Working With (or Without) Parents

Last night we ran a training session on working with – and without – parents in youth ministry. Here are some cliff notes…

We first explored the history of youth work theories over the last four decades and noticed that parents work was a conspicuously absent element. Of those books and models that do mention parents work, it is often as an aside or necessary inconvenience.

This left us wondering how youth work has contributed to some of the ‘it’s just awkward to have parents and teenagers in the same room’ culture that is often the norm.

To contrast this, and to look for an ‘ideal’, we explored some Biblical passages that explicitly talk about parents in what we would see as ‘young peoples work’ in the Bible. Here is a simplified view of our findings:

• Deut. 1:1-7 – It’s the parents job to saturate their children in God’s teaching.
• Gen. 22:1-19 – It’s the parents job to lead their children in worship.
• 1 Sam:1:10-20; 24-28 – It’s the parents job to pray for their children and partner with the church leaders.
• Prov. 1:1-9 – It’s the parents job to teach and develop maturity in their children for specific life needs (check out Prov. 16, 18, 22, 24 & 31 for examples).

This looks a lot like youth work right? Those include many of the central aims and values of youth strategies. It might be missing ‘mission/evangelism’ but a deeper dig into both Deuteronomy and Proverbs would have added that element too.

So when you consider that our youth work strategies are found in the Bible surrounding parents, and then consider that the missing element from our youth work programs is often intentional parents work, you might agree that we have a fundamental problem developing!

Parents are simply essential to healthy youth ministry and working them into pivotal parts of your youth work strategy should be non-negotiable.
So How Do We Do It?

We recognised that just stopping everything and starting again isn’t always a sensible or viable option! 😛 So instead we looked at some incremental ideas that would start to develop parents work – and cultivate a healthier culture of parents ideology – within our projects.

We used ‘The Gospel Coalition’ article on moving parents from ‘absent’ to ‘equipped’ – this is well worth checking out.

Here are 5 ideas that come from Jody Livingston’s brilliant blog and podcast ‘The Longer Haul.’ I’ve simplified them somewhat below – but you can (and should!) read the whole article here.

Communicate! – Often and clearly.

Recruit! – Parents make great leaders and have experience, wisdom and insight that we don’t.
Retreat! – Plan events, retreats and getaways to serve and train parents. I’d also add ‘look-in nights’ to this when parents can see what you do with their kids.
Prayer! – Form a team of praying parents. They care and know about their kids more than we do.
Advice! – Form another team of parents to advise and speak into your ministry.

For good measure I added 4 more ideas:

All-Age! – Develop a culture of inclusive and quality all-age worship.
Talk! – Often with your young peeps about parents and their roles.
Meet! – Pickup & drop off points of contact before and after sessions.
Don’t! – Create standoff teaching / cultures where you set yourself up as better/wiser/more trustworthy than parents.

What About Working Without Parents?

The tragic reality is that this ideal doesn’t always work. Parents are not always around, and when they are – they are not always helpful.

We considered the ‘cultural landscape’ that our teenagers are growing up in, and specifically these statistics (the first two from the 2012-13 Office of National Statistics and 2011 Census Data, also ONS):

42% of all marriages in the UK end in divorce.
Almost half of those effect children under the age of 16.
Every national statistic has Established UK Christianity in decline.

When you take these three component parts together, it’s clear that we can’t expect stable, symmetrical Christian homes for many of the young people we work with.

Parents simply may not be around physically, emotionally or physically – or in some cases ‘parent’ means brother, uncle, grandmother, two mothers or an institution of some kind. It’s just not as cut and dry as the ideal (above) would carve out for us.
5 Types of ‘Unhelpful’ Parents

We considered together 5 kinds of ‘unhelpful’ parents, and brainstormed how we can work with them and thier young people. I’ve only given a basic skeleton of this here, and limited it to two points per parent type, so you might want to spend some time thinking about these with your own teams too!

Caveat: What this doesn’t give are examples of how to teach / train unhelpful parents. Up until the mid 1940s, parents would learn much of their parenting skills from 1. their own parents living in the same house and 2. the church as a whole. Suggesting parenting classes can now come across very offensively – but it is worth developing in your church culture. I can’t teach them credibly (I have no kids!), but I would happily get in someone like ‘Care For The Family’ who do brilliant work!

1. The Absent Parent

Parents can be ‘absent’ for lots of reasons. They may be in single-parent setups, emotionally detached, psychically out of the picture (or at the pub). Sometimes for very good reasons a parent can appear absent – such as working to support their family. A little bit more complicated would be the parent who has one child with additional needs that requires more attention – leaving them somewhat ‘absent’ on balance from their other children.

Mentoring – Big Brother / Big Sister setups from America can be amazing! Looking for older team or church members to spend time with young people to help them develop around some sense of a parent figure can be very helpful. Remember boundaries and safe practices!
Support With Group Culture – this is more about helping the whole culture of your youth group take care of each other. Everything you do in your project presents values, make sure you are steering these in inclusive and supportive directions.

2. The Hostile Parent

Parents could be hostile towards you personally, hostile towards the idea of faith, or hostile to other young people. Hostility often comes from panic and insecurity.

Communication – It’s important to make sure a hostile parent has all the info clearly and upfront to help appease their concerns. It may also be worth a face-to-face meeting over coffee to create some more solid layers of relationship and credibility.
Clear Lines Of Respect Drawn – You will need to stand firmly on your values, and also not tip your hat to a young person dishonouring their awkwardly hostile parent. Set the right example.

3. The Apathetic Parent

On on side of the coin they could be apathetic towards what you’re doing; not caring what goes on, or what time their kids are home. On the other side they could be apathetic directly towards their child, meaning they give few boundaries, inconsistent praise and a general lack of direction.

Permissions & Followup – Apathy aside you cannot slide on your safeugarding policies, and (unfortunately for them) you will need a clearer lead from an apathetic parent to make sure you’re covered. This might mean getting on the phone or knocking on their door. Creating relationship should be worth the extra effort but, as always, remember to keep safe boundaries.
Reward & Share Culture – Make sure that you are regularly acknowledging and praising your young people for doing well. A well executed phone-call to an apathetic parent about how well their child is doing can start to reframe that parent-child-church relationship.

4. The Gossiping Parent

My least favourite – so much so it’s worth a short story: Once upon a time a parent believed that the reason I wasn’t letting her daughter play in the youth worship band was because I was sexist. She believed this enough to tell a few other parents, a few leaders and even a few of my young people. When I finally heard this and confronted her, I let her know that the real reason I wasn’t letting her daughter play in the worship band was because she didn’t want to play int he worship band. Perhaps if she talked more to her daughter rather than about her she would have learned this.

Guard Your Communication Consistently – My other hard-learned piece of experience is that parents who are easier to talk to can also sometimes be a little loose tongued. If you find youself sharing more than you usually would with a parent, it’s possible that other people do to, meaning they are a bulging vat of information that should be help in confidence. That’s a lot of temptation, and unfortunately sometimes open ears means loose tongues. Youth leaders like people to talk to – find a mentor/pastor rather than parent.

Control The Information Flow – Make sure you are in control of the information about your programs Communicate clearly, constantly and consistently to keep things transparent.

Confrontation & Conflict Resolution – It is important to nip these gossiping tails in the bud. Confrontation is necessary – done well through a clear (and sometimes mediated) Conflict Resolution Strategy. In March next year we will be having a training session on Conflict Resolution led by an expert in the field. Let us know if you’d like to come!

In the meantime, if you have an issue which requires conflict resolution – we are happy to offer free Skype advice or coaching. Get in touch if you’d like to take advantage of this!

5. The Abusive Parent

I want to gently bring this up last. One of the most common forms of abusive parent within the church is the ‘Spiritually’ abusive parent – which is also one of the hardest to prosecute. I once had to spend an evening with a young person after his parents and youth leaders tried to exorcise demons out of him!

Know Your Procedures – All I really want to say here is know your policy and procedures and make sure your team is trained. Knowing how to handle disclosures, objective note taking and procedural response within your safeguarding structure is very important.
Support In Partnership – Make sure you know (again, within your context and structures) what partner organisations you can work with (Childline, Social Services etc.). As much as I want church to handle everything, we do need and should ask for help.

Interested in Training?

YouthWorkHacks is passionate about training. We offer safeguarding training, youth program MOTs, First Aid and Skype coaching. We also provide free monthly training in North Wales. Please check out our training page and get in touch if we could help you!