Surprises: Handling Complaints

Surprises will produce a certain amount of stress for youth and their parents. Above all other age groups, teens become stressed by new things – worrying about whether it is socially acceptable to like this new thing. This kind of stress often results in a fair amount of grumbling: "This is dumb"; "Do we have to?"; "We've never done this before." If the complaining falls into this category, simply acknowledge and good naturedly ignore. Many times I have heard a group of youths complain long and loud throughout an activity and I went home discouraged only to have them all show up at the next youth group meeting speaking of the activity as if it were the most enjoyable thing they'd ever done!

If, on the other hand, the complaint is justified, try to adjust the plan, and if it can't be adjusted, make the lemon into lemonade. On one Unknown Destination Trip, at the insistence of my local contact person, we went to a play. I had misgivings, but it was supposed to be "wonderful" and "just what teens would like." Actually, it was terrible: boring, poorly performed and completely out-of-sync with my kids. I admitted to them that it was a bad choice, but it wasn't anybody's "fault" and that our contact was truly trying to be helpful. So we joked and teased about it, and learned not to be mad or blaming. So, in the end, it wasn't a bad experience after all.