Back in the day when I was a youth, some popular Christian bands came out with songs about girls. Relient K requested “emotional girls should all wear mood rings” and Family Force 5 vented about drama queens. For us girls, it may be a hard fact to face, but to a certain extent these things can be true. Emotions and girls go hand in hand. It’s a part of how God uniquely designed us as females. One might say it allows for insight into the compassionate and empathetic character of God. It can be a very good thing because it prompts us into becoming women who are concerned, caring and loving toward others. There are times, though, when our emotions get the best of us and create drama.
To echo Family Force 5, “too much drama for me, mama,” can be destructive for an otherwise cohesive youth ministry program. How do we avoid this trap that our girls sometimes fall into? What do we do with our overly emotional young women in our ministries?
I’ll never forget the first time I experienced a student who was truly depressed and suicidal. Scary, heartbreaking, overwhelming. Just a few of the emotions I myself began to experience. This is a very real problem in many youth today and requires great insight, wisdom and professional help. However, after this first student went through all the agonizing pain of being caught in a depression she couldn’t handle on her own, we had a string of copy cats. Suddenly, it seemed every girl was depressed, had an eating disorder, was a cutter and needed the some type of extra attention. They walked into a meeting and immediately began crying or showed me where they had been cutting during the previous week. It took me awhile to see where the problems really were stemming from. Many of these girls just wanted attention and found the best way to get it was from a negative behavior. Below are a few insights that enabled me to help these girls as much as I was able.
• Do your research. There are so many wonderful publications that will help you identify those students in your ministry who are suffering from intense pain and anguish. Many will give you characteristics to look for typically associated with depression, eating disorders and cutting. If you have a student you are concerned about, seek professional guidance and counseling for yourself, your student and the family involved.
• Discern and Pray. It took me awhile to realize many of the girls in our group were struggling more with copy cat behavior to get attention rather than a mental health problem. Some of the clues were the girls were more than happy to report to me that they hadn’t eaten anything or had spent the night crying. Typically, those who have an eating disorder or struggle with cutting hide their problem. These girls were advertising it to anyone who would listen. Obviously, engaging in these self-destructive behaviors is a cause for concern no matter the reason, but some of solutions were easier to address than deeply imbedded problems and issues those students who are seriously struggling face.
• Remove the attention seekers and offer prayer. One of the ways I found most effective in putting an end to the attention-seeking behavior was to remove them from the group setting. Girls — because so many are naturally nurturing and compassionate — tend to flock around someone who is suffering or struggling in tears to offer support. This is a good thing overall, but for a girl who wants this kind of attention, it is creating exactly what she is craving. Instead of letting the other girls in the group minister to someone who is visibly upset, I started to remove them from the room. An adult leader would take them to another area to talk with them and offer comfort and support. The key was to offer more prayer than conversation. By turning everything to prayer, it accomplished three things. First, if the student was really struggling, she was very appreciative and in need of the prayer. If it was for attention purposes, they got tired of the constant prayer after two or three times of that happening. Finally, praying more than speaking let God’s voice be heard over anything else. It helped in discerning the needs of the girl and the best way to support her in overcoming what she was facing.
• Look for ways to provide positive attention. What many of these girls really need is help in getting attention in ways that show off the gifts God has given to them. As Scripture reminds us, some of us have gifts in teaching, others in mentoring and some in hospitality. God has given each of our youth a gift to use. Helping them find and use their gifts can replace the negative, destructive behavior with positive, life-building behavior. Instead of receiving attention for crying and being emotional, maybe they will receive praise for giving a talk or using their skills as an actress in a skit. Something as simple as being on the welcoming committee or creating a flyer for an upcoming event can be the thing that helps move these girls away from depression and darkness and into the light of Christ. Giving the girls a role and responsibility in your group will allow them to feel accepted and needed.
• Teach about the gift of emotions. Our emotions don’t always have to be something that brings us or others down. Joy and laughter can be more powerful than tears. Talk to your girls about what a gift our emotions are and can be in our lives. Allow them to see we can use our own emotions to comfort others and bring love into this world. Encourage them to strive to be in control of expressing emotions and aware of how their emotions might affect those around them.
It would be too easy to ask every girl in our group to wear a mood ring so youth ministers knew what was going on in them; but through prayer and discernment, we can help these girls overcome the types of emotions that are holding them back from experiencing all that God desires for them. We can teach them to seek attention that always will bring glory to God and uplift those around us.
