JourneyOnline
WHETHER IT’S at the end of Year 12 or some other time before or after that date, the inevitability is that young people will eventually leave home.
But leaving home is not just walking out the door with a suitcase in each hand; it’s a significant part of the journey to adult status that can be as painful for the parent as it is for the young person leaving.
International Youth Ministry Consultant Fuzz Kitto says that leaving home is one of the “rites of passage” that mark the transition from youth to adulthood and from dependence to independence.
Mr Kitto believes that when the community doesn’t offer young people adequate and significant rites of passage they will develop their own.
“The school formal is a modern day rite of passage as is losing your virginity, getting drunk for the first time, and getting a licence,” he said.
“Churches are great ritual makers and we need to develop ways of celebrating the transitions that young people experience.
“Confirmation or adult baptisms were rites of passage, but most places have given up on those as important rituals.”
One youth worker who has worked at developing ritual markers is Tim Robinson, Youth Worker with Emmanuel Uniting Church in Enoggera.
Each October the congregation takes time during one of their Sunday worship services, either morning or evening, to affirm and encourage their Year 12 students.
“We get them out the front and pray for them,” Mr Robinson said.
“We interview them about where they are up to and what they have left to do, and ask them about their hopes for next year.
“We also present them with fun gift bags as an encouragement and to help them with their final studies. We include a can of Coke to help keep them awake.”
Mr Kitto believes that those who leave home to live in a University College where there is structure and pastoral support are the lucky ones.
“Most don’t go to college but live in shared households.
“In a share house you have to negotiate relationships and how you live together, and this is one of the most difficult tasks young people encounter.”
For some young people these can be bad experiences and, after relationship breakdowns or household break-ups, many return home seeking accommodation and support.
“This is what the Institute of Family Studies call the ‘never-empty nest syndrome’,” Mr Kitto said.
When the leaving home transition point is linked with completing Year 12, the difficulties can be compounded.
Veteran Uniting Church Youth Worker and Melbourne-based School Chaplain Rod Dungan said parents need to be talking about things young people are doing, especially at important defining moments.
“No subject should be ‘taboo’, all things over time need discussion.”
Mr Dungan said things will often go wrong and that parent support is crucial at such times.
“When this happens, young people need to experience our support and encouragement, as well as our experience in dealing with emergencies.”
Mr Dungan believes that prevention is better than cure and suggests that strengthening young people’s resilience provides a more positive focus for communities, parents and young people themselves.
Mr Kitto said that effective church youth ministries will also build resilience by creating helpful boundaries so young people know what it is wise to do.
“We are helping form a faith that means young people don’t have to depend on the protection of the church and youth leaders but learn to cope with their realities and deal with them.
“A key part of faith formation is the building of a flexibility of faith – will faith break or stretch?”
Mr Kitto quoted Roland Martinson who said that the greatest resource for developing this capacity in young people is the congregation.
“It is a whole church function as young people are given living examples of faith at different life stages, and the chance to interact and grow through observing and experiencing being a part of a community of faith where they are important and included.
“Martinson says young people have great ‘crap detectors’. They know if faith is real and if they are important to a congregation.”
Paul in writing to the Corinthians said: “We’re not in charge of how you live out the faith, looking over your shoulders, suspiciously critical. We’re partners, working alongside you, joyfully expectant. I know that you stand by your own faith, not by ours (2 Corinthians 1:24 – The Message).
Photo : Youth Worker Fuzz Kitto speaking at the UK Greenbelt Festival. Photo courtesy of Spirited Consulting
