Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Budgeting For Teenagers – Saving For High Price Items

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Budgeting For TeenagersWe’ve previously talked about how to equip youth for the real world – included in that are financial awareness skills like preparing a budget.

This makes a great session for youth who are about to graduate high school or ‘age out’ of the foster care system. The resources we shared were from the UK and so today we’ll be sharing a resource for the US.

Budgeting For Teenagers – Youth Events or High Price Items

Budgets don’t just have to be for teenagers who are moving out of home. They can be used to help youth plan for fun events throughout the year like spring break, prom or summer vacations or camps.

In the book Teaching Social Skills to Youth, there are the following steps for helping teens budget and manage money:

  • Figure out how much money you have consistently, either weekly or monthly
  • List all of the bills and/or expenses you have to pay during that time
  • Keep a record and track or estimate the approximate cost of your fun and entertainment activities
  • Save 10% in savings for emergencies
  • Stay within the budget you create
  • Try not to spend impulsively or write checks (or use credit!)

Budgeting Session Activity

Have the youth in your group work individually or in pairs to follow the steps by identifying their budget for something that is coming up that they will need money for. This could be for things such as a car, prom or a new piece of technology that they have their eye on.

Let’s use prom for an example:

  • Find out how much you make from your allowance and/or part-time job
  • List all of the expenses associated with prom – tickets, dress, tux, shoes, accessories, hair, makeup, car, flowers, meal out, etc.
  • Look back at other events you’ve been to or ask another youth what their approximate expenses were for prom and if there were any other unforeseen costs
  • Save 10% for a buffer towards the night
  • Stay within the budget – if you budget $75 for a dress, don’t look at $100 dresses!
  • Review after prom how everyone’s budgets went and reward those that followed their budgets well

By using something fun like prom or another event they’re looking forward to, it can make the budgeting process a lot more enjoyable for teenagers and relevant for their lives. The important part is teaching the skills, not what the actual budget is for.

Other Budgeting Activities

To add even more fun, try adding these ideas into the sessions as well:

  1. Video – Create a video diary of the process: tracking purchases, savings and the night out
  2. Collage – Make a budget collage using images from magazines and the internet. Create a dream budget and a realistic budget showing how the youth are going to save on costs
  3. Party – Hold a safe after-prom party. Have the teenagers organize this and get them to create and follow a budget during the planning and execution of it

You can get more great financial literacy skills and worksheets from Hands On Banking’s Budgeting Guide – Teen Version.

Question: What ideas do you have for making budgeting for teenagers more fun? Let us know in the comments below.

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Valentine’s Day Activities For Teenagers

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Valentine's Day Activities For TeenagersA few days ago, we suggested three games that were perfect for a Valentine’s Day theme. In case you were wanting to do an entire youth group session based on this theme, here are three Valentine’s Day activities for teenagers:

Love Languages

You may well have heard of the bestselling book by Gary Chapman called The 5 Love Languages. He’s also written a follow up called The 5 Love Languages Of Teenagers.

The love languages are the same as the original book, although they can manifest themselves differently with teenagers compared to how you’d relate them to your partner.

In case you’re not familiar with the book, the Five Love Languages are:

  1. Words Of Affirmation
  2. Physical Touch
  3. Quality Time
  4. Acts Of Service
  5. Gifts

We’d therefore recommend familiarizing yourself with the book and then organizing some or all of these youth group activities:

Valentine’s Day Activity 1 – What’s Your Love Language?

Explain the concept of the love languages to your young people and have them work out what their primary love language is. So long as they’re not too embarrassed with sharing, go around the room and have them say what they think their one is.

For anyone struggling to work out theirs, have them consider the reverse – what kind of behavior annoys them or emotionally hurts them? If it really bothers them when someone’s mean to them, their primary language might be Words Of Affirmation. If a parent never spends time with them and that hurts the teen, theirs may well be Quality Time.

Valentine’s Day Activity 2 – Does It Change?

Next, explore whether their primary love language might change from person to person. For example, do they think they have the same love language when it comes to:

  • Parents
  • Best Friend
  • Boyfriend / girlfriend

They may appreciate words of affirmation from their parents the most, but perhaps quality time is more important when it comes to their best friend.

As for boyfriends / girlfriends – remember that they’re teenagers, so be prepared for a whole load of “Physical Touch” answers and make sure they stay appropriate!

Valentine’s Day Activity 3 – How Can I Love?

One of the most important concepts in the book is that the love language you “speak” isn’t always going to be the same as the one others have.

For example, someone whose primary language is Words Of Affirmation will often be an encourager of those they love – the love they need is the love they give out. However, using only this love language with everyone won’t be as effective, as not everyone appreciates affirming words in the same way.

For this final activity then, have the youth consider a few different groups of people and have them:

  1. Identify what they think that person’s primary love language is
  2. Think of two or three ways that they can speak that person’s love language to make sure they know how much they care, rather than simply speaking their own all the time

People they could do this for include:

  • Mother
  • Father
  • Brother(s)
  • Sister(s)
  • Best friend
  • Boyfriend / girlfriend
  • Any other significant people in their lives

For example, they might realize that their Mom’s language is physical touch which is why she always wants to hug them. Instead of trying to shrug her off, the teen could return the hug to let their Mom know that they do actually love her.

As another example, they may think their little brother is annoying because he always wants to be around when the teenager’s hanging out with friends. This could simply mean that his language is quality time; if so, it doesn’t mean they have to let him hang out at the same time, but they could make an effort to spend more time with him at other times.

Emphasize the importance of making wise choices though – just because a boyfriend or girlfriend’s love language is physical touch, it doesn’t mean that they should have sex with them! We have a few resources and ideas to help you explore decision making with your young people:

We also have many different self esteem activities for teenagers – although not directly related to decision making, a young person with low self esteem is more likely to make poor choices in the search for love and acceptance.

Question: Have you ever looked at love languages with your young people? If so, how did it go? Also, what other Valentine’s Day activities for teenagers would you recommend? Let us know in the comments below.

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Enough Food For Everyone IF – Youth Work Session Idea

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Hunger Youth Work Session Idea(Edit: Since this post was published, it looks like the Enough Food For Everyone IF website has been taken down. We’ve therefore removed any dead links – apologies that this reduced the usefulness of this session idea)

Almost one billion people worldwide suffer from hunger, so there’s a new campaign that’s started in the UK called Enough Food For Everyone IF.

Purpose

The purpose of this campaign is to put pressure on the leaders of the G8 countries to commit to fixing four areas that impact hunger. The G8 is made up of countries with some of the largest economies in the world:

  • Canada
  • France
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Russia
  • UK
  • USA

The European Union is also represented at the G8, so a commitment by all these nations could achieve a big difference.

The four areas that Enough Food For Everyone IF are seeking change in are:

  1. Aid – Give aid to stop children dying from hunger. Help the poorest have enough food to live.
  2. Land – Stop poor farmers being forced off their land. Grow crops to provide food, not fuel.
  3. Tax – Stop companies dodging taxes in poor countries so millions can be freed from hunger.
  4. Transparency – Governments and companies must be honest about their role in the food system.

Video

Enough Food For Everyone IF have produced the short video below explaining about the campaign.

Who Is Involved?

Many large charities like World Vision are supporting this initiative, with many different faith groups and non-faith groups also being involved.

This is therefore a great example of organizations putting aside differences to work for the common good.

Free Session Resources

There are many different resources available on the Enough Food For Everyone website that you can use as youth group activities to address the issue of hunger:

  • Case Studies – This PDF has numerous case studies about people suffering from hunger in different countries around the world. This resource suggests splitting up into smaller groups to have the young people look at just one case study, but if you only have a small group in the first place you could just as easily look at all the case studies together.
  • Plate Activity – If you’re in the UK, this activity involves having your youth decorate a plate with their own thoughts, ideas and solutions to global hunger. You then send the plates to one of three UK based organizations, who will then send them on to the Prime Minister.
  • Learning Resources – This page contains links to 30 different free resources from charities like Oxfam and Action Aid that address the issues of Aid, Land, Tax and Transparency that this campaign is focused on.

What Are Key Stages?

There are references to Key Stage levels 2-4 on their website, particularly on the Learning Resources page. This refers to the age-appropriateness of the activities for students. Here are the ages that the Key Stages relate to:

  • Key Stage 2 – 7-11 year olds
  • Key Stage 3 – 11-14 year olds
  • Key Stage 4 – 14-16 years old

Therefore, if you’re working with teens, the Key Stage 2 activities will probably be too “childish” for your youth, so pick the Key Stage 3 or 4 activities instead.

Other Hunger-Related Resources

We’ve previously published a free youth retreat theme based on hunger, so that has many other youth group activities that you can use to explore this global issue.

In the comments on that post, TJ’s also referred to another organization called Kids Can Make A Difference that seeks to enable youth to make a difference about hunger.

Question: What other hunger-related resources have you used or know about? We’d love to find out about them, so let us know in the comments below.

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Youth Using Skills To Benefit Others – Youth Group Activity

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Youth using skills to benefit others
What skills do your young people have?

If you’re a regular reader of the Youth Workin’ It blog, you’ll know by now that we’re big fans of youth empowerment and youth participation.

This week’s youth work session plan idea aims to build on that and help show youth how they can make a difference in the lives of others.

Session Purpose

This activity is based on a video that highlights how one young person from Sierra Leone is using his skills to benefit his community.

The purpose of this session idea is therefore to get your youth to consider what skills they have and how they can use them to benefit their own community.

Session Outline

Show the video below to your youth group. Once they’ve watched it, use the discussion questions below – or your own – to explore some of the areas covered in the video and to help inspire your young people to take action.

Video

First, watch this video with your young people:

Discussion Questions

  1. Kelvin loves inventing – what do you love doing?
  2. What job would you want to do in the future, even if it meant you hardly earned anything?
  3. Kelvin’s taught himself how take broken electronics and fix them. What things do you actively seek to learn outside of school / college?
  4. He made a generator and created his own radio station to give a voice to other youth. What could you do to give a voice to other young people? (If they struggle to come up with any ideas, consider suggesting areas they might be able to get involved in, like sticking up for other students who are bullied or for youth who are trafficked).
  5. David said about African countries: “Unless we have a host of young people who can think at any given point that here’s a challenge, here’s a problem, here’s an opportunity to solve it, there won’t be steep growth in national development”. How true do you think that is in your own country?
  6. Kelvin’s known as DJ Focus, as he believes that “if you focus, you can do an invention perfectly“. What are some things you focus on that you can do perfectly?
  7. Are these areas that benefit you or other people in some way?
  8. His Mom was excited as people said good comments about him. Is this something that happens to you?
  9. If not, what could you do to change that?
  10. Everything he learned at MIT, he wanted to share with his friends, colleagues and loved ones. What do you know that you could share with others to benefit them?
  11. David runs an innovation camp in Sierra Leone that seeks to have young people identify some of the problems in their community and challenges them to come up with solutions. What are some problems in your own community?
  12. Now that you’ve identified some of the problems, what can you do to solve them?

Question: What other discussion questions would you use with your young people based on this video? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

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Cell Phone Etiquette For Teenagers

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Cell phone etiquette for teenagers“You are not a rude person; do not allow the iPhone to change that.”

This was one of my favorite lines from the iPhone contract a mother gave her 13 year-old that has been circling the internet since Christmas. Janell Burley Hofmann had many other great suggestions for her teenage son about cell phone etiquette.

Many of your youth will have received new gadgets for Christmas, whether that be a phone, tablet, game system or MP3 player. And that is exciting! These should be celebrated, shared, explored and drooled over just for the fun of it.

Responsibility

But as that famous Spider-Man line goes: ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ (actually it was Uncle Ben – not the rice guy). It’s therefore also a great time to talk with your teenagers about cell phone etiquette – where, when and how they use the fantastic new devices.

Cell Phone Etiquette Discussion Questions

Here are a few highlights from the iPhone contract with some questions you might want to explore with your youth this new year:

1. “If you would not make a call to someone’s land line, wherein their parents may answer first, then do not call or text.”

  • How late is ‘too late’ to call your friends or when is too early on the weekends?

2. “Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person.”

  • Do you find that it’s easier to text something (or put it on Facebook or Twitter) rather than saying it to someone?
  • Why do you think that is?
  • What are some pros and cons to sharing things via text or face-to-face?

3. “Do not send or receive pictures of your private parts or anyone else’s private parts…it is hard to make anything of this magnitude disappear – including a bad reputation.”

  • Have you ever said or done something online or via text that you wanted to take back?
  • How did you handle it?
  • What would you do differently next time?
  • If you were to send inappropriate photos via Snapchat, is there anything stopping the person from taking a photo of the photos, meaning they don’t only last a couple of minutes?

4. “Leave your phone home sometimes and feel safe and secure in that decision. It is not alive or an extension of you.”

  • Do you ever leave your phone (or other device) at home?
  • How does it feel?
  • What do you think might happen if you leave it at home sometimes?

5. “Keep your eyes up. See the world happening around you. Stare out a window. Listen to the birds. Take a walk. Talk to a stranger.  Wonder without Googling.”

  • Carrying on from #4, take the time to see the world without the lens, whether that’s the lens of social media, your camera phone or your video games.
  • What are some things you like to do without technology?
  • If you can’t name anything, what is one new thing you’d like to try that doesn’t involve technology?

What we’re really talking about here is a possible session plan about basic life/social skills when it comes to technology and devices. Many youth don’t have parents who will share cell phone etiquette with them or detail some of these dangers or pitfalls. Take the time to share some of your words of wisdom so that your youth can unplug.

You also might enjoy a post that Ben Kerns wrote recently about manners.

Question: How would you address the issue of cell phone etiquette for teenagers? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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