Faith Development – Understanding the development phases

Posted by Rob in Development, Family, Values

Recently, I read a great article by Mark Oestreicher discussing the aspects of faith development in preteens and how to handle doubts concerning faith. In his article, Mark quoted from the work of Psychologist Stephen Glenn who developed a human development timeline. This timeline identified six phases that children pass through as they grow into adults. Understanding the phases your child grows through helps determine your strategy to help your child learn about faith.

From birth to age four, children are all about discovery. From age five to age eight, testing is the name of the game. Children during this phase test what they’ve learned from the previous four years of discovery. From age nine to age eleven, children focus on concluding their beliefs.

When the child hits puberty, it’s like the chalkboard is wiped clean and the process starts all over again. From age eleven to thirteen the child is back to discovering the world around them. From age fourteen to age sixteen, teens tend to revert back to testing what they’ve discovered. Then from age seventeen going forward, teens tend to conclude their thougths and beliefs based on their discoveries and testing.

If you’re child or teen seems to be asking a lot of questions regarding their faith, testing or pushing the envelop in regards to their faith understand it’s part of the process.

For more information on this topic, see the rest of Mark Oestreicher’s article Big Doubt.

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