When it comes to youth attending the weekly activities, many wards struggle with keeping the Priests and Laurels active. This is a difficult task because the youth are working or involved in extracurricular activities. They may be extremely busy with schoolwork and may find it hard to fit everything in. However, these activities are still important for them to attend. Here are four things to consider when helping the youth to keep coming out.
1) If you are a parent you may want to lay out some ground rules about attending the activities. You may require that your youth attend two or three a month. It is understandable that at times there may be too much going on. You may choose to have your teenager only work during the summer, so that he can continue going to the activities. You may need to have your teenager cut back on extracurricular activities as well.
2) The youth are busy and so the activities need to worth coming to. This does not mean that they need to be just fun and fluff activities. The activities need to make good use of the time. Do not have the youth just sit around while you figure out what to do. There should be time to socialize, but there should also be a purpose for the activity. When I was in Young Women’s they had a cake decorating class every year. I stopped going after year three, because I already knew everything they were teaching.
3) It is important to have the youth plan the activities so that they appeal to the youth. You may want to plan an activity or two to interest someone who is less active. You should make sure that you rotate through the types of activities that you hold, so that you can meet everyone’s interests. One ward I was in held a few cooking activities for the Laurels, because the Laurels were nervous about cooking for themselves when they moved out.
4) Do not become discouraged if you are having a hard time with the youth coming out. You should keep trying. You should let each youth know that you missed her, but in a way that will not cause negative feelings. It is important to build a good relationship with the youth.
Related Articles:
Encouraging Youth to Attend Weekly Activities
Early Morning Seminary–Keeping Up Attendance