Help needed with Sunday school issue please!

[hockeymum]

Volunteered to be on a rota to lead the reception age children's sunday school one sunday in three which includes my dd (age 4). I have 3 girls, who are all well behaved, love to do the crafts and colouring in and vaguelly listen to what I say. I have 7 boys who (apart from one lovely well behaved lad) are universally atrocious! They do not listen,they cant sit still, they fight, won't colour, spill their drink, do silly things. I just could not cope with them at all. I had a "helper" helping me but she has no idea what to do with them and won't even raise her voice to get their attention.

I have come home and opened a bottle of wine (which I never do at lunchtime!)

Does anyone else lead a group who can give me ideas. Do I need to ask them to separate the group before the difficult boys ruin it for the rest of them, or do I need to recruit some loud men to sort them all out.

At the moment I'm considering jacking it all in and am now panicked that I have a DS who might grow up like these nightmare boys! can he stay a baby forever please!

Tell the children's parents that if they want them to go into Sunday school, they will have to send one adult per family in with them, for the foreseeable future.

You could say this to all the parents, then let the children 'graduate' to being left alone once they have proved they can behave well enough.

Maybe even give them stickers or a certificate as something to aim for.

Let the parents be responsible for monitoring the behaviour of their own children, whilst you get on with running the sunday school.

These children are very young, and you shouldn't be expected to look after 10 reception age children alone - or with one ineffective helper.

If you don't take a stand now then you may end up feeling put upon and resentful, or you may feel inclined to give it up altogether, which would be a shame.

I think you have to change your expectations to be honest. Some reception aged girls are very mature and sensible, many boys at this age are not. Personally I find "colouring-in" tediously boring, and am constantly surprised how much some children - especially girls aged 4-6 enjoy it! Most boys of this age do not, it's not unusual.

If you really can't cope with them, I would de-volunteer yourself. You may find it easier to help in a group which doesn't have your dd in it, as then you won't make comparisons.

However a few tips I would try:

Have really firm routines, and clear rules and boundaries, with consequences. LOADS of praise and encouragement. Get some stickers or stampers as rewards.

I would get some small mats to put on the floor and give them all one each to sit on. Each time you want to give them an instruction, or listen to a story they have to sit on their mats. Give a sticker to the child who is sitting nicely on their mat first. A third of the way into the story, stop, and say "Well done Harry, you are listening beautifully" or similar. Thank you Thomas for putting your hand up to answer the question, that's super, and is much better than everybody shouting out.

When you tell a story use puppets or toys or big pictures. Hand them out to the children as you tell the story.

Use lots of songs and action games and rhymes. Make sure they have opportunities to jump about a bit and use their bodies.

If they are being noisy when you need them to be quiet then start talking very quietly, don't allow yourself to get louder.

When they have a snack it must be very controlled. Everyone must be sitting on a chair at a table, say please and thank you for drink and snacks; and they have 3 minutes to eat it, then they are cleared away, so there are no possibilities to spill drinks.

Make sure you give the children jobs and responsibilities, and thank and praise them at every possibility.

You may want to set up a star chart of some sort where the children get to colour in a square each time you want to reward them. Many boys are very competitive, and will go for this in a big way. Then look for every opportunity to praise and reward them, rather than to criticize and tell them off.

You will probably find that as they spend more time in reception at school that they soon settle down and become easier to manage.

FINALLY! Just think of your dd's poor teacher at school who has to manage 30 children all day every day, and buy him/her a big Christmas present

I lead our Sunday School, and we ask that any child aged 5 or under brings an adult with them.

That way, we all get to enjoy the activities together, and I get more help!

Do you out the activities for the sessions together yourself, or do you get them given to you? If you get the chance, try to do less of the colouring, and more of a variety of activities - in our Sunday School, we do a lot of drama, singing, and physical activities, as well as the sitting quietly type of activities.

Good luck.
Eirian

We start with ground rules each week, just as a reminder for everyone. We especially cover the need to listen carefully, and have a competition - when one of the leaders put up their hands they start counting to see how long it takes for all the children to be quiet and also raise their hands.

What activities do you do? We usually start with 20 minutes of free play, and, in addition to colouring in, always have lego, cars or trains, and a selection of Orchard Games available. We also have a selection of Barbies for the girls (as well as ds2).

First thing after free play and before snack we have news time. This lets everyone get what they need to say out of their system before we ask them to concentrate.

Snack time - sitting at table. Then back to carpet timme for story and teaching. Getting the children to act stuff out is very helpful. Our craft activity tends to be the last activity of the day, and if we feel that the boys are playing up we may curtail this and go back for some singing.

If someone is exceptionally badly behaved they are brought out to their parents. I'm not convinced about wanting all parents in for this age tbh.

I used to help at a pram service and I have to say what you describe seems pretty typical for pre-school boys. I agree with going for more physical activities - dancing, music, singing - and we also found the boys enjoyed 3-d crafts e.g model making, using building bricks etc. (You can illustrate all sorts of points with bricks!)

I think asking for a couple of parents to help each session would be fine, they could draw up a rota. I know you already have one but you do have too many children in one go and need to set a limit. Have you spoken to the other volunteers about how they find it?