Dr. Lisa Miller - The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

In love, for Isaiah, Leah, and Lila

Science is a lens, a way of understanding just about anything, including, as it turns out, spirituality. Science is particularly powerful in deciphering things difficult to perceive with the naked eye, which has made it all the more valuable as we search for tangible evidence to explain our relationship with an essentially intangible realm.

I am a clinical psychologist and director of clinical psychology at Columbia University, Teachers College, and a leading scientist in the now booming field of spirituality and psychology, mental health, and thriving. My lab has conducted multiple research studies and published scores of research articles on spiritual development in children, adolescents, and families. Often when I give talks across the country, parents rush up with accounts of their children caring for younger siblings or elderly grandparents, talking to animals, or singing in prayer. Children are so spiritual! theyll say. Sometimes in difficult family moments or a crisis, children display wisdom and understanding far more on point than the surrounding aggravated or bereaved adults. These moments are but a glimpse into the deep foundational reality of childhood. As a scientist, I know childhood spirituality to be a powerful truth that is incontrovertible yet strangely absent from our mainstream culture. That children are so spiritual is not merely anecdote or opinion, be it mine or anyone elses. It is an established scientific fact.

* * *

When I started out as a clinical scientist fifteen years ago, focusing on the science of spirituality in health, I encountered enormous skepticism, flat rejections, and doors literally slammed shut during my Grand Rounds presentations at medical schools. When the calendar rolled over to the new millennium, there still existed a quite strong bias in the social and medical sciences against research on spirituality and religiontwo distinct concepts in my mind. I quickly came to expect the doubting or sometimes dismissive comments: Spirituality is not psychology or How will your lab ever be funded? or Is that the same as prayer in public schools? (Which of course has nothing to do with the study of spirituality in health.) Every so often, however, came a glimpse of interest, and sometimes burning curiosity. These rare responses came from my heroes, the very top scientists in the field because they are voraciously curious and follow the data.

And while the data on spirituality was initially scant, the few studies available provided a strong signal so bright that it was impossible to ignore as a subject of scientific interest and inquiry. Thus began my scientific journey, which has become my lifes work: the study of our inborn natural spirituality as foundational to mental health and wellness, particularly as it develops in the first two decades of our lives. Together with a few labs across the country, my colleagues and I set out to build a new science of spirituality, mental health, and thriving. The resulting extensive and groundbreaking research, advances in our understanding of brain science and the findings of neuro-imaging, lengthy interviews with hundreds of children and parents, case studies, and rich anecdotal material show that:

Spirituality is an untapped resource in our understanding of human development, resilience and illness, and health and healing. The absence of support for childrens spiritual growth has contributed to alarming rates of childhood and adolescent emotional suffering and behaviors that put them at risk. Knowledge of spiritual development rewrites the contemporary account of spiraling rates of depression, substance abuse, addictive behaviors, and other health concerns.

Awareness of spiritual development creates opportunities to prepare teens for the important inner work required for individuation, identity development, emotional resilience, character, meaningful work, and healthy relationships. Spirituality is the central organizing principle of inner life in the second decade, boosting teens into an adulthood of meaning and purpose, thriving, and awareness.

Spiritual development through the early years prepares the adolescent to grapple more successfully with the predictably difficult and potentially disorienting existential questions that make adolescence so deeply challenging for teens (and their parents). It also provides a protective health benefit, reducing the risk of depression, substance abuse, aggression, and high-risk behaviors, including physical risk taking and a sexuality devoid of emotional intimacy.

Biologically, we are hardwired for spiritual connection. Spiritual development is for our species a biological and psychological imperative from birth. The innate spiritual attunement of young childrenunlike other lines of development such as language or cognitionbegins whole and designed by nature to prepare the child for decades ahead, including the challenging developmental passage of adolescence.

In the first decade of life, the child advances through a process of integrating his or her spiritual knowing with other developing capabilities, including cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development, all of which are shaped by interactions with parents, family, peers, and community. Without support and lacking encouragement to keep developing that part of himself, the childs spiritual attunement erodes and becomes disaggregated in the crush of a narrowly material culture.

The science of spirituality enables us to see adolescence in a new and more helpful, hopeful light: the universal developmental surge in adolescence, previously viewed as a fraught passage toward physical and emotional maturity, is now understood more fully to also be a journey of essential spiritual search and growth. This developmental phenomenon is seen in every culture, and research shows clinical and genetic evidence for this adolescent surge of spiritual awakening.

Parents and children share a parallel developmental arc in which a childs need and yearning for spiritual exploration coincides with a similar quest phase in adult life. For parent and child, meaning and connection often lead to spiritual self-discovery. This mutual impetus means that the adults quest phase and the childs can be mutually awakening and supportive. Our children can be our impetus for spiritual discovery, our muses or guides, and at times the source of illumination.

With these findings we can see the crisis in the making when spiritual development is neglected or when a childs spiritual curiosity and exploration are denied. Yet a number of factors ranging from cultural to ideological to technological have made many parents reluctant, uncomfortable, or afraid to engage with our children in the spiritual quest. Now more than ever, in a culture where often enormous amounts of money, empty fame, and cynicism have become toxic dominant values, our children need us to support their quest for a spiritually grounded life at every ageand to discover or strengthen our own.

Natural Spirituality Is the Oldestand NewestBig Idea for Parents and Children

The history of psychology and parenting in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries can be seen as a series of big ideas that have shaped our cultures understanding of our psychological selves, and that of our children. A new big idea gives parents an aha! moment: Yes, I always sensed that; now I know its true, or, I definitely thought something was going on. Now its clear. Sometimes, its I had no idea! Supported by science, big ideas show parents how to encourage their children in a new way, through an untapped reserve they can access easily.