Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

5 Thanksgiving Activities For Students To Get Them Thinking

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Thanksgiving activities for students
If nothing else, your young people can be thankful their parents don’t have a baby photo of them dressed like this

Thanksgiving is a perfect opportunity for getting young people to reflect on everything they have, particularly on a global scale.

This week’s youth work session plan idea therefore has some Thanksgiving activities for students to get them thinking about money, family, friends, freedom, possessions and anything else that they might take for granted. These ideas can be used no matter what size your youth group is or could also be used in a school lesson.

Thanksgiving Activity 1

Give each of the students a stack of post-it notes and a pen. Ask them to write down things that they’re thankful for, with one thing on each post-it. n.b. Don’t offer any suggestions of things they should be thankful for at this stage.

After about 5-10 minutes, get all the young people to stick the answers they have on a wall.

Thanksgiving Activity 2

Once they’ve stuck their post-it notes up, have the students watch a video that focuses on poverty around the world. There are all kinds of videos you could use – full-length movies, documentaries, charity appeals, etc.

Another option would be to use the two videos below. They’re both about 4 minutes long, but should get them thinking about how fortunate they are compared to billions of other people. (Thanks to Terry Linhart who’d brought the videos to my attention via Ken Castor’s blog).

Thanksgiving Activity 3

After they’ve watched whatever video you’ve chosen to use, repeat the first activity – have the students write down anything else they can think of that they’re thankful for. There’s a good chance that the video will prompt a number of additional answers.

Thanksgiving Activity 4

There should now be many different answers stuck to the wall. Read some (or all) of them out and discuss with the students why they’re thankful for all these things.

Thanksgiving Activity 5

The previous four activities should have helped your young people realize that they have a lot they can be thankful for, especially compared to other people around the world.

If the youth are feeling empathetic towards those who are less fortunate than they are, discuss ways in which they can do something to make a difference. This could include:

  1. Taking part in a 30 Hour Famine
  2. Organizing a youth group fundraiser, where the proceeds are given to a charity
  3. Planning a Slum Survivor weekend retreat
  4. Identifying ways they can volunteer in the local community
  5. Setting up their own charity or non-profit that addresses a cause that they’re passionate about

Question: Do you have any other ideas of good Thanksgiving activities for students? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below

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Hard-Hitting Video For Discussing Difficult Issues With Youth

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Discussing Difficult Issues With YouthPhysical abuse. Pregnancy. Suicide. Death.

These are all issues that can be difficult to address with young people. Most youth will have been impacted by at least one of these issues, either directly or by their friends or family being affected by them.

This session idea touches on all of these areas in a fairly non-threatening way. This will therefore hopefully enable your young people to consider and discuss the issues, without putting any of them in too much of an uncomfortable position. Be sensitive to their feelings though, particularly if you’re aware that some of them have gone through any of these situations.

You can then use their answers to gauge where they’re at and if it’s worth planning any future sessions based on the issues raised.

Watch

First of all, watch the Zack Hemsey music video below for his song Waiting Between Worlds.

Discussion

Next, discuss the situations faced by the people in the video. You could come up with your own questions, but here are some conversation starters:

Pregnant Girl

  • In the first scene, you find out the girl gets beaten up by her boyfriend and then discovers that she’s pregnant. What do you think is going through her head as she sits in the bathroom?
  • If she was your friend, what would you suggest she do?
  • Do you feel like she made the right decision leaving the boyfriend? Why?
  • At the end of the video, the boyfriend sees the positive pregnancy test. What do you think he’s thinking and feeling at that moment?
  • How could she have avoided being in this situation in the first place?

Old Man On Beach

  • What do you think he’s thinking about as he’s sitting on the beach?
  • What do you think he’s feeling?
  • Why do you think he decides to try committing suicide?
  • Towards the end of the video, you see him laying on the beach having survived the suicide attempt. What do you think he’s feeling at that point?
  • Do you think he still has anything to live for?

Mother Of Son Who’s Been Shot

  • What do you think would have been going through the Mom’s mind when she heard her son had been shot?
  • Do you think she wishes she’d done anything differently?
  • The doctor advises that her son can either live in a vegetative state, or they can turn off the machines that are keeping him alive. What do you think you’d choose if you were in her position? Why is that?
  • Do you ever do anything that makes your parents fear that something similar will happen to you?
  • If so, how do you think this makes them feel? Does this make their reactions seem more proportionate?

Question: What other questions would you ask based on the content in the video? Let us know in the comments below.

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What Are The Implications For At Risk Youth?

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What are the implications for at risk youthQ: OK, so I work with at risk youth. What implications does this have and how should I deal with it?

A: Working with at risk youth will often have implications that aren’t always immediately obvious, but are important to bear in mind. For example:

  • Youth living in foster care or group homes – They will often have a hard time trusting people and forming close relationships, especially if they’ve moved homes numerous times. This can often lead to problems at school as they’ve had to change schools multiple times, meaning they fall behind on learning and don’t get to build lasting relationships with school friends
  • Abused youth – If you’re a youth pastor or volunteer youth worker in a church, young people who have been abused by their father may well have a hard time relating to God as a father
  • Youth from low-income families – They may have a hard time concentrating for no other reason than that they’re hungry. It might also mean they’re bullied due to not having nice clothing
  • Youth with learning difficulties – If your programs involve a lot of sitting around and reading, there’s a far higher likelihood that they will be disruptive. This isn’t because they’re naughty, but because they’re unable to fully participate. Try to be sensitive to this and take into account different learning styles
  • Youth with physical disabilities – Try to include games and activities that they can participate in, rather than them having to sit out while everyone else has fun

It’s therefore important to also know your organization’s policy on how to handle disclosures of abuse and steps you can take to promote child protection.

What are the longer term implications?

  • Sexually Transmitted Infections – Young people with high sexual activity are more susceptible to STIs
  • Unemployment – Youth who are at risk will often struggle at school for all manner of reasons. This can in turn lead to them finding it hard to get a job due to a lack of qualifications
  • Crime – If they’re unable to make a living, they may turn to crime to gain an income
  • Relationships – If a young person has had troubled relationships with their family – or no relationships at all if moving from foster home to foster home – it’s likely they’ll have trouble forming longer term relationships
  • Sexuality – LGBT youth are more likely to end up homeless than heterosexual young people and subsequently encounter further risks as a result of being homeless

Needless to say, we think it’s important to be aware of at risk youth and be sensitive to their needs. However, it’s also important to remember that just because they’re at risk, it doesn’t mean that there’s no hope for them. Therefore, be wary of labelling young people as this can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question: What other implications are there for at risk youth? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

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What Does “At Risk Youth” Mean?

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What does at risk youth meanQ: I’ve heard this term used about quite a lot of young people, but what does “at risk youth” mean?

A: At its most basic, it means youth who are at risk – surprising, huh?! But “at risk” of what?

There are many risk factors that can lead to hazards in young peoples’ lives:

  • Poverty
  • Abuse (physical, sexual, mental, etc)
  • Crime
  • Poor schools
  • Living in foster care, group homes, etc
  • Bullying
  • Disabilities
  • Unstable home life
  • Learning difficulties
  • Drugs
  • Alcohol
  • Mental health
  • Sexuality

In short, this could mean that pretty much all youth are – to some extent – at risk. Like risk assessments though, some young people will be in a far higher risk situation than others.

How are youth identified as being at risk?

All youth in their lives have both risk factors (such as those listed above) and protective factors. Having a higher number of risk factors and lower number of protective factors in their life are good indicators of whether they should be deemed an “at risk youth”.

Protective factors can include:

  • Stable home life
  • Encouraging parents
  • Scholastic ability
  • Good teachers
  • Safe neighborhood
  • Learning social skills
  • Being taught life skills
  • Healthy lifestyle
  • Good diet
  • Access to services

How can we tell if they’re at risk?

As youth workers, we should try to be aware of any youth in our programs who are at risk. Sometimes these young people will be easy to identify, particularly if you work with a group that are generally regarded as being in a higher risk situation, such as foster youth, young offenders or students in low-income areas.

It can therefore sometimes be harder for youth workers like youth pastors to know which of their young people are at risk. There are some signs though that could indicate that youth are in more hazardous living situations:

  • Highly sexualized behavior – Might indicate sexual abuse
  • Wearing same clothes / clothes don’t fit / clothes have holes – Might be living in poverty
  • Unwilling to read anything out – Might have learning difficulties (although could just be shyness)
  • Extremely aggressive – Might indicate abuse of some kind
  • Wears clothing that covers body, even in hot weather – Might suffer from physical abuse and so trying to cover bruises. This can also be a sign that they self-harm (covering up cuts/burns) or that they suffer from sexual abuse (don’t want to draw attention to their body)

Next week, we’ll look at some of the implications of working with at risk youth.

Question: Do you work with at risk youth? What advice would you give to other youth workers on how to deal with these situations? Please share your advice in the comments below.

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Teaching Respect To Teenagers – Youth Work Session Idea

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Teaching respect to teenagersYoung people (and adults!) through the ages have had trouble respecting others. Today’s youth work session idea looks at ways you can approach teaching respect to teenagers and how to help them consider this issue more deeply.

Do & Don’t

One of the first steps in teaching respect to teenagers is to get them to think about people who they do respect and who they don’t.

To do this, divide a sheet of paper down the middle, with “Do Respect” on one side and “Don’t Respect” on the other. They should then think of all the different groups of people they know and place them in one of the two columns. This could either be done together as a group on some flipchart paper or individually on their own sheet of paper.

If they have a hard time thinking of different groups, here are some ideas to prompt them (not all of these may be applicable to your teenagers):

  • Brothers/sisters
  • Parents
  • Friends
  • Boyfriend/girlfriend
  • Teachers
  • Police
  • Social workers
  • Neighbors
  • Youth workers
  • Sports coach
  • Pastors
  • Movie stars
  • Pop stars
  • Sport stars

With movie stars, pop stars, etc, have them name specific celebrities, as this will help with the next section.

Why?

Now that they have a list of people who they do or don’t respect, the next step is to find out reasons why they feel that way about each group / person. Encourage them to be as specific as they can – instead of a reason being “Because they’re stupid”, have the teens elaborate on reasons why they think the group / person is stupid.

This can give you far more insight into why the young person may have such a hard time showing respect to certain people. For example, you may find out that the reason a young person hates the police so much is because they arrested their father for physically abusing them.

As this section could lead to personal and sensitive information being involved, it might be worth getting the youth to write their reasons down individually, so that it’s only you that will see their answers.

Who?

The next part of teaching respect is to reverse the situation. Ask them to list people who show them respect. You could in theory have them list people who don’t show them respect, but by focusing on people that respect them will help this part of the session remain positive, particularly as the first couple of steps could have been challenging for the teenagers.

As this is a more positive section, it should be OK doing this as a group rather than individually.

How?

Now that they have a list of people who show them respect, ask them for examples of how these people show them respect. Again, ask for specific examples – instead of “Because they’re nice to me”, try to have them explain exactly what it is that’s showed them respect. This could be their tone of voice, smiling at them, that they praise them when they work hard, etc.

Benefits

The next step when teaching respect to teenagers is to explore the benefits from both sides. What are the benefits when somebody respects them and what are the benefits when they respect others? For example:

When someone respects me…..

  • When my Dad respects me, it makes me happy
  • When a teacher respects me, it makes me work harder
  • When the police respect me, I don’t want to insult them
  • When my boyfriend respects me, it makes me love him more
  • When my sister respects me, it makes me want to play with her more

When I respect someone else…..

  • When I respect my teacher, I won’t get a detention
  • When I respect my sports coach, it might make him more likely to pick me for the team
  • When I respect my Mom, she won’t shout at me
  • When I respect my girlfriend, our relationship will get stronger
  • When I respect the police, I won’t get arrested for being mouthy

This activity could be done by giving each young person a pen and some post-it notes to write down their thoughts. These could then be stuck on the flipchart next to each person / group if you’ve been using a flipchart.

Positive Actions

The previous activity will hopefully have helped your teenagers to start internalizing some of the benefits of showing respect. This step will help them internalize ways that they can do this.

Provide each young person with some post-it notes and a pen (if they don’t have them from the previous activity). Get them to write down three ways that they could show respect to each person / group that was listed in the first activity, regardless of which column they were listed in.

On the flipchart, write each person / group on a separate sheet. Once the youth have come up with three ways to show respect to each person, have them stick the post-it notes around their name on the flipchart. Read out all the different options as you go along, so that your teenagers are teaching each other how to respect.

If they have a hard time coming up with ideas, explain that they could show respect through things they say or do, or maybe even things they don’t say or do.

Challenge

Finally, set them a challenge – to intentionally show respect to every person /group listed over the course of the next week (or until the next time your group is due to meet).

At your next meeting, get the youth to report back on how it went by asking some questions. These could include:

  • Who was it hardest to show respect to?
  • How did you show respect?
  • How did they react?
  • How did you benefit by showing them respect?
  • How did your relationship improve?

Try to focus on the positive as much as possible and celebrate their achievements, as this will encourage them to continue showing respect.

Question: What other tips do you have for teaching respect to teenagers? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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