It’s something youth leaders all deal with. We’ve heard it countless times: Every kid in our youth room has a cell phone in their pocket!
– How do I communicate to kids to stop texting during worship?
– Can I say “no cell phones” on our trips?
– What if parents WANT their kids to have cell phones with them?
These are great questions. And, as we said in our podcast, we WANT YOU to help us answer. Here’s the situation:
In the HELP ME section of our most recent podcast, youth worker Matt from Longview, TX asked us:
Our small youth group (25-30) has taken to text-messaging on their cell phones. I’m not against cell phone use, but it has become a distraction. Have you got any ideas for boundaries/limits to cell phone use during youth group activities? Secondly, have you got any clever ideas on how to address the youth with these boundaries? Do you know of successful ways of dealing with this issue? -Matt Longview, TX, USA
In the podcast David and I shared some funny “cell phone” experiences and provided our 2 cents on the matter. The most difficult situation to figure out was what to do on trips. After all, many parents want their kids to have their cell phones so they can be reached (have you read about the epidemic of helicopter parents?). David suggested that we don’t circumvent parents’ authority on the matter, and allow cell phones. Just tell kids to not use cell phones EXCEPT to communicate with their parents.
This, of course, brought a skeptical laugh out of me. So I asked David, “How the heck do you monitor that?!!”
It’s not an easy answer. And there probably isn’t ONE answer. So… we want to hear from you.
• How do you control cell phone use at youth group?
• Do you allow cell phones on trips?
• Should we put the foot down and say, “no cell phones” on trips?
• If we allow cell phones on trips, how can we control use?