• If you plan on giving everyone a treat after your presentation, be sure to always have more than enough. If we are giving away M&Ms for example and I know that the average attendance is 100 kids. I will bring at least 120 – 130.

• If you have a large crowd and you are giving away only a handful of prizes, it is always better to have a drawing. Kids and parents will feel that they were treated unfairly if you randomly hand out the prizes. When I first started doing sidewalk Sunday school, someone donated some really nice hockey jerseys. I had maybe 5 or 6 of them, but I had a crowd with about 80 people. I made the newbie mistake of randomly handing out the jerseys. I had some people who were really mad at me.

• If you are doing quiet seat prizes for the kids who are the most quiet during your lesson, be sure that your quiet seat prize isn’t huge in comparison to your normal give away. For example, if all the kids will be receiving a package of M&Ms after the presentation, don’t give away something like a Nintendo Wii for your quiet seat prize. If you are handing out candy bars for quiet seat prizes, the other kids may be a little bummed that they didn’t get one, but at least they won’t be absolutely devastated.

• From time to time, we will have new coats or shoes donated to us. To be a good steward of what God has given us, we like to put these items in the hands of people who really need it. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out truly is in need the most. I’ve found that principals are in the know. They can tell you what kids come to school each day either with a torn, dirty jacket or without a coat at all.  We’ve actually delivered bags full of coats to schools before and let the principal find the neediest kids to give them to. Distributing them this way also helps to build relationships with the schools.  Either way you choose to hand them out, I would do it privately unless you have enough for everyone.

• If you are having a big drawing (let’s say it is for a Nintendo Wii), be sure that neither the volunteers, and in most cases, the volunteers’ kids can enter the drawing. There’s a reason why companies like Mars don’t allow their employees or employee’s family members to win any of the sweepstakes that they occasionally offer. I would feel like someone rigged the sweepstakes if a Mars employee ended up winning a $500,000 sweepstakes. Those attending your event may feel the same if a volunteer wins the Nintendo Wii.  Besides that, the big drawing was for the people you are ministering to.

Until next time…

Separating the kids will require you to split up some of your workers and will require you to have an extra room. If you are lacking an extra room or the workers, the other thing you can do is preach up and not down. What do I mean by this? When you teach your lesson shoot for the older audience. Something that I’ve been seeing, even in the church, is that kids are being forced to grow up faster. Kids are being exposed to things at much younger ages than they used to. This is just a subtle example, but have you noticed some of the adult humor that is being played in kids movies?

MTV has probably been one of the biggest influencers to my generation and each upcoming generation. Parents allow their kids to be exposed to things they shouldn’t such as “R” rated movies and other things. I remember being in first grade and my mom’s boyfriend would smoke marijuana in our living room with his friends. He would even give us beer to drink. My point is this: there are kids in Power House who are being exposed to a lot more than what I was when I was a kid. “Feel out” your site, but in my opinion, most of the younger kids will be able to relate to what you are saying.

For the sake of the younger kids, continue to use props and be very repetitive. Last week at Power House I taught on praising God all the time. The example in our lesson was Paul and Silas. Personally, I think praising God is a foreign concept to many of our Power House kids. They don’t seem to grasp what praising God actually is. The concept of being thankful is easier for them to grasp, so while I taught I constantly repeated “God wants you to be thankful all the time!”, “We need to give God Praise all the time!”, and “We have a lot to be Thankful for!” Using a prop, I began talking about my life growing up how there were times when we didn’t have money for Christmas presents. I remember twice having a box full of presents being dropped off on our front porch. The presents may not have been what I exactly wanted, but I had a reason to be thankful. I had a reason to praise God; at least I had presents for Christmas! I had a reason to tell God how awesome he was for supplying me a Christmas present. I told the kids more about my life growing up. I was vague with some parts so I didn’t have to go in detail for the younger kids. The older kids could just fill in the blanks.

I then showed the kids pictures I had from mission trips. I showed them the huts that people lived in and how they washed their clothes and took baths in the creek. I reiterated the point that we have a lot to be thankful for. Even the poorest of poor in America can get food, clothing, and shelter if they need it, but in other countries the poor just have to fend for themselves. By using props, being repetitious, and teaching up I would guess that nearly every person there would be able to leave that place with a good idea of what the lesson was about.

Here’s a quick recap:

When teaching to a wide range of ages, there are two things you can do to ensure that each child is being taught on their level.

1.Separate the age groups if possible
2.Teach up but continue to use props and be repetitive

Probably one of the key things a person needs to realize when disciplining a child is:

Relationship = Respect

Kids do not respond well to people who are correcting them if that person does not have a relationship with them.  I call it the substitute teacher syndrome. Remember when you were in elementary school and there was a substitute in class? The kids would usually act more rowdy. Why do you think that is? The kids don’t know the substitute very well. They are testing to see how much they can get away with. The kids know their teacher very well. They know what the teacher expects. They have developed a respect for their teacher. This is a respect that the substitute hasn’t earned. It is much easier to deal with kids with disciplinary issues when you have a relationship with them.

After spending time with Ian, he developed a level of respect for me. Having a relationship with a kid can help prevent misbehavior problems from happening in the first place. I encourage you to find ways to build relationships with the children in your program. Handing out flyers door to door, taking time to find out more about each kid, or just playing a game of checkers can help you to build relationships with the kids in your program.

I would challenge all those who handle disciplinary issues with kids to not think that disciplining a child is a horrible thing.  Disciplining is a ministry opportunity.  Discipline is a one on one appointment with a child.  Discipline is derived from the word disciple.  We are here to disciple kids.  Sometimes pulling a kid to the side and giving them some direction is what it takes to help disciple kids.

I talked about things that you should do when disciplining a child, but here are a few things that you should not do when you discipline a child.

1. Never ever touch a child. Even if a kid is refusing to move when you have politely asked them to, do not touch them. There are a lot of good reasons why you should never touch a child. For one, there can be huge legal ramifications if the child’s parents felt you forcefully moved their child. Secondly, it doesn’t look good to the other kids, volunteers, or other adults. And thirdly, you are not communicating a Christ like behavior towards the child.
2. Never insult a kid in front of the other kids.
3. Never approach a child aggressively. Many children who have chronic disciplinary problems respond with aggression with more aggression.
4. Never yell at a child.

Stay tuned next week…

When dealing with a kid that is having disciplinary problems, the first thing you need to do is stop, and examine yourself. We have to be very careful not to discipline a child out of anger. You know and I know that we can tend to do some really thoughtless things when we are angry. Think about it, how many times while being angry have you said things that you wish you wouldn’t have said? When disciplining a child, step back, take a breath, and deal with the problem when you know you have control of yourself. If you are the type who is very impatient, have someone else who is much more patient deal with disciplinary problems in your program.

The best approach to confronting a child who needs to be disciplined, is to calmly sit down and talk to them. The more relaxed and calm you are the more likely the child will open up and talk to you. I’ve had a time where a kid was refusing to get up off the floor during a children’s church service. I got on the floor, laid down on my stomach, and calmly started asking questions. Like, did you not want to come to church today? Are you tired? Are you hungry? What’s the matter? I was able to convince the kid to come back to the back of the room and talk with me. I took time to show him around the sound booth. I found out that he was just acting up because he was tired. After finding the root of his problem and getting the child to place where he was thinking reasonably, I convinced him to sit in the back of the crowd, relax, and listen to the message.

Find the Root of the Problem

I’ve seen it many times where a kid would begin to act up because he was an older kid attending a program that is geared for younger children. The kid is misbehaving out of boredom. Boredom doesn’t give a kid the right to misbehave, but knowing the root cause can help me find ways to quickly fix the problem. I can give the kid a job to do, or give him a special responsibility that keeps him from being bored.

I feel that I can be more compassion towards a kid who is being a wahoo when I know and understand the root of the problem. I used to be part of a bus ministry. I had a kid that road my bus named Ian.  It seemed that Ian had some major anger issues.  One day Ian got in a fight with another rider on the bus.  After prying Ian off of the other kid, I sat Ian down and told him that he couldn’t ride the bus again for 2 months. I also told him that my wife and I were going to have him over on Fridays for dinner until he was able to ride the bus again. After picking up Ian a few times and visiting him at school, I began to see why Ian was so angry at the world.  At school, Ian was in special ed..  His teachers would degrade the kids, especially Ian.  At his home, I noticed that the electricity was shut off.  Come to find out, Ian’s mom would go spend what little money they had at the casinos.  When you begin to find out the root cause of the problem, you can easily become compassionate towards the kid who just caused mass chaos in your program.

Quick Recap

1. When confronting a kid that has a behavioral problem, be sure you have yourself under control.  Never discipline a child out of anger.
2. Find the root of the problem.  Finding the root of the problem can help you come up with a fix for the problem.  Finding the root of the problem also can help you to be more compassionate towards the child who is misbehaving.

Stayed tuned next week for part 2.