Tips for Discipline at Kids’ Church and Youth
If I’m honest, discipline is one of the things I find hardest about leading at Kids’ Church and Youth. I want to disciple these guys and share Jesus with them. I don’t want to discipline them.
But we have to. It’s really hard. Strike the right balance between “fun” and “firm” is tough. It gets particularly tricky when you have a child (or multiple children) with special needs.
If we get discipline right, it makes discipling much easier and way more effective.
I’m thankful I’ve been able to draw on the knowledge of others who know much more than I do! Here are some tips I’ve picked up along the way.
1. Be organised
Be organised. If you are disorganised, the youth and kids will smell it, and chaos will descend. But if you’re organised and they can see that, they’re more likely to fall into line.
Have a clear structure for your lesson/time together and communicate this to them. This is especially important for helping youth and kids with special needs.
Make sure you know what’s happening at Youth or Kids’ Church too. If you’re a team member, make sure you know when it’s your turn to do something (MC, talk, craft, games, discussion groups etc.). If you’re a team leader, make sure your team members know what to do.
2. Be clear within your team
Be clear within your team about the processes and strategies for discipline. What do we expect from the youth and kids? What will we do if they don’t meet the expectations? This is an area where I think I can improve. I’m not always sure that I’ve done a good job making sure that my teams have been clear on my processes.
I personally go with the 3 P’s and the 3 R’s.
The kids are expected to respect the three P’s: people, property and program.
Respecting people means being kind to the people around them, listening when someone is up the front, not talking over the top of people etc.
Respecting property means not breaking stuff or taking belongings from others.
Respecting the program means not doing stuff that disrupts the flow of Kids’ Church.
If they don’t respect one of the 3 P’s, I like (in theory) to encourage my leaders to bring out the three R’s: remind, relocate, and ring.
Remind: I’ll remind the kid that they are meant to be respecting the 3 P’s, and that they’re not currently doing that. I’ll normally give them two reminders. But if that doesn’t change things …
Relocate: I’ll relocate them to another part of the room. If that doesn’t work …
Ring: I’ll ring one of their parents or carers. I desperately try to avoid getting to this stage!
The phone call is best left to the team leader.
However, in an ideal world, all of the leaders (and even junior leaders) should feel empowered to enact the first two R’s. Things work much better when the whole team is on the ball with discipline.
You don’t have to use the 3 P’s and the 3 R’s. But, I reckon you want to have a strategy that is easy to remember and that everyone on your team is familiar with.
3. Be clear with your kids
Once the team is clear on the strategy, make sure the kids understand it too. At Kids’ Church, I tend to remind the kids each week of the 3 P’s. I don’t announce the 3 R’s every week, but I reckon it’s a good idea to remind the kids of the 3 R’s if things get out of hand, even if you wait until the next week.
4. Be engaging
Kids and youth often misbehave when they’re bored. Youth and Kids’ Church aren’t meant to be an entertaining concert. But at the same time, we’re not doing justice to the truth of the gospel if we’re presenting it in a boring way.
Keep thinking through how you can keep the youth and kids engaged. A key factor is timing. If you take too long on a particular element, the youth and kids will get bored, whether it’s the welcome, the vision explanation, the discipline explanation, the craft explanation, the talk, or even the game.
5. Sit strategically
Think strategically about where you sit. Spread out. Sit among the youth and kids. Take note of where the other leaders are sitting, and don’t sit next to them, even if they’re your best friend. Take note of where the “distracted” kids are sitting, and sit behind them or between them. Even know though you’re not up the front, you’re still on duty. If you notice the other leaders all sitting up the back in a row, give them a death stare and signal them to spread out. Feel free to do this even if you’re a junior member of the team.
If you’re sitting near the “distracted” kids, it’s then way easier to redirect their attention to the front. Much harder if you have to get up from one side of the room. And remember, this is everyone’s responsibility.
We want to prevent the person up the front from having to stop and do the disciplining.
6. Be fair and consistent
Be fair and consistent. If you keep pulling up one kid and not another, the kids will notice and whinge about fairness. We want to avoid this as much as possible.
7. Be unfair and inconsistent
However, sometimes being fair and consistent won’t be possible, especially when you have kids with special needs. Sometimes your general discipline strategy won’t work. You’ll have kids who, if you do follow your strategy, will end up having their parents phoned before you even enter the room. We want to do all that we can to keep the parents in church. This means you might need to have alternate plans for kids with special needs.
8. Have alternate plans
Think through how you can best help the kids with special needs. You might need to have one person who spends time with one or two of the special needs kids (love that person dearly!). You might need to have some toys for them to fidget with. You might find it helpful to read my article Supporting Children with Special Needs in Kids' Church.
9. Chat with parents
Keep open lines of dialogue with parents, especially with the parents of those with special needs. Let them know how things are going in Kids’ Church or Youth and ask them how you can best support their child. Remember that parents are often very sensitive about their children’s behaviour. So be gentle and sensitive yourself.
10. Keep talking with your team
Keep chatting with your team. In most cases, there is no silver bullet when it comes to discipline. But you can make things a bit better each week if you keep chatting about it with each other, and if you keep trying.
