It can be very difficult to know how to discipline young people when you are a young leader yourself. On the one hand you desperately want them to like you and to feel one of the gang, on the other hand it’s important that you have some level of authority over them. This can be especially true when you are working as part of a team where older workers tend to take on a more disciplinary role leaving you free to simply engage with the young people. What happens when they break a rule? Do you get another leader to deal with it? Do you intervene and have them ridicule and ignore you, or do you let them get away with it this time only to find they show you even less respect later?

Of course, workers who’ve been around a little while know that setting boundaries and keeping them helps to develop well-rounded young people who understand rules and respect those who set them. Bending, changing or moving boundaries only serves to teach young people that they can get their own way through obstinance and manipulation.
When I started out, I personally got too close to some young people that they didn’t respect me as a worker. I then learnt on my foundation training programme that youth workers should not be friends with young people – they should befriend young people. At the time, I disagreed with this statement – after all I knew many teenagers I regarded as my friends. Now however, I see the distinction. Friends are familiar to us, we know what they’re like and how they react; there is no mystery to it. To befriend is to work at the process of becoming friends, it is a journey of exploration not a final solution. It’s about getting to know people, learning about them and fostering respect. This can be a helpful distinction for young leaders, as we can see our relationships with young people as fluid and developing instead of just going nowhere.

Not everyone starting out in youth work comes across this difficult issue, but for those of us who do there is hope! By keeping boundaries and being firm, they will come to respect you more.