CURB KIDS "BAD" BEHAVIOR FAST IN YOUR MINISTRY WITH THREE SIMPLE TWEAKS

If you're anything like me, you've had days or even seasons of repeated behavior issues from kids in Children's Church. Some behaviors problems I've had to navigate are:

Foul and Disrespectful language (to both staff and peers)
Disobedience
Bad attitudes
Hitting / Fighting (both peers and their teachers)
Stealing
Gossipping

Some days were more manageable than others, but the behavior began to impact the kids and the staff. We were on the verge of a toxic environment for Children's Church because we couldn't get control of our kids. Well, you know Minister Bee couldn't let that happen.

After much prayer, research and reading the scriptures, I pondered ways to impact our kids through what was already in place. I had an idea for a new approach, applied it and it worked!

THE OLD WAY VS. THE NEW WAY

THE OLD WAY

Three major aspects of Children's Ministry that proved to be most ripe for improvement were:

The Rules - every meeting, we would. go through the rules before getting into the nitty gritty of our time together.
The Work - for each age group, we had two to four staff members serving on Sundays and one or two serving during midweek service.
The Rewards - we had done a very good job of rewarding kids with fun activities and prizes for things like good behavior or acing their pop quizzes.

When we started with five boys ages five and under, this worked great! However, once those babies grew into kids and preteens and the number of attendees was closer to 50 kids, those practices needed to be revisited. I refer to those as the old way. Now let me introduce you to the new way.

THE NEW WAY

As the Head of People and Culture at my secular job, I understood that a changed culture, starts with changed ways. It's common for the needs of an organization to evolve as it grows. I knew we needed to move away from a toxic culture and the only way to do that was to change the way we did things. Below are descriptions of the changes we made to the old practices and how it revolutionized the Children's Church experience for both the kids and the staff.

THE RULES

We've always had 4 simple rules. They were:

Have fun
No hitting
No talking when the teacher is talking
Do not go on the stage or to the restroom without permission

The issue here was that the rules only told the kids (and teachers) what they could not do, but we never gave them guidance on what was allowed or how to behave. The kids knew what was forbidden, but they weren't empowered to do what was possible. So we changed our rules from the old ones to these:

Have fun
Keep your hands to yourself
Quietly raise your hand to talk
Do exactly what the teacher says
Ask permission to go on the stage or go to the restroom

This turned rule reflection into a robust discussion, allowing the kids to take ownership of what they know. Not only were the kids given permission to control themselves, they also were able to explain how to walk in these rules and give testimonies on times when they were able to choose to follow the rules.

A typical conversation about Rule #2 would go like this:

Teacher: What's Rule #2?

Class: Keep your hands to yourself!

Teacher: Someone tell me what does that mean? (call on someone to answer)

Student: No hitting, kicking, scratching, pushing, slapping, pulling (and anything else they could think of)

Teacher: That's right! What if someone hits you, then can you hit them back?

Class/Student: No! You can't hit them back, you have to tell a teacher and they will take care of it.

THE WORK

The staff was strategically positioned to be in place, so that each one could attend to a specific area of focus during service. Of course, the lead teacher's job was to lead the staff and have a high-level handle on everything that was going on. I saw a need for even more help, so that teachers and staff could be even more attentive on a personalized level to the children.

First, I added more teachers. We always had a minimum of six adult staff members on Sunday and four on Wednesday evenings.

Second, I decided to give the kids serving spots and put them on a rotation. Of course, this was graced to them. They didn't have to work to get on the roster, but they could definitely lose their serving spot if they were troublemakers. This was a huge game changer in their behavior.

We made the following changes and boy did they impact the kids' focus and behavior both in and outside of Children's Church.

Kid-run liturgy

Before, the lead teacher basically did everything on the liturgy. Certain aspects, though, were things that our kids were more than capable of taking over. The kids took over:

The Welcome
The Rules
Songs of Praise (they would lead in song and dance moves that we did to songs)
Prayer at the Altar (they would say some powerful prayers)
Giving Time (offering)
Dismissal

Kids greet attendees and welcome visitors

While adults volunteers checked them in, each Sunday and Wednesday, there was a boy greeter and a girl greeter to greet the attendees and welcome the visitors.

Count and announce the offering

With an adult staff member, one kid was designated to count the offering and announce it to the class during snack time. This became a thing, because the kids really wanted to know how much their offering was and would celebrate their generosity. If we didn't announce it, they would remind us.

AV Tech

We all know kids are way more tech savvy than us older generation. Well, I put that to the test. This role was responsible for setting up the laptop, sound and the monitors, driving the powerpoint slides, and choosing songs for game time and snack time. The kids introduced me to features and efficiencies I had no idea existed. They were so good at this!

Not only did sharing. the work with the kids change impact their behavior, but it also acted as training exercise for service to God in church and life and took a lot of burden off the adult staff, while at the same time igniting self-importance into those adults as they were able to witness the excitement and growth in the children they serve for the Lord.

THE REWARDS

In the old way, the rewards we gave to children were just that, earthly rewards from earthlings - typically in the form of a fun activity or a prize. Well, after while, a weekly game of musical chairs isn't as appealing. It becomes mundane and can send the wrong message about the types of rewards we should strive for.

We began focusing on spiritual rewards and treated the old style of rewarding as a consequence of their decisions. We began to petition God for what we wanted, confess to one another the sins we committed and asked God to help us where we were weak. We gave to the causes of the church and practiced things like sharing, forgiveness and self-control.

From this, the rewards that the kids got meant more than any reward I could ever think of. I'm talking trust in God, salvation, blessings, favor, healing, new siblings, parents getting saved, cousins being rescued. This bolstered their faith so much, that I literally watched the goodness of the Lord lead them to repentance (Romans 3:23) and better behavior! And the best part was - they did it for and from Jesus and not me.

I know it's not a one-size-fits-all kind of situation, but my hope with this article is that you realize that God has given you what you need to stay impactful and relevant to your kids and staff. Just seek Him in prayer, stay faithful with what you have and watch Him empower you to grow.

You got this and God's got you!

Do you write your own curriculum or structure your own liturgy?

Here is the template to our LIT Liturgy that kept our staff and children's attention.

Minister Bee LIT Liturgy for children's church and kids ministry