A newly released study from the American Bible Society suggests that nearly three-quarters of practicing Christian parents pray with their children daily or often, even as younger parents remain more likely than their non-parent peers to identify as Christians.
The findings appear in the second installment of the organization’s “State of the Bible: USA 2026” report, published Thursday under the title “Parenting with the Bible.” Researchers examined the spiritual lives of parents and their engagement with churches using responses from a subgroup of parents drawn from a larger survey of 2,649 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 8–27.
According to the report, 29% of parents said they pray with their children either daily or often, including 16% who do so every day and 13% who said they pray together frequently. Another 21% reported praying with their children only sometimes, while half of respondents admitted they rarely or never participate in prayer with their children.
Researchers also found that parents tend to be less disconnected from the Bible than adults without children, although they were slightly less likely to fall into the category labeled “Scripture engaged.” The report showed that 46% of parents qualified as “Bible disengaged,” compared to 59% of non-parents, while 16% of parents were considered “Scripture engaged,” compared to 18% of adults without children.
Prayer practices were substantially stronger among active churchgoers. Nearly three-quarters of practicing Christian parents — defined in the study as individuals who identify as Christian, attend church at least monthly, and describe their faith as “very important” — said they pray with their children daily or often.
Bible reading with children was even less common than prayer. Only 14% of parents said they read Scripture with their children regularly, including 5% who do so daily and 9% who said they do so often. Twenty-five percent of parents said they sometimes read the Bible with their children, while a combined total of 62% acknowledged they rarely (46%) or never (16%) engage in the practice.
The report indicated that frequent Bible reading was highest among practicing Christians at 45%, compared to 15% among casual Christians and 7% among nominal Christians.
Most churchgoing parents also reported that their children enjoy attending church services. Among parents with children ages 2 to 5, 72% said their children liked going to church. That figure declined slightly with age, with 66% of parents with children ages 6 to 12 and 61% of parents with teenagers reporting positive attitudes toward church attendance.
Parents who were deeply involved in their faith communities overwhelmingly said they felt supported by their churches. Ninety-two percent of practicing Christian parents reported feeling encouraged by their congregations, alongside 91% of Evangelical Protestants and 84% of Generation X parents. Strong levels of church support were also reported among parents attending historically black Protestant churches (80%), mothers (78%), and casual Christian parents (77%).
Other demographic groups also expressed varying levels of church support. Seventy-one percent of Generation Z parents, 69% of Catholic parents, and 68% of millennial parents said they felt supported by their churches, along with 68% of fathers and 64% of parents with infants or 1-year-old children. Lower levels of church support were reported among Mainline Protestant parents at 59% and nominal or non-Christian parents at 50%.
When parents were asked about the primary stresses in their lives, only a small percentage identified the spiritual development of their children as a major concern. Just 10% selected “addressing the spiritual needs” of their children as one of their top two stressors.
Parents were far more likely to identify balancing work and family life, exhaustion, financial pressures, offering wise guidance, and discipline-related issues as their primary struggles.
Researchers also observed a major generational divide in religious identification between parents and non-parents. Younger adults with children were significantly more likely to identify as Christian than those without children.
Among Generation Z adults born in 1997 or later, 62% of parents identified as Christian compared to 44% of non-parents. Interestingly, 44% of Generation Z non-parents identified as Christian, the same percentage who reported having no religious affiliation.
A similar pattern appeared among millennials, with 64% of parents identifying as Christian, compared to 49% of non-parents. The gap narrowed considerably among Generation X adults, with 63% of parents and 67% of non-parents identifying as Christian.
