Over the past year, we have all faced many challenges. We have seen the way we participate in work, school, and church change dramatically. Our lives have been turned upside down and old habits have been flipped upside-down.
Before the home church, home school, home work and quarantine time of last year, many of us were actively involved in starting to adopt and implement the Church’s new Children and Youth program. At the time I had written about 12 Tools To Guarantee Success With The Church’s New Youth Program. But for my family and many others, our efforts to move forward on the Children and Youth program were overshadowed by the necessities and challenges of working through quarantine.
As we are starting to have opportunities to gather more regularly and have our youth participate more in activities and the Children and Youth program, many people are once again working hard to help our children and youth be successful. How can we help our youth deepen their testimonies? What can we do to help them reach their goals? How can we help them draw nearer to Jesus Christ?
A Recent Letter
I recently received a letter from a reader who is experiencing some trouble and frustration in their efforts to help their children. I think that there are many other parents, leaders, and youth who have similar questions and concerns. With this reader’s permission, I want to share what they wrote.
Dave, today I was searching on the internet for ways to improve and strengthen the youth program in our ward. For the last 20 years of our lives, me and my wife have been involved with the youth from scouting, young men’s and young women’s organizations. I’m not saying every youth program is perfect, but ours has been struggling the last couple of years, and as a result we are barely able to motivate our son to participate in YM’s. Essentially it comes down to lack of communication and planning between the youth advisers, youth and their parents. The other challenge we are having is the leaders want to entertain the youth with games (which the youth are not interested in), as well as not planning activities with a specific purpose, as well as not providing meaningful activities for growth in the four areas of the youth program.
Have you had similar questions and frustrations? Over the last several years, I too have had many callings working with the youth. I have felt these kinds of frustrations and struggled to try and help teach and guide the youth I know. In today’s post, I would like to share some of my experiences and thoughts on how each of us can do more to help the children and youth we have the opportunity and responsibility to serve.
Most of the information I am based this post is found in the Children and Youth Guidebook. It is a great resource and I highly recommend reading it.
My hope is to help start a conversation and to share and collaborate with all of my readers so that we can all better serve the youth we know. If you have ideas and suggestions, please add them to the comments below so we can all do more to bless the youth in our lives.
So What Are We To Do?
Be with them.
Connect them with heaven.
Let them lead.
— Children & Youth Guidebook
As leaders and parents involved with children and youth, it is not our responsibility to entertain the youth, babysit them, distract them or otherwise try and coerce them.
As was mentioned in the Children & Youth Guidebook, our job is to be with them, connect them with heaven, and help them learn how to lead. When we take on this role of guide and mentor with youth, we can help them learn to trust the Lord, trust us, and trust in their own capabilities.
What Is The Purpose?
Working together, parents and leaders help children and youth deepen their conversion, become worthy disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and become men and women of integrity through:
— Children & Youth Guidebook
As leaders and parents, our goals for helping our children and youth should be the same as the Lord’s goals and desires for each of His children. Namely, to help them become men and women of faith and spiritual power.
When we do our best to connect our children and youth with the powers of heaven and with their own infinite potential, we can help them to see miracles. We can help them experience the joy of the gospel in their own lives. Having personal spiritual experiences allows each of us to build a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This personal relationship will help each of us stay firmly planted on the path of the gospel. This is true for us as adults and it is true for the children and youth we serve.
The best way we can serve children and youth is by doing all we can to help them have spiritual experiences and feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. As we do this we can help them build their own personal testimonies.
Connect With The Youth
Children and youth will naturally be motivated as they feel loved, grow, improve, and feel the Holy Ghost in their lives. When change and growth become difficult to them, encourage them to look for ways to overcome challenges or adjust their plans. Strong and trusting relationships with parents, leaders, and peers can give them strength to keep trying.
— Children & Youth Guidebook
As we all know, building a strong testimony is not easy or simple. This is especially true for today’s children and youth. They face a never ending stream of challenges and obstacles. With the challenges of school, social media, and a world that continually strives to normalize wickedness in the name of tolerance, it is easy to understand why so many youth struggle.
As leaders, parents and friends, we can encourage our youth and help them know that there is a light and hope even amidst all the trials and challenges of life. We can help them understand that their efforts to live righteous lives are valuable and will be rewarded. We can help them understand the joy that is available to everyone who strives to live the gospel.
Help Them Learn and Grow
It is never the duty of a leader to struggle from someone else; a leader must encourage others to struggle and assure them that the struggles are worthwhile.
— Andy Andrews
In all of this, it is important to remember that it is not our duty to shield our children and youth from struggle. Doing so would only prevent them from learning and growing.
I remember a teacher sharing an example about this in a class years ago. He asked the class to consider the possibility of a parent who had a new baby. This parent loved the baby so much that they committed to protect the baby from all pain and struggle. As the baby grew, the parent determined that they would protect the baby from the bumps and bruises and falls and stumbles that invariably occur when a baby is learning to walk. To protect the baby, the parent carried it everywhere.
The question this teacher asked the class was this: does the parent protecting the baby by carrying it everywhere help or hurt the baby? While preventing the hardships that would come with learning to walk saved the baby from some minor struggles and pain, it also prevented the baby from learning and growing. How many opportunities would the baby miss by never learning to walk? How much growth and opportunity would be lost?
This example may seem silly and extreme, but when we seek to protect people from struggles, we rob them of opportunities to learn and grow.
When we are working with children and youth, it is vital that we focus on providing support and encouragement while they struggle rather than trying to protect them from the struggles. By providing encouragement and support, we can help them overcome their personal challenges and learn and grow from their experiences. This learning and growth will give them the tools they need to overcome the even greater challenges they will encounter in the future.
Help Them Build Friendships and Strengthen Each Other
A friend is a priceless possession because a true friend is one who is willing to take us the way we are but is able to leave us better than he found us. We are poor when we lose friends because generally they are willing to reprove, admonish, love, encourage, and guide for our best good. A friend lifts the heavy heart, says the encouraging word, and assists in supplying our daily needs. As friends we will make ourselves available without delay to those who need us.
— Marvin J. Ashton
As we encourage and support the children and youth, we should do all we can to help them build strong and supportive relationships with one another. There is a lot of time when we aren’t available to be with the youth, but they are with each other. They will be in situations at school, at parties, and a thousand other situations where they will need to rely on each other.
When we help them to build strong and supportive friendships, they can be there to lift and strengthen each other when they might need the most help to be valiant and live the gospel.
How To Reach Children and Youth?
So it is with the word of God. We can teach it, we can preach it, we can explain it. We can talk about it, we can describe it, we can even testify of it. But until a person feels the sacred word of God distill upon his or her soul like the dews from heaven through the power of the Spirit, it will be like looking at a postcard or someone else’s vacation photos. You have to go there yourself. Conversion is a personal journey—a journey of gathering.
— Jan E. Newman
It is easy to understand the importance of helping our children and youth to draw nearer to Jesus Christ and to build strong testimonies. But how exactly do we go about that task? How can we best help them to learn and grow?
To begin with, we should consider that we can’t compete with the world for our youths’ attention by trying to entertaining them. There are a million voices in the world competing for our youths’ attention and the youth we work with are likely to have a variety of different interests. We can’t win the battle to trying to better entertain the youth. Rather, we need to try to broaden their experiences.
We can do this as we strive to educate and lift the youth we serve. They might not admit it, but they want to be challenged — they want to feel the joy of learning and doing hard things. We can help them experience the confidence that comes with achievement by giving them opportunities to do things they normally wouldn’t do.
When we can help them have these experiences they will come to know that we truly care about them.
Ideas for reaching out to youth
When we are engaged in service to others, we think less about ourselves, and the Holy Ghost can more readily come to us.
— Henry B. Eyring
Keep it simple. Do what works.
— Children & Youth Guidebook
There are many activities we can do to help our children and youth have life altering and elevating experiences. We should focus on activities that broaden their horizons and help them draw nearer to the Savior. And focus on activities that allow our children and youth to build stronger relationships with leaders, parents, and each other.
We should strive to help the children and youth in our lives build stronger testimonies and learn and grow.
As I have been writing this post, I have debated whether or not to include a list of suggested activities. The activities should be chosen based on the needs of individual youth and local circumstances. However, I have decided to include some ideas for activities that our youth group has found helpful over the years. I hope these suggestions will include some ideas you may not have considered before. Please use this list as a starting point as you prayerfully work to plan and conduct your own activities.
Service Projects
Service projects of all kinds are a great opportunity to help youth draw nearer to the Savior. By participating in service to others, youth can feel the power of the gospel in action. They cannot only hear about the blessings of living a Christlike life, but they can experience it for themselves.
Career Nights
All of our children and youth will one day be adults. Giving them the opportunity to learn about different careers can broaden their horizons for their future. By allowing youth to see the variety of careers available in the world, it can help them gain a better vision of future opportunities they can pursue.
Career nights are also a great way to involve other adults, who may not usually have the opportunity to work with the youth.
Skill Nights (cooking, car care, etc)
Similar to career nights, taking an evening to learn a new skill can help children and youth prepare for the future. Cooking a new recipe, doing basic car maintenance, learning about gardening — the list of possibilities is nearly endless.
This is one way that the Boy Scout program was very helpful. In Boy Scouts, earning merit badges was a big thing. Each merit badge gave the boys the challenge of learning a new skill. While we no longer use the Boy Scouts program, we can still follow the pattern of helping our youth learn new skills.
One way that our group found this very successful was to have cooking nights. We would have one of the adults in our neighborhood would teach the young men a recipe. Often this would be a returned missionary. They would teach a recipe from the country where they had served their mission. They would then tell the boys about some of their mission experiences. This was a great opportunity to help the young men not only learn something new, but hear testimony on the importance of missionary work.
Attending Youth Extracurricular Activities
Not all activities need to be about teaching the youth something new. Today’s youth are busy and active in so many ways. Taking the time to support them in their extracurricular activities. This is a great way to build relationships with them and show that you really care.
By attending sporting events, plays or other activities with the youth, you can foster a sense of unity and love. You can help your youth know that you genuinely care about them and what they are involved in.
Spend Time Outdoors (sports, hiking, etc.)
Taking time to enjoy outdoor activities is another great way to build relationships with children and youth. Whether it is biking, hiking, camping, or playing outdoor sports, these activities provide great opportunities to get to know youth better. They can also be a lot of fun.
Don’t underestimate the powerful opportunities to feel the Spirit that are available when we spend time in nature with our children and youth. The quiet times in the mountains and forest while hiking or sitting around a camp fire provide great opportunities to build solid relationships with youth.
Let the Youth Lead Out
In all of these suggestions and many others that you may consider, let the youth lead out in planning and executing activities. As they plan and prepare activities together, they will learn and grow in ways that cannot happen if they are only passive participants.
Take the time to lead and counsel youth in these efforts. Encourage them to think outside of their normal experiences and interests, but let them choose. Help them to see the possibilities of what their activities could be and then do what you can to help the activities they choose be successful.
We Can All Love and Support the Youth
Do your work, not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing’s sake — that little more which is worth all the rest.
— Dean Briggs
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
— Matthew 5:41
Helping the youth is a responsibility for everyone, not only for parents and those in callings involving the youth. We can all lift and encourage the children and youth we know. Get to know the youth in your ward. Learn and remember their names. Let them know you care.
Today’s children and youth are living in a challenging world. The are surrounded by temptations and challenges that can be frustrating and disheartening. We can help them in these challenges as we talk to them and share our testimonies and life experiences with them. Let them know that you are rooting for them.
As we help our youth know that they are not alone in their challenges, we can help strengthen their testimonies. We can help them approach their challenges with courage and faith.
The Lord Will Magnify Your Efforts
Those who love and serve God and fellowmen and humbly and actively participate in His work will see wondrous things happen in their lives and in the lives of those they love.
Doors that seemed shut will open.
Angels will go before them and prepare the way.
No matter your position in your community or in the Church, God will use you, if you are willing. He will magnify your righteous desires and turn the compassionate actions you sow into a bountiful harvest of goodness.
— Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Working with the children and youth of the Church is undoubtedly a challenging and daunting calling. It can be easy to doubt our abilities to make a difference. When we feel doubts we can remember that we are not alone in our efforts to love and serve the youth we know. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ also love the youth. They will magnify your efforts to guide and serve the youth.
There is a quote from George L. Bell that I have always been impressed with as I have served in callings with scouting and the youth. It says, “You can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to show up”. In our efforts with the youth, we have to show up. We can’t just say we care. The youth are smart. They can tell the difference between someone who says they care and someone who genuinely cares.
When we rely on the guidance and power of the Lord and then show up, the Lord will magnify our efforts to love and serve each other. He will help us to perform miracles in the lives of the children and youth.
Join the Conversation
What has been your experiences with serving the youth? How have you seen success in your efforts? What questions do you still have?