Essay· 9 min read· 3 June 2026

A Surrey mum reveals: Only 1 in 5 British under-25s still call themselves Christian today. In their grandparents' generation, almost everyone did. Here's what we did with our son so he wouldn't be in the group that walks away.

Sarah Whitfield

mum of three, Surrey · writes about family and faith in British homes

“She was christened. Sunday school every week. Church camp, youth group, confirmed at thirteen. We did everything a Christian home does. It wasn't enough for my daughter. For my son, ten minutes at the kitchen table each week may have been what saved it.”

They should have been the strongest believers of all. They walked away.

If your child is 8, 9, 10 years old and comes to church with you every Sunday…

If you believe that a christening, Sunday school and getting confirmed will be enough…

If you've noticed the older teenagers slowly disappearing from the pews…

If you tell yourself “that won't happen to us” — then I need to stop you for a moment.

In 1983, four in ten British adults belonged to the Church of England. Among today's 18–24-year-olds, it's one in a hundred (British Social Attitudes, 2024). Across the country, 64% of young adults now say they have no religion at all. And in 2021, for the first time in the history of the census, fewer than half of people in England and Wales — 46.2%, down from 59.3% a decade earlier — described themselves as Christian (ONS, Census 2021). The grandparents stayed. The grandchildren left.

“We did everything right. Our daughter left anyway.”

My name is Sarah. Forty-four, Surrey, three children: Emily (19), Thomas (10), Grace (7). My husband has played the organ at our parish church for twenty years. Sunday service was the rhythm of our home. Christenings, Sunday school, church summer camps, confirmation. Emily was our “success story.” Two weeks after her A-levels, a post on Instagram:

“I haven't believed in any of it for three years. I just didn't know how to tell my parents.”

Three years of silence. At some point I saw it: we did too much FOR her. We answered too little OF what she was actually asking.

The research that exposed my failure

I came across the name Deanna Kuhn, a developmental psychologist at Columbia University. In 2000 she published work showing that children between the ages of eight and twelve go through a fundamental shift in how they recognise what is true. (Kuhn, Cheney & Weinstock, “The Development of Epistemological Understanding,” Cognitive Development 15 (2000), 309–328.)

From the age of eight, a child starts to ask “how do you know?”, and if no answer comes, they build their own map of what's true. If, in the 8–12 window, a child doesn't find reasons to believe, they will later find reasons to doubt. Not out of rebellion. Out of hunger.

Why what we were doing wasn't enough

I don't want to run down the church. Sunday school is a good start. Church camps are good. Youth groups are good. The sacraments matter. Sunday service is the foundation.

But there's one thing none of us does at home: in none of those places does a child practise ANSWERING questions about faith in their own words.

A christening, confirmation, communion — these are real; God works through them. But a child can't necessarily tell a classmate in Year 7 why they believe God exists. And the classmate WILL ask. Or a teacher will. Or a teenager on TikTok.

If your 10-year-old has no answer in their own head, your 17-year-old will have silence.

Something I almost missed

I found this workbook through Instagram, recommended by a Christian mum in a parents' group. “Why Do We Believe? — 52 weeks of questions, answers and reasons for kids,” published by Ember & Altar. Written for British families, in plain English — not the glossy American apologetics that feels alien to our kids. A workbook for children aged 6–14.

One week, one page. Each page is one question (“how do we know Jesus really lived?”, “why does God allow suffering?”), three mini-proofs (an archaeological clue, a logical clue, a historical clue) and a space where the child writes the answer in their own words.

My 10-year-old Thomas does it on his own. Grace, who's 7, sits with me. Ten minutes in the evening. Once a week.

What changed

One evening Thomas said: “Mum, there are coins from Herod's time. With Herod's name on them. That means the Herod in the Bible isn't made up.” He was 10.

Two months later a boy at school said, “The Bible's just like Harry Potter.” Thomas replied: “No. Want me to show you a coin?”

It was the certainty of knowing WHY he believes.

The mechanism: three clues, ten minutes

— Clue — a fact from archaeology, history, logic or science.
— Why it matters — a short explanation of how it connects to the question of faith.
— Your turn — a space to write in your own words: what will you say when someone asks?

52 weeks. One page each week. Ten minutes.

12 months later

Week 4: Thomas was getting the workbook out himself after dinner.
Week 12: answered a classmate properly for the first time.
Week 26: asked me something I couldn't answer.
Week 52: asked, “Mum, is there a next level?”

The 8–12 window is closing

After the age of 14 these structures are largely set. What a child has in their head at 11 as “the reasons I believe” is what they'll carry for the next 50 years. Or they'll have nothing.

The choice no one told us we had to make

You can do what 7 in 10 British parents do. A christening, Sunday school, Sunday service. And keep your fingers crossed. God's grace is bigger than our plans.

But if your child is 8, 9, 10 right now, their mind is working out its answer to “how do I know all this is true?” You can help. Or not.

The window is closing

Emily is at university in Bristol now. She writes about how she “broke free from the indoctrination.” I take every one of her calls with an ache.

It could have been stopped. Not because the church failed. Because I failed, by not giving her, at the age of 10, the answers she was looking for.

See what the workbook looks like

Why Do We Believe? — 52 weeks of questions, answers and reasons · for children aged 6–14

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