Reply to Anybody's teens have experience with Young Life?

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "Anybody's teens have experience with Young Life?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP here - thank you all for your thoughtful input. It has really helped me. Here is an update:

I've allowed DD to participate in the once-weekly YL club meetings and some special events (coffeehouse, girls-only sleepovers). It does seem like it is pretty chill and a fun social time for the kids who go, and also well attended. They've had movie nights and a Halloween party and seem to mostly hang out and play games or eat. We are in a large regional SD in a somewhat rural area, and I like that she is meeting kids from different walks of life and attending social events where there is no alcohol/drugs. I am not allowing the more intensive involvement that her 3 friends are doing, although she has not asked for such. She is asking to go on a winter ski weekend at a YL facility in upstate NY and I will probably let her go. The local group seems pretty female-heavy and the leaders she deals with are young women. They get together with counterparts from adjacent SDs at times for larger events.

Everything seems pretty good so far, other than I don't like that the club group meeting typically starts out at someone's house and then migrates to a pizza place a few miles away, which means we have groups of kids driving around rural back roads at night; I told her she is to ride only with the leaders. I also don't like that there is zero communication to the parents - I am NOT a helicopter mom but literally anything else my kids have ever done obtains the parents' contact info just to keep them updated on what's going on, events coming up, etc. All the communication seems to be group texts among the leaders and kids, and the parents are out of the loop. I was a leader in a church HS/MS youth group in the mid-'90s and even back then we sent periodic emails to the parents. An introductory "hi, I'm Larla Leader, here's what we are doing this year" would go a long way in making me feel more comfortable about what to expect.

Based on what you all have said, it sounds like the YL experience can be highly variable based on who leads it and where it is and who participates, and it seems like the club is generally a fun social opportunity and good fellowship, while camp is a spectacular experience that may or may not involve intense religious content. I'm still not sure I understand what they are after with these kids overall...again, I am an inherent skeptic so I'm thinking nobody is going to provide this fun outlet for our kids without wanting something in return. DD and I have had many conversations about what we believe, and the fact that not all Christians live their faith the same way, that we need to be accepting of others' faith traditions, and that she should not tolerate anyone not accepting ours, or telling her she needs to accept Christ as her savior (because in our denomination, she already did when she was baptized). For now I'm going to let her participate in the club and fun events, trust that this is primarily about having a good time with peers in a safe environment, try to meet the folks involved, and keep the lines of communication open. Since her plan is to get a summer job next year, she will not be attending YL camp even if all her friends want to go.

In response to the "yellow flags" PP's question - yes, I had CCC friends in college as well, this was where I first encountered people trying to evangelize me! The 3 friends who are getting deeply involved are DD's BFFs in a friend group going back to late-elementary school. They spend a lot of time together outside the group. They have other friends, although these are more fluid and evolving. These girls are all very cute, bubbly, good students; two are very outgoing and have been on the cheer squad, so they make perfect recruiter types. The one girl she is closest to is the one who first got involved in the group, got recruited by someone from her school sports team. This girl is part of a more conservative church (signed a purity pledge last year), and her mom, who I am pretty close to, thinks YL is awesome and is a big proponent. My DD is more shy and not really the sales type so I don't think she would be comfortable in an outreach role. I'm trying to encourage DD to hang with her besties but also branch out to other people and to be part of other activities. She will be playing sports in the spring and that may preclude YL and other extracurriculars. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics