Is this Acceptable?

If your youth group was on a trip and had to stay in a hotel for the duration of the trip.... would you feel that it would be acceptable for some of the young teenagers to be put in a room by themselves at the hotel, nowhere near the rest of the youth group and adult sponsors?

I do not think it is. The adults should be with them (at least one, preferably of the same sex) at all times. Now if they are in a house or church and in a different room that is different. But at a hotel, an adult should be in the room with them.

That's not something i would allow, primarily because there would be no supervision. Even the best behaved youth kids can get a bit roudy, lol. The other thing to consider is that it separates your group a bit, and I know it's only for nights but there seems to be some disconnection re: evening activities in rooms, when that happens.

Rob

NOPE! They need constant supervision for their protection, your protection and the Church's protection. Things happen.

Thanks to those who have responded so far... I'd still like to read more responses and somewhat "survey" the group.

My concerns stem from this actually happening in my church with a group of teen and preteen girls (ages 11-13). The the girls were put in a room totally removed from the rest of the other youth and adults (not even the same floor). I felt this was unacceptable, but I know that it is difficult for we, moms, to separate our emotional response from intellectual one. I was thinking danger, danger, danger and so this upset me very much! I wanted to get opinions of those who are not emotionally involved.

Can you tell me what you believe is appropriate action to take with the youth minister who made this decision? I've been all over the board from speaking with him about it, to speaking to the senior pastor, to not letter my daughter go on youth trips, to not saying anything NOW but checking before they leave for the next youth trip about rooming arrangements.

I think that the seperation from the rest of the group is certainly bad, but I think that the idea that an adult must be staying in each room is highly unrealistic, wouldn't be much of a youth trip if there were as many adults as children. Some reasonable precautions should be taken, such as having only single sex room assignments and taping the door (putting a small piece of masking tape across the seal of the door so that the kids know not to leave without a darn good reason, that's what was done when I was on my 8th grade trip to Washington D.C)

I think that the seperation from the rest of the group is certainly bad, but I think that the idea that an adult must be staying in each room is highly unrealistic, wouldn't be much of a youth trip if there were as many adults as children. Some reasonable precautions should be taken, such as having only single sex room assignments and taping the door (putting a small piece of masking tape across the seal of the door so that the kids know not to leave without a darn good reason, that's what was done when I was on my 8th grade trip to Washington D.C)

If an adult can not be in every room, then they should at least all be on the same floor, with girls seperated from boys. Boys should be on one end, Girls on the other, with Leaders in between. When i was a leader, we always found places to stay that were big enough to fit 5-10 in each room so that at least one leader did sleep in each room. But they should never be on seperate floors, that is unacceptable. Possibly have girls on one floor, boys on the other though.

Well...I am going to be the odd ball. I have on many occasions not been able to get a hotel where we were all right together. I also have senior youth leaders who are High School seniors whom I trust and have been leaders. When this has happened, I first get the permission from those leaders parents and put them in a room together. Alot of times, it gives them times to get time to fellowship together about a project I have one or all of them working on in the near future. I will say that once I had a young lady who was in this situation who wanted to sneak out, because she wanted to go swimming in the middle of the night...or really it was midnight, but it was still past curfew. The other four people in her room reported her and her parents had to come and get her from where we were going. They were not happy with her either, because we were about 14 hours away. But that is the rule, if you break one of them, your parents come and get you.


But it does give the senior youth the responsibility that they have worked hard to get. Your right though, even the best of kids get tempted and some respond negatively, such as this young person that I refer to, but the rest of them looked out for her and reached out for help, when they couldn't get her to listen to them. And by the way, this young person, is now a mom of two and a Sunday School teacher at our parish and does a lot of work with the youth and myself. This happened about 15 years ago and she thanks me to this day for trusting her, then caring enough to reprimand her and then loving her enough to forgive her. It has had a huge positive impact on her and the others that were with her.

mamaknozbest said:

If your youth group was on a trip and had to stay in a hotel for the duration of the trip.... would you feel that it would be acceptable for some of the young teenagers to be put in a room by themselves at the hotel, nowhere near the rest of the youth group and adult sponsors?

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In a hotel, especially in a different place to their home town/city, the children should be all together (same sex only) with at least one adult of the same sex in each room. If there are more children, then two adults should be in the room. They should be supervised at all times.

If anything were to happen, it would be totally the adults' fault. If the adults are the guardians on the trip, the adults must be there to supervise. You can't supervise and be responsible for the behaviour and safety of youth if you aren't even in the same room.

One hint is try staying at churches. It is cheaper than hotels, and you can get bigger rooms so all guys in one room, all girls in another. I have done this on several occasions and it works great.

This has been very interesting for me to read, as my son is right now, at this very moment, away on a youth retreat.

If he returned with the news you mentioned, I would be very unhappy. I agree with your words - Danger! Danger! Danger!

If this was an unavoidable situation at the hotel, then an adult female should have stayed with them. No two ways about it. Or, they should have been put up on the floor with the rest of the group and boys with a male leader could have stayed in that room.

The safety of the young people is first. Period!

I think the only young people I would have considered putting in such a situation would be much older high school kids - such as juniors or seniors who had a known record for being very responsible kids. Afterall, a high school senior is just about ready to go off to college anyway. But I still wouldn't be happy with even them be separated off from the group. They go away to be together.

They are immature by the nature of their ages. I assume they came home alright, but what if they had made a bad decision, such as opening the door to a stranger, or leaving the room and encountering problematic hotel guests? Who was there to protect them from making a bad decision?

I'm not sure who I'd speak with, many churches have different types of chains of command, so to speak. Are other parents upset as well? I would think there may be parents at your church who would be upset even if it wasn't their own child.

I think I would approach this in a united way and together. Does you church have a set of regulations or rules about how things are handled with regards to youth events? (FYI - around here, you can't work with the youth unless you've had a criminal background check, so things are very strict.) If you don't have rules to cover situations such as this, perhaps this is something really good that can come out of the situation - a guidebook on youth events and so forth.

I would be hesitant to send my child on another retreat unless I had been assured this problem had been ironed out.

Hopefully your church will be very open to working this out with you. Don't forget, you are the parents and it's up to you to turn your authority over to people who will behave with responsibility. Ultimately, YOU are responsible to God for your children.

God Bless you.

By the way, I meant to mention and then forgot -

Welcome to the Christian Forums!

I know I just posted twice, but something else just occurred to me...

Those young ladies, who you said were ages 11-13 (Let's not forget just how young they are) could not have walked into that hotel and rented that room on their own. The management would have told them they were too young and turned them away.

But in essense, that's the position they were put into - as if they had walked in on their own and were all by themselves.

I am a youth sponsor and our group is blessed to have quite a few sponsors for as many students as we have. Anyhow our rules in hotels are 1 sponsor per room of the same sex. We have a curfew usually around 10:30-11pm depending on when we have to get up. If any of the kids want to go to a gas station next to get snacks or restaraunt then we usually have 1 sponsor for every 5 kids in the group. I think in your case I would go to the person responsible for making the arrangements and ask them why they did. If your not satisfied with their response go to the pastor.

I've been to two National Youth Gatherings for the ELCA. The first, I was young - just a freshman out of high school, and we STAYED with a sponsor and since we couldn't find a male chaperone, the guys had to stay in the room that was connected to ours.

The second one, I was 18. Two others were in the room with me. One was also 18 and the other was younger, so there were legally two adults, even though we were there as "youth."

Letting such young girls stay alone is NOT a good idea! There should've been a chaperone and if on a trip with another church or with a group that's coordinated the event, if you can't find a sponsor, talk to the others and see if you can trade kids. . .and the sponsor HAS to be with them. . .for example:

Church A - male Sponsor, two male youth, one female youth
Church B - female sponsor - two male youth, two female youth

During the day, keep your own youth - at the hotel meet each other, let Church B's sponsor take all the females and Chuch A's sponsor take all the males.

Then, meet up in the morning and go your way as your own youth group. If more comfortable male/female all the time, just meet up and stay that way until it is time to leave.

Stein Auf!
Bridget

Is this Acceptable?



If your youth group was on a trip and had to stay in a hotel for the duration of the trip.... would you feel that it would be acceptable for some of the young teenagers to be put in a room by themselves at the hotel, nowhere near the rest of the youth group and adult sponsors?

Click to expand...

I know that the younger teens in my youth group would actually be quite upset if they were isolated from the rest of the group.
If it's a matter of space and having enough room for every one put some of the trusted older teens in rooms away from the group and possibly have one or two of the adult sponsors there with them too.

Do I think it's acceptable for them to stay without a sponsor in a room all night long? No, I don't. Even good kids/teens/youth make bad choices. I've always made sure that the youth have sponsors for each room~ in fact it's planned before we go. If a sponsor doesn't show up, the kids going into that room are divided amongst the others.

Personally I would weigh up the situation and evaluate it all BEFORE hand, and consider things like the group, who they are, how they behave etc etc ... I would also very much encourage to be checking with church or youth policy on many of the things discussed here!!

Personally I do think it is important to have policy on such things, and for it all to be laid out BEFORE a trip happens, so parents can be aware of what is being set up and how the weekend will be, inc arrangements such as rooms etc.

I have never been in a situ where hotels have been used as we always use other churches or residential areas where the YP have dorms and large rooms, with leader rooms attached or next door.

I think it would be extremely important to check on the legality of it all!

Starr