I was thinking about some things tonight.

Growing up in the cult, I knew more kids from so-called "stable" & religious homes that got into some sort of trouble - either personal or with the law, than so called "bad kids" from so-called "broken homes". A good percentage of the kids I knew who were in trouble were either LDS or evangelical born-again Christian. (I did know also know many non-LDS & non-evangelical kids that were in trouble, but their problems did not seem to stem from religion, unless they had crazy Catholic parents, but that was very rare.)

It just seemed like oppressive religion was the problem. High religious expectations, & the rebellion against that. It also seemed like we were always getting the lecture that we were all one step away from sinning, that Satan was already eating away at our souls. That no matter how hard we tried to be good, that we were already damned. That we were one moment away from being promiscuous, lawbreaking, drug addicted alcoholics. It also seemed like the religious parents were blaming their kids' bad behavior in their non-religious friends & their parents. Which we all know is total bs.

It's not merely *having* high religious/conservative expectations, but rather *how* these expectations are applied and *how* young believers are approached to meet them. If that is done in an unhealthy way, the kids could rebel or suffer.

Exactly.
Vast majority simply never discern this.
It befuddles them.

HHK & Zen, completely agree. Also what the message is as well as the approach.

My mom always said Satan tries harder on the religious ones. It wasn't til I came to this board that I made the connection between controlling religiously manipulative parents, who are always gone at church, and how their kids would want to cut loose sometimes.

It was different in my experience. I don't know many kids from strict mormon households that got into trouble.

However, what I would say I've noticed about the kids from strict religious families is that most of them aren't very happy and they don't have many friends/a social life.