It is small group season once again and I could not be more excited! During small group season, each of our team members are assigned a few small group leaders to coach throughout the year. This year I got a bunch of freshmen boy group leaders—so fun!

We only got two weeks in before one of the freshmen leaders in my coaching group contacted me about how to keep order in his crazy group. I gave him a few of the classic tips (playing sports before to tucker them out, taking away certain privileges, and asking disruptive students to take a break from group for a week), but I wanted to give him more creative tips as well. I am convinced that my small group consisted of the WORST behaved freshmen of all time so I had a couple tricks up my sleeve. Here is my favorite one:

During group, if a student was being loud or disruptive, I would nominate them for “the worst behaved of the night.” At the end of the night, we would normally have about 3 nominees for the title. From there, I gave each of them 15 seconds to make a speech to the group about why they shouldn’t be “the worst behaved of the night” and after all the speeches the group would vote. The student who got the most votes had to clean up the entire room.

I loved it because it was discipline in disguise. It was something the students took seriously, but had a lot of fun with, as well. I want to know about the creative ways that you have kept order in your group.

What are some tips you would give to small group leaders that are losing control?

Colton

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