Insecurity and Immaturity

Wherein lies the dilemma? It’s true this period can be advantageous for someone who values self-exploration and limitless possibilities. It can be empowering for those who see the world as their oyster, acknowledging that they have the ambition, knowledge and freedom to do anything they imagine. For a good majority of others, this independence can also be rife with uncertainty and instability.

Brian Raison has been working with youth in ministry for more than 20 years. He has spent the last 12 at Ohio State University, serving in the Department of Extension. He recently published a study on college freshman preparedness that found that 26 percent of first-year students do not return to school the following year. Raison is familiar with the pressures that students face while dealing with emerging adulthood.

“During those times of self-exploration, there are some traps and pitfalls that can really hit young people pretty hard,” said Raison. “As teens leave high school and go off to college, they are still adolescents but they are facing adult decisions that could affect the rest of their lives.”

These young people are teetering on the fence between adolescence and full-blown adulthood. They must try not to lose their balance and fall on one side or the other.

What hangs in the balance? Grow up too early, and they are confronted with the blunt reality of adult decisions without having the proper knowledge or experience to deal with them. Extend the adolescent period, and they fall behind in this generation’s ultra-competitive “me-first” culture.

The struggle extends even beyond the day they graduate college.

“We are seeing people act in their mid- to late-20s the way they did in college,” said Evan Hunter, director of the Ivy Jungle Network, an association for those who minister to collegians. “We don’t know how to magically make adulthood happen once you get your degree.”

Losing Their Religion

Emerging adults who are Christians can have an extra difficult time during this period of life, holding on to their faith, maintaining sexual purity, and finding their sense of vocation.

Studies have shown religious participation often declines after young people leave home. Their religious training doesn't hold up after being exposed to the harsh realities of the real world. Their faith fails.

Jeffrey Schadt, executive director of Youth Transition Network, believes a lack of proper preparation for adulthood is one of the main causes of young people abandoning their faith.

“Parents haven’t thought about the spiritual transition their children will face once they leave home,” he said. Parents “are helping with everything else—picking the right school, studying for SATs, buying things for dorm rooms—not about teaching kids how to budget their money, or the party scene, or living with a roommate. In the church, a lot of times we want to turn a blind eye to the bad things. Parents have no clue what the kids are facing during their freshman years. It’s much worse than when they were in school.”