There’s usually one in every small group: a talkative teen. It’s the one who immediately answers any question without waiting to see if anybody else might want to. It’s the one with the long and winding monologues. It’s the one who talks and talks without ever coming up for air.
It may frustrate you as a small group leader, but it frustrates the rest of the teens even more. Because if you don’t do something, soon the rest of your group won’t even try to say anything anymore, but will instead be plotting ten different ways to avoid coming at all. Why bother showing up if only one person is talking?
A talkative teen is a dysfunctional element in your small group that you need to address. The question is how. Obviously your goal is to keep this particular teen—let’s call her Julia to make things easier—in the small group as well, preferably without feeling awkward or unwanted. Here are five things you can do to lovingly solve the problem.
Direct your questions
Instead of asking a general question to the whole group, direct your question to a specific group member. “Have you ever been in a fight with your parents over your clothes, Ryan?”
Julia won’t likely respond, unless Ryan won’t answer, in which case you might want to direct the question to someone else. This is a way to get other small group members to talk and it’s also a subtle message to Julia. Be sure to ask her at least one question though so she won’t feel left out.
Interrupt with love
If your talkative teen dominates the conversation, lovingly interrupt. The keyword here is lovingly—you send the message you value her as a person, even though you have to correct her actions.
Send a quick prayer up in which you ask God for a whole lotta love and interrupt the stream of words with something like “Thank you for sharing Julia. I would love to hear someone else’s opinion”. Or: “I appreciate what you’re saying Julia, but we’re getting a little off track here, so if I can just get back to my original question”.
Be sure to come to the rescue of anyone who’s interrupted by Julia, which is something you shouldn’t tolerate at all. Of course you have to correct this with love as well—Julia may not even realize she’s doing it. Try this for a couple of small group sessions to see if your over-talker takes the hint.
Get to know her (or him)
If the subtle hints didn’t work, it’s time to get more involved. The key is to find out what’s causing the behavior. There’s always a reason.
Maybe Julia doesn’t get a lot of attention at home. Maybe she’s scared no one else will answer and how that may make you feel. Maybe she’s afraid someone will give the wrong answer and will be laughed. Or maybe she just can’t deal with silence. It could be insecurity, a desire to be liked, a way to be popular. Maybe she’s trying to impress people with her knowledge, her stories, getting people to like her.
There could be a million reasons for a talkative teen to behave that way and if you want to solve the problem, you have to dig deeper to find it. So invite Julia to hang out and try to get to know her. See if you can discover what makes her behave that way. Oftentimes the attention itself is enough to make the problem less or even disappear.
This step takes time and even more important: patience and love. But if you can find the reason and address it, not only will you have ‘saved’ your small group, Julia will probably be grateful to you for the rest of her life.
Gently Confront
If you have spent some time with Julia and her talkative behavior isn’t improving, lovingly confront her. Make sure to do this only when you have built some sort of trust with her. If not, she will likely feel rejected and chances are she will stop coming to small group at all.
Just sit her down and tell her with as much love as possible that you really like her, that you value her as a person and as a group member, but that she is talking too much. If you think you have found out what’s causing her talkative behavior, discuss it with her. Explain to her what this is doing to the other small group members. Stress that you really want her to keep coming, but that she has to learn to talk less. Make sure to check with her a few days after you’ve had this talk to see if she’s gotten the point and that she’s not feeling rejected.
Set Rules
Oftentimes, someone who over-talks, doesn’t know how much is too much. So set rules with Julia. Tell her she can answer three questions every session and that’s it. Or that she can’t answer unless you direct the question specifically toward her (but make sure that you actually do that once or twice so she feels you haven’t forgotten her) Just come up with a fair and easy to remember rule and get Julia to agree.
If you see her behavior change, compliment her. And more importantly: show her how her change is positively affecting the group, so she knows it’s working.
