“And Max said, ‘I’ll eat you up.’”… Behaviors that HAVE to be Addressed

This post is part of a series on behavior management in Children’s Ministry called “Where the Wild Things Are.” You can read other posts here and here.

When you are dealing with a whole classroom or a whole children’s worship service full of kids there is an over-abundance of behaviors that you could address.  You could spend your whole time correcting behaviors, but that would be silly.  Here are the behaviors that we address IMMEDIATELY in Westwood Kids.

-  Anything that will hurt someone – Of course, any action that presents the danger of a child injuring himself, another child, or an adult must be addressed immediately.  No child or adult wants to be somewhere where they do not feel physically safe.  We have had kids go home and tell mom and dad that they didn’t want to come back because a child hit them or pinched them.  We missed it so we didn’t correct it, so the child felt unsafe.  This CAN’T happen.

-  Bullying or belittling – Emotional safety is just as important as physical.  Kids can be so ugly to each other, but church needs to be their safe place. We do not tolerate anyone making fun of anyone else.

-  Over-the-top disrespect of adults – Our volunteers are precious and give of their time and energy to serve our kids.  Of course kids will never give them the respect they deserve, and alot of what they say will come out rude.  However, blatant disrespect can’t be ok in our environment.  We treat each other with love, and that includes grown ups.  As the leader, keep an eye on the sweet, super gentle volunteer who will likely not correct disrespect.  You be the champion of the grown-ups in your care.  You want them to come back too!

- Distracting others from learning – I have told many kids over the years, “It is your choice not to participate in worship (or your choice not to learn from the lesson) but you don’t get to keep others from participating/learning.”  We can not control a child’s desire to connect with God.  Even if we’ve created the best, most fun environment on the planet, there will still be kids who “don’t like it”.  But, we can not let them ruin the experience for everyone else.