Adults that dominate a mission trip

A common scenario on a mission trip involving youth: The adults are competent, skilled and committed to the mission; the youth are committed to the mission, unskilled and inexperienced. Therefore, when working on the project the adult pushes the youth to the side, either physically or politely (“let me show you how to do this”). After awhile the youth gets bored and starts “acting up” or “goofing off,” which makes the adult mad because they are working hard but the youth is not. Tensions rise. In the end, the youth has been robbed of a life-changing mission trip experience.

To avoid or to deal with this situation:

• Carefully explain to all the adults they need to allow the youth do work.
• On a youth mission trip, especially, I tell the adults that it is the youth's mission trip and the responsibility for serving the people in need belongs to the youth. The adults responsibility is to the youth, helping them have a good experience.
• Help the adult understand that teaching a youth how to do something is best done by guiding the youth not doing it for them.
• Keep the adult/youth ratio in a work team small. Hopefully give them a task that the adult can't do alone.
• Have a rule: no adults work until all the youth are working
• Call a dominating adult away from a work project to do something else