked in the show notes.

Growing with you,
Christie

^[i] “Reasons 18- to 22-Year-Olds Drop Out of Church,” Lifeway Research, August 7, 2007, https://research.lifeway.com/2007/08/07/reasons-18-to-22-year-olds-drop-out-of-church/.

^[ii] David Briggs, “The No. 1 Reason Teens Keeps the Faith as Young Adults,” HuffPost, October 29, 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-no-1-reason-teens-kee_b_6067838.

^[iii] Vern L. Bengtson with Norella M. Putney and Susan Harris, Families and Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down across Generations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 79.

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