According to the CDC  (U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) and Barna Group, one in five high school students has considered suicide, and nearly one in 10 has attempted it. A staggering 40% report persistent sadness or hopelessness. Substance use, atheism and gender confusion are rising across Gen Z. And amid it all, 1.5 million minors run away from home each year in the U.S.

As the mental health crisis among teens reaches new heights with skyrocketing rates of depression, suicide ideation and a growing disconnection from faith, author Laine Lawson Craft is assuring parents they are not powerless — they are at war.

Her latest book,Warfare Parenting: A Daily Battle Plan to Fight for Your Child, released in March, is a devotional drawn straight from the trenches of Craft’s own experience: each of her three children, despite growing up in a Christian home, became prodigals, drifting into rebellion, darkness and substance abuse during their teenage years. 

But after more than a decade of prayer, pleading and proclaiming Scripture, Craft watched God transform not just their lives, but her own.

“We were doing everything we thought the Lord told us to do,” Craft told The Christian Post. “And yet, my three children were battling different wars with the enemy.”

The idea that the battle is not with the child, but with darkness itself, is at the crux of Warfare Parenting. According to Craft, the devotional is designed to provide not only daily doses of hope, but also practical and spiritual tools for those in the throes of parenting children who have wandered from the faith or are ensnared in destructive patterns.

“I realized I wasn’t battling my children. I was battling the enemy,” she said. “And that’s where warfare parenting comes in, because the enemy is tough. He’s out to seek, kill, and destroy our children’s destinies.”

But in contrast to fear or moral panic, Warfare Parenting offers parents a strategic path forward: Scripture, prayer, surrender and the belief that no prodigal is too far gone for God. Craft is no stranger to battles, spiritual or otherwise. Before becoming an author and host of the “Warfare Parenting” podcast, she ran a national magazine, WHOAwomen, which placed women of faith like Dolly Parton and Kathie Lee Gifford on covers beside mainstream titles like Oprah and Woman’s Day.

But even as she found success in publishing and ministry, her own home was unravelling. Her children were caught in the grip of partying, addiction and suicidal ideation. “One of my children was hearing voices that told her life would be better without her,” she shared. “Another was hooked on music festivals and drugs. Another just spiraled into partying. All three had different battles.”

What carried Craft through was not formulaic parenting advice but daily immersion in the Word of God. Over 10 years, she read the Bible cover to cover eight times. As she read, she began to jot down verses for fellow parents in pain, verses that later became the 365-day devotional now in print.

“This book started in the margins of my Bible and in my iPhone notes,” she said. “Each day, God gave me a scripture for a parent in the battle.”

One of her sons took 15 years to return home spiritually. During that time, she says she quite literally hit the floor in prayer, pleading the blood of Jesus over him every single day. “When God touched him, he was high. But the encounter was so profound, he was changed forever,” she said.

Craft lamented that in the Christian community, parenting a prodigal can come with a heavy load of shame. Scripture often cited, “train up a child in the way he should go … ” can feel like condemnation when a child veers off course, she said.

“People think if their child has strayed, it’s a reflection on them as a bad Christian parent,” Craft said. “But that’s not the truth. It’s a reflection of how ferocious the enemy is.” That shame, she stressed, is what keeps many parents silent, isolated and vulnerable.

“I think that’s why we have to be loud,” she said. “If we aren’t loud, the shame will build.” For Craft, breaking that silence means building communities. Inspired by the widespread recovery network Celebrate Recovery, she envisions Warfare Parenting small groups popping up in churches and homes across the country, where parents can come together to pray, swap “life hacks,” and intercede for one another’s children.

“We need a safe place with no shame,” she said. “A place where someone can say, ‘Can you help me stand in the gap?’”

Based on her own experiences, Craft wants every parent, grandparent and guardian to know that no child is too far gone for redemption. “If there’s one message I’d give, it’s ‘don’t give up,’” she said. “God can clean them up in a second. He loves them in the darkness and will come down and rescue and deliver them.”