By Daria Smith // Parenting // EEW Magazine Online

 Proverbs 22:6 says, “Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”

Contemporary gospel songbird, Yolanda Adams, 60, put that Scripture into practice, as she encouraged her daughter, Taylor Ayanna Crawford, 21, to find her “own relationship with God” in her youth.

In an interview with Kindred, the “What About the Children” singer reflected on her early days of being introduced to faith – something that informed the star’s approach to the subject matter with her own daughter.

"I grew up in a household where God was cool already, so I never had that traditional dogma or stigma of ‘it has to be like this or it doesn't work,’” Adams explained. “God in our house was flexible. God in our house was total love. God in our house was a total joy. I never looked at my faith as anything other than cool."

This flexibility coupled with Adams’ exposure to faith in a broader religious context gave the legendary vocalist the privilege to forge friendships and connections with individuals from various faiths and denominations. The normalization of diversity of faith during Adams’ upbringing equipped the five-time Grammy-winner to comfortably broach the subject of faith with her own daughter as a teen.

"Find your own niche,” Adams told Taylor, now a Howard University graduate and member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

“Find your own relationship with God. If that looks different from mine, I have to respect that, because I've had that all my life,” Adams added.

The Kingdom Business actress, a native of Houston, TX, did not shy away from deep mother-daughter conversations and advises other parents not to either.

"In parenting, we have to have those tough talks,” she said. “Sometimes it's about relationships, mental health, sports, activities, or spirituality, because in this Google world, young people want to know.”