Growing in Faith: Book Reviews

By Rev. Phillip Lund
Lifespan Program Director
Prairie Star District

Nurturing Children and Youth: A Developmental Guidebook
by Tracey L. Hurd (Boston: UUA, 2005)

Embracing Parents: How Your Congregation Can Strengthen Families
by Jolene and Eugene Roehlkepartain (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004)

Perhaps the least examined word in the phrase “lifespan faith development” is development . How does a noncreedal religion such as ours go beyond the intellectual, emotional, and physical to approach development in terms of faith? Fortunately, two new books are available to help parents, religious educators, teachers, ministers, and other congregational leaders understand just what we mean when we talk about faith development in children and youth.

The first is Nurturing Children and Youth: A Developmental Guidebook by Tracey L. Hurd. Part of the Lifespan Faith Development staff group at the UUA, Hurd holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, and the book reflects both her commitment to Unitarian Universalism and her academic knowledge of the field. The book is an ideal resource for Unitarian Universalist parents and religious educators who are looking for specific information about the physical, cognitive, social/affective, moral, and faith development of the children and youth in their lives. It is written with clarity and brevity.

The book has seven chapters, one for each developmental stage from infant and toddler to older adolescent and young adult, and each chapter explores the five developmental areas mentioned above: physical, cognitive, social/affective, moral, and faith. Readers with some experience in developmental theory will recognize many of the sources Hurd cites—Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, and Fowler show up in almost every chapter. But the insights of a host of other experts—Harold Gardner, Carol Gilligan, Robert Kegan, and Vivian Paley, to name a few—are represented as well. Hurd does an excellent job of explaining some of their less familiar concepts, such as socio-cultural theories of development, including Lev Vygotsky's zone of proximal development . Especially helpful, too, are the sections on racial, cultural, sexual, and gender development, as are the two summary lists that close each chapter, one on the characteristics of each age and the other on ways to offer support.

As Hurd says in the book's conclusion, “Seeing developmental unfolding as ‘getting different' rather that ‘getting better' makes room for unique variations in the path of ‘typical' development a person will walk as a child, youth, and youth adult.” Unitarian Universalists are acutely aware of the importance of “unique variations” in one's path. This book helps us understand what some of those variations might be in our youngest fellow travelers.

While Nurturing Children and Youth focuses primarily on individual development within the context of families, Embracing Parents: How Your Congregation Can Strengthen Families focuses more squarely on families and faith development within the context of congregations and the broader community. Written by Jolene and Eugene Roehlkepartain, Embracing Parents reports the results of a 2002 poll of over a thousand parents in the United States conducted by the Search Institute in Minneapolis and the YMCA of the USA. The poll revealed these five key findings:

• Most parents surveyed are going it alone.
• Many parents interviewed lack a strong relationship with a spouse or partner.
• A majority of parents surveyed feel successful as parents most of the time.
• Most parents face ongoing challenges.
• Many things parents say would help them as parents are easy things to do.

The basic premise of the book is that if congregations use these findings when planning programs for parents and families, both the families and the congregations will benefit. The authors cite a series of forty “concrete, common sense, positive experiences and qualities” (which they call forty developmental assets ) that can be used in congregational planning for children and families. While the book is written from a slightly Christian perspective, the research and resulting recommendations are easily adaptable to Unitarian Universalist congregations. Especially useful are the sidebars touting various congregation success stories scattered throughout the book.

The combination of Hurd's insights on the development of children and youth with the Roehlkepartains' insights into congregational experiences provides an easily understood foundation for religious educators, ministers, and congregational leaders to build a family ministry program. As the Roehlkepartains say in their conclusion, you can “transform your congregation into a welcoming, nurturing haven for parents and their children.” Nurturing Children and Youth and Embracing Parents are two important tools for this journey of faith.