Have you ever found that in a youth group, young people are sometimes ready to move on before they are actually allowed to? It’s usually toward the end of the academic year when they feel too old for the existing group, and is especially true when they are moving schools – the leap from primary to secondary education is a good example!
Over the years this has caused friction in some of the groups I have run. Certain young people have lied about their age in order to get into an older session, some have stopped coming because everyone else is “too young”, while others stay and continually moan about anything they can! Of course, this is not true of everyone, but you get the point!
For the last few years we have allowed those who are moving up to the next group, a chance to transistion better by inviting them to come along to both groups for the summer term. So those in year 6 can continue to go to that group (if they want to), while trying out the older group for year 7 and over. We have found that this helps them better integrate with the older young people and avoids some of the ‘big fish in small pond’ scenario that was happening in the younger group.
Last week, after the Easter break, we allowed the younger guys to move up. At the older group for 15’s and over (year 10+) I saw two young ladies that hadn’t attended the younger group for months. Now that they were allowed to move up, they were keen to start attending again.
So has anyone else out there ever encountered this problem? Does anyone allow the younger ones to move up a term early like we do? Why not share your thoughts below.
One response to “Moving On Up”
Hi Jon!
What you say is absolutely true. We can watch the same phenomenon here in Germany.
There is no chance to run groups for every age, that is clear. So it is most important to have leaders who are able to create teams, if there is no leader the kids will pretty soon separate into ages. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is, that we have the young people for just some hours per week. Most of the time they are influenced by other circumstances. They have different social backgrounds, come from non-christian families etc. We can only show and offer the other way, the christian way, of behaviour and how people should treat people.
Keeping the contact and conversation with the kids will help them understand why it won´t be the best idea to move on up to soon.
GBU
Ralf