What must be done to prepare the “millennials” for the tasks ahead? Fortunately, there are clear steps that can be taken – there is no mystery about what has to be done, although these courses of action represent huge challenges.

1. Restore the status of fatherhood in our country. Forty percent of children go to bed at night in homes without a biological father. Don Eberly and Wade Horn write, “Father absence is the most socially destructive problem of our time.”
2. Educate young people about alcohol abuse. Although not generally acknowledged, virtually every major societal problem has an alcohol component.
3. Put constant pressure on TV and movie producers to produce movies that uplift rather than degrade humanity.
4. Invest in the lives of children in direct, hands-on ways such as mentoring and adoption. Everyone should ask, “Am I reaching out to some young person, outside my family?”
5. Put character first in schools and homes. How we feel is becoming more important than what we do or who we are. Are our colleges turning out brilliant but dishonest people?
6. Pay great attention to the spiritual life of children. Youngsters with a sincere and healthy faith dimension to their lives tend to be happier and better adjusted than their counterparts, more likely to do well in school, and more apt to keep out of trouble.

Adapted from Religion in America, 2002, Princeton Religion Research Center, by Joe Iaquinta (emphasis mine).