There are a lot of really cool things about being a Youth pastor. I get to have lots of fun doing something I love. Not a lot of people can say that about their jobs. I get to help shape the lives of young men and women, even fewer people get to say that. I could go on and on but right now I want to talk about one major drawback.

My 5 year old daughter loves the Youth and they love her. She likes to head in with my early on Youth night and stay with me late. She rides on the boys skate boards and hangs out with the girls. She is starting to talk about clothes and makeup with these girls. Trust me, this is a huge problem.

A couple weeks ago she was sitting out with a group of young teen girls while they were talking about relationships and friends and such. One of the girls she was talking about had the same name as her so she thought they were talking about her. Apparently she seems to think one of the girls is like her older sister or something. They commented that the girl’s step sister (who has the same name as my daughter) looks nothing like her. My daughter yells out in a perfect teen girl tude voice, “we have the same hair.” Admittedly the two do have similar hair but that is about as far as the resemblance goes. My 5 year old only needs that much apparently.

I do worry that she is going to have her little heart broken if there is some kind of falling out between her friends in the Youth group and some of the girls stop coming. I know this is a real possibility. Just last weekend one of the newer girls became pariah because of a big teen meltdown and so she isn’t going to be coming any more. Fortunately for my daughter she didn’t get close to this girl but I do worry for her.

I don’t want to hold her back. I think it is really cool that she gets to see some of these things before she goes through them. We talk on the way to and from church about this and she is really starting to get it. BTW Helen, you can’t have this one. She is really starting to get cool and interesting. I’ll send you the other girl but you’ll be sending her back. The look is only getting stronger. Soon we’ll have to register her as a lethal weapon.

Anyways, I’m getting distracted so I’ll leave it as that.

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I’m afraid for my kids if it is. This week my kids decided to behave like stereotypical pastor’s kids. Well, not the baby but what can he do?

Wednesday my daughter got 3 demerits at school (4 equals detention) and one of those was from hitting her best friend. What on earth?

Then my son finished destroying his nap mat. OK, I admit I hate the way they handle the whole nap situation. The boy doesn’t take a nap unless he is ill. My oldest is the same but her teacher will make her lay quietly for 15 minutes then let her get a toy that doesn’t make noise or a book to keep herself entertained. His teacher makes him lay on his mat and not move for 2 hours. Can you imagine lying still for 2 hours wide awake? Now imagine being a 4 year old. Yeah pretty bad, but still I hate that he destroys stuff. OK sure I destroyed plenty but that is different. I was bored and bad things happen when I’m bored. (Like I said I’m concerned ADHD is genetic).

Anyways, my daughter just started the daycare and wouldn’t you know it, she got in trouble on Wednesday too. She normally takes a nap. If she doesn’t she gets very cranky. For some reason she doesn’t take her nap at day care. I think the change in setting is the issue. She has been pretty good except for Wednesday. She decided to moon the class. She pulled her pants and panties down and had her legs up over her head wagging her bare butt in the air. Maybe streaking is genetic too?

I’m hoping it is just spring fever and that they will settle back down to their normal well behaved selves soon. Anyone else having crazy kid issues? What about when you kids were younger?

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Normally I focus this blog on ministry related things. That is kind of the point since I named it “My Experience as Youth Pastor.” I have some pretty cool kids though. If you don’t know I have 4 kids from 8 months old to 5 years old. Life tends to be hectic but fun. They are so funny but the oldest is really the most interesting right now. She is just starting to get jokes. She would laugh at stuff before but never really jokes unless others laughed and she was just laughing along.

I don’t know if you’ve had kids yet but they go through several stages of humor and understanding jokes is one of the later stages. My mother-in-law still doesn’t quite get it. It is so funny watching her think through a joke and laugh about it when she understands the play on words, but it is even funnier watching her try to make her own humor.

She is starting to tell knock knock jokes, but doesn’t fully understand what makes things funny. Here is one she told me the other day:

Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Me.
Me who?
Just me silly.

Followed by much laughter from her. She also tries playing jokes. Her teacher was sharing with me today about some of her jokes during class. She kept asking questions during the test and the teacher couldn’t answer them. In the past she has really struggled with her phonics tests in large part due to a speech problem she has and so asked these kinds of questions. Her teacher has always had to tell her she can’t answer them for her on the test and will say “what do you think it is?” Her teacher has expressed to me in the past how bad she feels to see her struggling with the test and unable to tell her the answers to the questions she asked. My daughter played on these emotions asking her time and time again during this test only to respond with “gotcha” and marking the right answers. She totally aced the test and also got a major sarcasm bonus.

She is really catching up in phonics and reading, doing great in numbers and math, and performing at a 5^th grade level in sarcasm. I can’t tell you how proud I am of my daughter.

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