Dealing with “difficult” teenagers in your youth group
Their motives aren’t always the same. Some simply haven’t had enough exercise that day. Others want to assert themselves somehow and don’t know yet that they’re accepted in your group just as they are. Still others have conditions that make it impossible for them to sit and listen quietly for a while. But what can you do to get them to settle down? We asked the Pulse hive mind and got some interesting answers.
Use the X pattern
The X pattern works like this: before your kids have to be quiet, they get to be loud first. Before they’re supposed to listen, they get to talk, laugh, dance or run first. At the start of the session, the action level is high and the content is low. Then the action keeps decreasing and the content keeps increasing. Like an X. Most youth groups probably already work this way, but with the X it sounds even better 😇.
Meet their needs
Why does the X pattern work so well? Because it lets you earn the right to be heard. You treat your teenagers as equals and show them that their needs matter to you. So you FIRST give them what their age group needs most: action, games, community and a sense of belonging. Kids with ADHD aren’t the only ones who benefit. Teenagers want to be seen and to be heard.
What works in practice
✅ Fast-paced games that involve as many people as possible. For example, Minute to Win It games. And of course the Pulse games work great for this. Take a look!
✅ Games or activities that encourage sharing and let everyone take a turn talking and a turn listening. Ask your teenagers to pair up and tell each other about the highs and lows of their past week. That way you also make sure no teen gets lost in the group.
Just imagine: a teen comes to your group, joins in everything, leaves at the end, and nobody knows how they’re actually doing.
✅ Games that direct the teenagers’ attention to the front. That could be a raffle, with tickets for everyone. Or an action puzzle that the leader presents. Or the teenagers can drop questions into a box, which then get answered up front.
✅ The point about needs applies to the input itself too, of course. Take the kids along into an adventure story, or into your personal life. Involve the kids in your input: ask questions and let them answer. Through concrete tasks or questions, help them take something away for themselves at the end.
To sum it up in three rhyming words:
- Hook (a story)
- Look (looking at Jesus)
- Took (what will you do with it?)
Keep it short
Okay, now comes the moment when you need quiet. You’ve met their needs, so now the kids had better listen to you for a change. Even if it’s only because you want to explain a slightly complicated outdoor game. BUT: their attention span is so short. So get to the point quickly, ideally in 15 minutes max. (Did we say that briefly enough? 😜)
Make agreements
With some troublemakers, it pays to make agreements ahead of time. Ideally ones that give them responsibility, put something in their hands or keep them busy in some other way. For example:
- Can you hold the cloth I’m hiding the props for my talk under?
- Can you squeeze this ball while I give my talk? Or solve the Rubik’s Cube, or build with Lego?
- Can you start thinking about the best way to split into groups for the discussion afterward and write it down for me?
Find helpers
You use the principle of so-called “floor leadership” so that you don’t have to call out your troublemakers directly from the stage. That would only give them even more attention, and you’d be putting them on the spot as well.
Use floor leadership: You look for helpers, talk the situation through with them beforehand, and have them spread out among the teenagers in the room. When a teenager starts getting restless, the helper can take care of them. To a teenager like that, a helper might whisper something like:
Hey, we only need one person running the program. The guy up front is doing that right now, so you don’t need to run a program too.
This low-key method is especially worthwhile when kids with physical or mental health challenges are there. If someone who already knows you, and already knows that they matter to you, keeps disrupting, you can address them directly from the stage if you have to:
Luca, don’t you notice that you’re being disruptive right now?
What else is worth mentioning? Relationship matters. In youth ministry it actually matters even more than content, because kids learn more from the way we treat them than from what we tell them. Try to focus less on your content and more on their needs.
So take the time, hold a 15-minute meeting* with yourself and think about everything you could do to deal helpfully with your little fidgeters (boys and girls alike!).
Have fun trying it out!
*Only 15 minutes, because of the attention span 😆
English version: October 2026
