Your child and their friends may be legal adults, so you may feel they don't need you any more. In generations gone by, high school graduation would be the time parents prepared for the freedom of an empty nest.

But what I saw on those college campuses awakened me to the realization that the late teens and twenties are an entirely different experience today. Our kids are maturing later and later -- emotionally, spiritually, and financially. And while their maturity lags behind, they also face cultural challenges and temptations at an intensity level that didn’t previously exist. Let me share what I observed about this generation:   

1. Students and young adults don’t talk about today’s “hot topics” (such as sex, pornography, eating disorders, or binge drinking) with their parents, pastors, teachers, bosses, or administrators because they are afraid they will be judged, scolded, minimized, or rejected for being sucked into the culture.  All may seem fine on the surface, yet these “hot topics” are the very issues that are vying for their attention and even worse, infiltrating students and young adult’s lives on a daily basis.   

2. Unless the older generation takes the initiative (by overcoming our own fear, pride, or shame) to intelligently and unemotionally talk to the younger generation about the depravity of the culture in which we all live, our young people, our “good kids,” are going to be consumed by it. 

3. My third observation might surprise you: I am convinced that this young generation desperately wants to talk about how difficult it is to live God-honoring lives in this sex-crazed, binge-drinking culture.  They want to talk about the fears and constant temptations that consistently confuse and undermine their values and faith.  They want to confess their failings and find forgiveness and a new start.  They want practical ideas on how to stand against the media’s smooth, seductive pressures instead of repeatedly falling prey to it.  And most importantly, they want and need to be in relationships with mentors who are older, patient, and faithful to God and others.

4. This young generation is not running from the truth.  They just need help to navigate the truth in a pervasive culture that ridicules them for what and in Whom they believe. In fact, I am certain they truly long to believe in the God of the Bible and believe that what He requires of them is for their good but they are in a fierce battle for their moral, spiritual, and physical lives.