As the young women become older they become busier and often find it hard to fit the weekly activities into their schedules. As a leader or as a parent there are several things that you can do to encourage young women to remain active during this busy time of their lives.
As parents do not enroll your daughter in programs that take place on activity night. As they begin to plan activities in high school, remind them to keep that night free. If your daughter is becoming too busy with jobs or extracurricular activities encourage them to cut back in certain areas. The best thing you can do is lead by example. Attend the ward activities as a family, mothers should attend Enrichment activities (at least the quarterly activities), and make church attendance a priority.
As a leader you need to make sure that each girl feels welcome. The teenage years are full of drama and often girls feel left out for one reason or another. Girls also resent becoming “a project.” If you can set a positive welcoming tone at your activities more people will feel welcomed and accepted. Be sure that you let the girls know that they are missed when they do not come.
Another great way to help the girls to continue to attend activities is to plan the activities around the girls’ interest. The program is designed so that the girls should be planning the activities. Make sure that as they plan that include activities that interest all the girls. By the time I was a Laurel I was tired of decorating cakes, toll painting and other crafty activities. These are great for some people, but didn’t work for me. Activities that interested me more were ones that involved preparing to live on my own. Everyone is different, so you should plan a wide variety of activities.