Mormon Mentality - Thoughts and Asides by Peculiar People » Watching and planning for a youth to go inactive

By bbell

Apr. 22nd, 2010 at 10:17 am

As some of you know I have been involved in YM’s for about 15 years. Basically since I came home from my mission. I have seen lots of success with the kids I have worked with. Occasionally I have seen kids go inactive as well. I am a big believer in doing what the kids need not what stake leaders or handbooks say.

I have a kid now who comes from a good family and most likely will go inactive in the next 1-3 years. I say this based on experience and the attitude of the YM. He only goes to church and activities because his parents make him. He comes with a huge negative attitude towards everything and anybody.

Last night myself, a bishopric member, and another YM leader took a few minutes to discuss his situation. We all agreed that most likely he would eventually quit coming and go inactive probably when he turned 18 and graduated from HS.

So we came up with the following.

1. We would hope and pray for a miracle were he could feel the spirit and allow himself to change and become converted. Avoiding a inactive period entirely.
2. We would make an effort to make his YM exp as good as possible in the hope that if he does go inactive at some point during his life when big changes come like marriage, children etc he would look back on his YM exp and think I know where I can go and find people that will love me and my family. Current YM lessons would have elements of stories from formerly inactive people who had eventually come back to full activity in the church after a period of inactivity in early adulthood.

I call #2 the “long game” where we play the leadership role out over the next couple of decades and for-see him as an adult trying to make spiritual decisions after a period of inactivity.

1. cantinflas

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 10:48am

Sounds like a young man that is lucky to have leaders who love him and act like they love him.

I sometimes wonder if I could have done things as a YM that would have helped others from my ward to not go inactive or feel better about the church in their inactivity.

2. clayton

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 11:56am

Thank you for your effort and dedication for this young man and all of them under your stewardship.

I think that you will probably do both, as both are what is needed. Ultimately, he has his agency and can choose for himself, but he will choose knowing that his leaders and those who love him did their best to help point him in the right direction.

3. annegb

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 11:57am

Brian (is that your first name–I hope I’ve got that right), I think your focus is skewed here. By “your” I mean the whole of the organization serving that young man. If I were you, my first priority would be making sure the young man and I were friends in the truest sense of the word. And that would insure that if he decides to leave the church—or be less active than his parents—he knows that I am still his friend. Or you, I mean. Give him a person to turn to.

Then I’d focus on teaching him about the love of God and Jesus Christ so that even if he chooses inactivity in the organization, he still has a relationship with deity. Somewhere to turn. Activity isn’t a be-all and end-all. Nor a measure of a person’s worth or even righteousness. I know some active Mormons who I consider–judge, okay, I suck that way—to be bad people.

I wonder what he’s experiencing at home. Very active parents can totally neglect their children emotionally and make their love conditional upon the child’s conformity. Kids pick up on that hypocrisy. Look at his birth order. Oldest? Could be he’s caving under the pressure. Middle? Neglected and put down?

There’s a lot more to consider than his attitude toward church. Which, frankly, a lot of the time is boring as hell to me, an old lady who appears somewhat orthodox. Could be really boring to a restless teenager.

4. L-d Sus

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 12:24pm

>I am a big believer in doing what the kids need not what stake leaders or handbooks say.

Thanks for sharing this. It helps me feel more legitimate in my very similar approach.

5. queuno

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 12:26pm

Part of the problem is when the youth do NOT think the leaders are their friends. And I don’t know how one might change that. If you don’t think the leaders have your best interests at heart, what is the alternative? And we *do* need to recognize that not all youth leaders and not all youth are a good *match*. Wards typically try to swing for the “middle” and that doesn’t work for the children who are outliers (both active and less active).

I think this is really key. I think a youth’s relationship with his parents and their relationship with the Church is more important than his relationship with the Youth leaders, but ONLY IF his parents/family are active anyway. If they’re not active anyway, then the relationship with the youth leader becomes more important.

6. queuno

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 12:29pm

I have to say, I do like the approach that says that leaders will adjust as needed for individual youth. I’m just a bit cynical enough to recognize, though, that this only happens in the rarest of cases and it’s due to the individual efforts of individual leaders. Institutionally, there’s no approach to deal with kids are a little bit different (the teenage rock musician or the girl scientist or the boy poet or the boy who doesn’t like sports, to name a few I’ve seen).

7. Megan

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 12:48pm

I wish I could read this and not wonder who it is about :/.

I don’t know how applicable this is in this particular situation, but I think the most important thing in preventing youth from going inactive is fostering friendships at church.

As you know, my younger brother was inactive, but he made some good LDS friends at college and now he’s on a mission.

I know that I’ve been a friend to someone where it really made a difference with regard to her activity in the church, and I’m not sure that until I knew I was that person, I realized how much impact a close friend can have.

I don’t mean to reduce church activity to something social, but feeling love and unity between church members is important in developing a testimony.

I realize that in this situation, this young man has probably been in the ward for quite some time, and if he doesn’t have close friends at church now, that will be very hard to change. If he does, and that doesn’t make a difference in his attitude, then there is probably nothing left to do but love the kid and continue with attempting to make the YM program a good experience for him.

Just as an aside point, I think that often, when parents and children fight about church attendance, it has less to do with church and more to do with control and independence. The negative attitude may have very little to do with church activities, and more to do with being forced to be there.

One more thing: BBell – if you’re around, say hi to me on May 9. I’m going to be in town.

8. jks

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 12:52pm

I remember have Personal Progress interviews with the YW once when I was in YWs. I tried to identify one thing that I really wanted the YW to know. For most of them it was Heavenly Father is there for you, pray and listen and he will help you. So I like the idea of when you talk with him one on one, focus on some basics like this that might help someone who doesn’t necessarily believe in the church yet and is probably going to go inactive…..this is the one thing that I wish everyone in the whole world knew.

9. chris

Frequent, personal, private, but informal interviews I think would be good where the goal is to show them you love them and help them discover the importance of a testimony on their own–you shine the light but they have to lead the way sorta thing.
Just love them and have hope.
Dunno if you’re looking for advice.

10. queuno

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 1:03pm

I think it’s hard to foster friendships at Church when leaders choose to consider as “less important” various interests or prioritize interests. The other youth pick up on that and follow the lead. You see this when leaders question why a kid wasn’t at youth night and say “oh, it’s OK” if it was for choir or the school play or baseball or cheerleading, but don’t offer the same enthusiasm for academic extracurriculars.

11. bbell

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 1:07pm

Hi,

Thanks for the comments all.

Megan I will swing on by and reconnect. I watch a baby during most of church right now so I am available. I miss your brother around here a lot. If you could maybe email or facebook me his email I would love to talk to him. We got a letter from him recently.

What is interesting about this YM is that he has friends at church and good parents who have been I think pretty sucessful with most of their kids. The problem that I see is actually coming from him. He is not interested in anything except a particular college football team and a particular video game. He is failing several classes at school right now for example.

So in this case I think the reason for his bad attitude is coming from within.

12. queuno

Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 3:12pm

He is not interested in anything except a particular college football team and a particular video game.

I get crap sometimes because I refuse to buy any gaming consoles. Statements like this make me dig in my heels more. (And my children have seen the light, for the most part. They have varied interests, none of which they could pursue if they spent half their time playing video games like their friends…)

13. chris

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 9:24am

queuno I think expectations with the console have to be set and clearly understood at the outset — so the kid has to be mature enough to understand the expectations.

But if you just dump a console on them and say go to town, and then try to exercise some control over it, after you’ve already let the console have control over them then you’re in for a rough time.

I think the same could easily be said of team sports, except for team sports are obviously a bit more wholesome/well rounded. But still, a kid could get so involved in his baseball team that he gives up all other commitments and obsesses with it, gets involved with “bad crowds” through it, etc.

So really it’s just trying to manage expectations and try to raise the kids so they can grow to view and consume things in moderation. Easier said than done obviously.

14. Rob

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 9:55am

What about just coming clean to the kid about how you notice that he doesn’t seem to care about church and talk to him about it? I’ve struggled as I’ve watched several YM go inactive and seemed to have seen all the leaders just beat around the bush about it and just “hope and pray” that “something” will happen to help the kid see the light and turn around.

I’ve seen online where some folks have been able to bring people back by weekly fasting and praying about individuals, and inviting them to participate in personalized weekly gospel teachings. Maybe you can add that to the mix?

I’m an EQ pres and we’ve brought 10 people back to church in the last 6 months. But I feel awful about some of the YM we lost a few years ago (after I was YM pres). I still see one of them (he’s in my quorum), am a FB friend with him still, but his only church contact now seems to be when I drive 15 miles out of my way to catch him at his place of work.

15. John Mansfield

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 10:41am

The long game perspective is easier to have after you’ve seen several inactive youth grow up a little and come back. Before seeing that, it feels like putting a happy face on a hopeless situation.

One kind of return to activity that’s happenned to a couple of men I know involves committing a felony. Then the defense attorney tells the guy to start going to church to improve his image and odds at sentencing. Not a course I recommend.

16. Ariki

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 11:00am

I agree queuno’s comments about the need for youth leaders to be aware of every single youth’s interests and not to prioritize their interests against each other at all. Speaking from personal experience, because I didn’t conform to the usual Polynesian ‘sporting freak jock’ in my ward as a youth, I was viewed as somewhat of a freak and ostracized not only by fellow youth but also by the leaders somewhat.

The leaders showed no interest in my progress as a young man (in fact, I received no encouragement to go on a mission) and as a rule I was seen at activities but never heard speaking (anything beyond how are you or saying prayer or giving a spiritual thought was unthinkable). I remember quite distinctly the one activity we held where one they focused on one of my interests – debating. As a young man who often entered public speaking and debating opportunities in high school I thought that activity was the chance for me to shine. Much to my horror, as soon as I started to present my team’s case I was mocked quite loudly and put down. I couldn’t wait to finish speaking and sit back down.

There were numerous occasions where activity dates and times were changed and I was not informed by any leader. In fact, on one occasion, I thought I’d arrived at an activity an hour early when in fact I was arriving just as they were about to leave for an activity that they moved forward by an hour and forgot to tell me. I was shouted at by one of the leaders for being ‘late’. I took that in my stride at the time and surpressed any embarassment for being yelled at in front of the other youth.

Such negative experiences made me very bitter towards that ward for a long time. It is only until recently, as a YSA, that I have started to forgive my previous ward for the way I was treated. I believe that for as long as focus remains on the non-outlier youth with little to no consideration for outlier youth and their needs and interests outlier youth my continue to feel ostracized and have a low self-esteem when around other peers from church.

17. John Mansfield

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 11:58am

I do wonder about this idea that attending to the needs of all young men requires a leader to be a bit of a rebel not bound by manuals and stake leaders. Do the manuals and stake leaders tell the ward to run two-note programs and ignore some portion of the boys? I had the impression that the YM program has a variety of dimensions to it in helping our boys become capable missionaries, husbands, fathers, and men. I’ve never served in the YM program though. Where are the obstacles that have to be circumvented?

18. Keri Brooks

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 12:15pm

He is not interested in anything except a particular college football team and a particular video game. He is failing several classes at school right now for example.

This really stood out to me. Perhaps this young man is suffering from undiagnosed or untreated depression. (I’m not trying to diagnose anyone over the internet, but that was the first thing I thought of when I read this.)

19. Latter-day Guy

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 1:05pm

“Do the manuals and stake leaders tell the ward to run two-note programs and ignore some portion of the boys?”

Not in so many words, apart from the “Using Shame and Shunning Effectively” section in the GHI.

/snark.

Seriously, YM/YW programs often assume (or try to inculcate?) a pretty high degree of homogeneity (e.g.: a lack of interest in Scouting is often seen as apostasy or something that approaches it). A manual doesn’t have to demand a “two-note” program for “two-note” programs to become the norm, and then for that norm to then be seen as part of the “unwritten order of things.”

20. annegb

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 1:47pm

Megan: “I think that often, when parents and children fight about church attendance, it has less to do with church and more to do with control and independence. The negative attitude may have very little to do with church activities, and more to do with being forced to be there.” I completely agree.

There is another side to the coin, though. Bill and I made so many mistakes with our kids we should write a book on what we did so other people can avoid doing them. But three of our kids are basically caring and good people while one has chosen to embrace a lot of values I consider evil. He celebrates evil, in my opinion. He can blame this on us, but I don’t think that’s fair. Because the things he does and doesn’t do, the lifestyle he lives, the dishonesty and vulgarity, those are things that were never present in our home. So I’ve come to believe that there are people for whom the less righteous side is just appealing.

I’ve always said that with better parents, there’s no telling what our kids could have accomplished, but God Himself couldn’t have made much a difference with this one child of ours.

Brian, I would still say just establish an unconditional friendship. So he has somewhere to turn. Because if you make it about getting him to church, you’ve already lost.

21. bbell

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 3:46pm

JM,

The Church YM program is satisfactory for most boys. However there is a percentage of boys that need a different approach then the standardized program we have. Sometimes when the percentage of boys who are outliers increases in an individual quorum you really need to do things differently.

22. rbc

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 4:17pm

#9 seems like a real stretch for a teenager. I suspect personal, private, informal interview(s) with a teenager who is possibly straying will be seen in an instant for what it really is: an interrogation. Most kids and even adults see right through this method of “fellowshipping.”What’s wrong with a simple conversation(s) where you-the adult-does most or all of the listening? I don’t understand why for so many the default is an interview? Try being a regular friend or normal adult with a genuine interest in the kid whether or not he leaves the fold. Resorting to interviews with teenagers is probably a doomed to fail approach, imo.

23. John Mansfield

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 4:24pm

I still am interested to know where the conflict points are. I am guessing that the manuals and training talks probably say things like “prayerfully consider the needs and interests of each young man.” I think I get that serving the needs of some boys and quorums will take a form that could be quite a bit different from the usual. I don’t know what the obstacles imposed from above are that have to be ignored to address the needs of the boys.

24. bbell

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 4:46pm

JM, I recently spent some time as the voice of sanity in a stake YM’s presidency. Here are a couple of examples

Last year in my stake there was an attempt to make teachers wear scout uniforms for weekly activities. (as if) I think this speaks for itself. I was the lone gunman in the stake meeting voicing objections. Thankfully I won.

2 years ago our stake went on a High adventure trip. The stake leadership ran things so by the handbook that they alienated scores of boys. Its been 2 years now and the boys are still talking about silly rules and leaders who are clueless.

25. L-d Sus

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 5:39pm

I concur with bbell that most of the conflict I see comes from scouts. Unless they already like scouts, pushing it on the YM just pushes them away.

My anecdotal evidence with YM in Washington State and Florida suggests that:

1 in 10 active kids detest scouts
6 in 10 will participate in scout activities but will not advance (earn badges)
9 in 10 will loose interest in scouts by the time they are 14 or 15

Is this similar to what other folks are seeing?

26. Jim Donaldson

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 6:12pm

#25, Yes, with the exception that the percentage of those who detest it is closer to half here (Colorado). Higher, if you count the leaders. Maybe in the suburbs, you’d be closer.

I am an early morning seminary teacher and come by my knowledge that way. Incidentally, according to our local CES guy (I know it isn’t called that anymore), church statistics show that we lose 70% between 18 and 31. I bet we lose 30 to 40% (of the original 12 year olds) at 14 to 15 first. Scary times.

I think most kids respond to being treated as adults. That’s the first step. Certainly true of seminary.

27. Jim Donaldson

Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 6:15pm

P.S. We had two kids earn Eagle Scout awards a few years ago and they refused to wear their uniforms even to their Eagle Courts. And begged us not to notify the local newspaper.

28. Olive

Sat, Apr 24, 2010 @ 4:23pm

I think having good friends is the #1 thing to help kids stay active. Does he get along with any of the other boys? Are they including him? Can you find a young man who will take him under his wing?

29. bbell

Mon, Apr 26, 2010 @ 11:44am

Hi all,

The YM has friends at church and I doubt he is clinically depressed. I think this is a case where the reason for the struggle is coming from choices being made by him as an individual.

30. bbell

Mon, Apr 26, 2010 @ 11:48am

Jim D,

The best data on retention rates is the following

70% of kids raised in LDS homes will be active as adults.

However only 30% or so will be active their entire lives. 70% of all kids raised in the church spend a period inactive between 15-25. A percentage of the 70% who go inactive do come back to end up with a final retention # of 70%.

Kevin Barney and I at BCC both came up with these numbers after looking at all the research.