Spiritual wellness for teens

The mental and spiritual health of young people ranks high on many lists of priorities for 2024. For good reasons. Higher levels of anxiety are linked to fears for their future because of climate change and global conflicts. Millennials (1981-1996) and Gen Z (1997-2012) are also the first generations who do not expect to have a higher standard of living than their parents. Developing resilience – the ability to cope with adversity – has become a high priority in child development. In many churches there is also an increased focus on the transmission of faith to the next generation, in response to declining participation of young people in church life; in the Christian Reformed church this is the focus for a new initiative funded by a million-dollar Lilly Endowment grant.

Spiritual Development

Related to this, I find myself puzzling over two relevant and seemingly opposite findings in research with young people themselves. First is the important role of spiritual development in mental health and resilience. Young people who self report higher scores on indicators of spiritual development also report higher scores on indicators of mental health. Most of these studies use a broad definition of spirituality that includes connection to a transcendent being or a strong sense of meaning and purpose in life. As an advocate for children, I use that evidence to advocate for children’s right to spiritual development, which gets too little attention in Canada.

It is noteworthy that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically recognizes and protects the spiritual dimension of child development in many areas of life, including education and health. Even the prohibition of exploitative labour, for example, includes work that is harmful for moral or spiritual development. In addition to a positive right to spiritual development, the Convention protects the rights of children to religious freedom, the right to learn about their religious and cultural heritage – which can be important for minority groups – and the right to freedom of belief and expression, similar to adults.

Youth programs and anxiety

At the same time, more detailed research with young people finds growing evidence that some kinds of religious activities can add to high anxiety. One study, for example, found that higher levels of religious service attendance and religious youth group membership correlated with increased anxiety in the middle adolescent years. As more research digs deeper into the different factors involved in the spiritual and mental health of adolescents, it becomes clear that we cannot assume all religious youth activities have positive impacts. How we nurture and support faith development matters, and a critical factor is treating children as active agents, not passive recipients, in their spiritual development. Secondly, we would do well to listen carefully to young people themselves, as well as survey parents and church leaders about what they want to see in faith formation activities for the next generation.