This article is about exactly these questions: How can we involve parents in our work?

Finally Friday, and I get to leave my folks at home. Here I’m free, here’s my crew, and here’s the place where I don’t have to be embarrassed by my parents.

Sound familiar? It’s a typical reaction in my youth ministry. After all, it’s called youth ministry for a reason, not parent and child ministry. We like to separate people and offer the right program for every age. And that’s a good thing. Teens and young people need their own space and their own place. They want and need to be with their peers. But that doesn’t mean it always has to be that way. Paying attention to parents is one of the core tasks of our youth ministry. After all, parents entrust their child to you. Even if they might be pretty happy to have an evening to themselves.

There’s a lot of potential in working with parents. You get to know them, you learn more about your teens’ backgrounds, and in the season when parents become difficult, you can build a bridge between them and their kids.

I want to share 3 tips for how you can involve your teenagers’ parents.

An evening put on by teens for their parents

Organize a great evening for the parents. Invite them to a meal together, play music for them and play games together. Nothing boring, but games you can have a lot of fun with together. TV game shows like Minute to Win It are a great source of ideas. Play teens against parents, but also make mixed teams so teens and parents take on the challenge together. At the end of the evening, you can give a short talk where you share, for example, what you do in your youth group, which topics you tackle and what challenges are coming up next. Parents who don’t have much to do with church are often surprised at how good the youth ministry is for their kids. That breaks down prejudices, and you show the parents that they can trust you and your team. On an evening like this, the parents can see what great potential there is in their kids. And the teens get to show their parents what they can do. A good time for this evening is during a shared living week (a week when your teens live together at church and keep going to school from there), and you can prepare it with your teens while you’re living together.

Visit your teenagers at home

Tip #2 is a big one! Because for this you need your teens’ trust. When they welcome you into their home, into their very personal space, you can return that with a lot of appreciation. Set up a time with your teen and get to know them and their family. Go about it carefully, because this shouldn’t turn into a “home inspection.” If your teen doesn’t want it, don’t push. Ask about their family every now and then and how things are going at home. Offer help when there are problems, and suggest coming over as a mediator when things at home are turned upside down.

Do something together

How about a bike ride or a canoe trip together? Have a barbecue together, spend a whole day together full of adventure and good conversations. Sit around a campfire together, tell each other stories and get to know each other better.

Working with parents is above all about building bridges and investing time.

Offer to be there for the parents as someone they can talk to, and stay in touch with them. In my experience, parents are skeptical at first, and the teens are afraid of letting their parents too far into their world. It’s still worth it, because you and your team can do a lot to help parents and kids show each other more understanding in everyday situations.