Did Face to Face answer questions?


carlimac
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At first I thought, oh dear this is not helping! Why do we need to define what kids do anyway under the label of a church program? But by the end when they announced the medallions and plugged in the numbers I thought, ok this makes more sense as a “program” or “initiative” as they call it. 

I’m still thinking the transition will be brutal for some wards. And Personal Progress was just a catchier title than “Children and Youth”. Again, kids who respond to goal challenges will like it. Others who just want to do their own thing without tracking progress may feel nagged by it. I guess it will be helpful for some who struggle with motivation or just don’t know where to start with self improvement. 

Also, as with ministering, I still feel Church leadership doesn’t trust us because we have to be assigned to serve each other and because there has to be a structured program to teach our children how to improve their lives.  Does this mean we we’re still unwise because we have to be compelled to do this stuff?

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19 minutes ago, carlimac said:

At first I thought, oh dear this is not helping! Why do we need to define what kids do anyway under the label of a church program? But by the end when they announced the medallions and plugged in the numbers I thought, ok this makes more sense as a “program” or “initiative” as they call it. 

It's a way on integrating the Gospel into a person's whole life-- doing the things you do, incorporating spirituality and formal goal making, and then a visible reward.  It's a good system.  

Honestly, the structure for the new program is much like we did for the 2 years I taught Activity Days and that program went over fabulously.  Scouts in the same ward, on the other hand, was a constant disaster with 4 times the adults involved and 10 times the budget.  

19 minutes ago, carlimac said:

I’m still thinking the transition will be brutal for some wards.

That is true.  Life will move and, and I believe for the better, but some folks will have a majorly rough transition.  

19 minutes ago, carlimac said:

Also, as with ministering, I still feel Church leadership doesn’t trust us because we have to be assigned to serve each other and because there has to be a structured program to teach our children how to improve their lives.  Does this mean we we’re still unwise because we have to be compelled to do this stuff?

The assignments are simply to make sure no one falls through the cracks-- because let's face it, we're humans and we forget things/people.  And while there is a program, I wouldn't call it compulsion or overly structured, rather I find it to be extremely individual/family driven.  Pretty much the opposite of a very structured to-do list.

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As I understood it:

1) Scrap everything

2) Find our what the youth WANT. Don’t impose goals and standards on them. find out where they are interested in and what they want to accomplish. No arbitrary goals or goals set by others.

3) base activities around creating a healthy relationship with everyone and accomplishing their goals

4) All youth run. (Will likely need some coaxing in some circumstances)

Everything else talked about we’re just tools to accomplish this

Edited by Fether
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8 hours ago, Fether said:

Find our what the youth WANT

That's crucial. I had firsthand experience with that yesterday.

Like I mentioned, my wife is heavily involved in a Masonic youth organization. Like many other groups, they struggle with attendance and inactivity. The old people in the group want the girls to do things they just aren't interested in anymore. Worse, when someone suggests rock climbing,or something that isn't "traditional" the old people who run the group usually shoot it down.  They are unable to comprehend that in 2019, not many young girls want to do things that young girls wanted to do in 1959. It's the same with boys too. Their situation is bit like Best Buy continuing to sell cassette tapes in modern times than wondering why no one is buying them. 

So, my wife forced them to have a video game night after an official meeting yesterday. We hooked up an old Gamecube and they played Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc. Guess what? Record attendance, they had a ball, and no, Satan didn't make a guest appearance. Imagine that. You create activities that youth actually want to do, and people show up and have fun. 

Edited by MormonGator
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2 hours ago, MormonGator said:

That's crucial. I had firsthand experience with that yesterday.

Like I mentioned, my wife is heavily involved in a Masonic youth organization. Like many other groups, they struggle with attendance and inactivity. The old people in the group want the girls to do things they just aren't interested in anymore. Worse, when someone suggests rock climbing,or something that isn't "traditional" the old people who run the group usually shoot it down.  They are unable to comprehend that in 2019, not many young girls want to do things that young girls wanted to do in 1959. It's the same with boys too. Their situation is bit like Best Buy continuing to sell cassette tapes in modern times than wondering why no one is buying them. 

So, my wife forced them to have a video game night after an official meeting yesterday. We hooked up an old Gamecube and they played Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc. Guess what? Record attendance, they had a ball, and no, Satan didn't make a guest appearance. Imagine that. You create activities that youth actually want to do, and people show up and have fun. 

Ya, there are a lot of tools and opportunities that I’m sure the church has dumped lots of money and preparation in to allow the best opportunity for the youth to grow... but with every one of them, they leaned on some variation of “if they want to use this they can. They dont have to.”

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13 hours ago, carlimac said:

At first I thought, oh dear this is not helping! Why do we need to define what kids do anyway under the label of a church program? But by the end when they announced the medallions and plugged in the numbers I thought, ok this makes more sense as a “program” or “initiative” as they call it. 

I’m still thinking the transition will be brutal for some wards. And Personal Progress was just a catchier title than “Children and Youth”. Again, kids who respond to goal challenges will like it. Others who just want to do their own thing without tracking progress may feel nagged by it. I guess it will be helpful for some who struggle with motivation or just don’t know where to start with self improvement. 

Also, as with ministering, I still feel Church leadership doesn’t trust us because we have to be assigned to serve each other and because there has to be a structured program to teach our children how to improve their lives.  Does this mean we we’re still unwise because we have to be compelled to do this stuff?

I am of the opinion that the changes are an effort to prepare us for something unexpected (to us) that is coming.

 

The Traveler

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1 hour ago, Fether said:

Ya, there are a lot of tools and opportunities that I’m sure the church has dumped lots of money and preparation in to allow the best opportunity for the youth to grow... but with every one of them, they leaned on some variation of “if they want to use this they can. They dont have to.”

One of the saddest things I ever heard in the church was when a woman who was "in the heart of Mormon country" (her words) said, "No one shows up for young womens events, and it's our fault. The church lets the boys go camping, white water rafting, go to football games-and lets the girls stay in the ward talking about their weddings and being mommies." The might have worked 50 years ago. It doesn't work today. 

I don't have children, but I am blessed to have several nieces and some of my friends have daughters who I consider nieces. None of them are secular, none of them are SJWs-but all of them would never attend a group that did treated the genders so differently. 

Edited by MormonGator
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5 hours ago, MormonGator said:

So, my wife forced them to have a video game night after an official meeting yesterday. We hooked up an old Gamecube and they played Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc. Guess what? Record attendance, they had a ball, and no, Satan didn't make a guest appearance. Imagine that. You create activities that youth actually want to do, and people show up and have fun.

And just how did you manage to get your motorsickle up there on the high dive?

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14 hours ago, Fether said:

As I understood it:

1) Scrap everything

2) Find our what the youth WANT. Don’t impose goals and standards on them. find out where they are interested in and what they want to accomplish. No arbitrary goals or goals set by others.

3) base activities around creating a healthy relationship with everyone and accomplishing their goals

4) All youth run. (Will likely need some coaxing in some circumstances)

Everything else talked about we’re just tools to accomplish this

The new plan seems to be that there is no plan. 

 

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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

One of the saddest things I ever heard in the church was when a woman who was "in the heart of Mormon country" (her words) said, "No one shows up for young womens events, and it's our fault. The church lets the boys go camping, white water rafting, go to football games-and lets the girls stay in the ward talking about their weddings and being mommies." The might have worked 50 years ago. It doesn't work today. 

I don't have children, but I am blessed to have several nieces and some of my friends have daughters who I consider nieces. None of them are secular, none of them are SJWs-but all of them would never attend a group that did treated the genders so differently. 

This was one thing that my sister hated about church prior to leaving it. It was all lessons on being mothers, sewing, and other typical motherly/womanly activities while I was rock climbing. There were other young woman like her, all of which have sadly left the church too.

Edited by Fether
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29 minutes ago, Fether said:

This was one sinew in the rope that hung my sisters testimony (first analogy that came to mind... not the best though haha)

Speaking to my own wife and sisters about their experiences, though . . . No one (at least, no priesthood holder) ever told the girls they couldn’t do camping/outdoors/high adventure stuff.  It’s just that a critical mass of Young Women (both the leadership and the girls themselves) didn’t find such activities appealing, and couldn’t be bothered to accommodate the tastes of the minority of girls who did enjoy that kind of thing.  Or—even worse—the leadership tailored their activities to the tastes of one or two needy “wild children” in a desperate attempt to keep their interest, at the expense of pretty much everyone else who would have been committed to the program had there only been a program to be committed to.  (“Dears, we know eighty percent of you have no interest in high school football, but for mutual this year we’re going to go to every high school football game because Lusty Lisa has a thing for the quarterback and if we don’t go with her she’ll get mad at us and leave the church and you don’t want THAT on your consciences, do you?”)

Then a couple of decades went by, and it became fashionable (and convenient) to look back and blame the brethren for the womenfolk’s own lack of initiative and judgment.

(“Why didn’t you send us on high adventure stuff?”

”You were always free to, but we didn’t force it, because we wanted to let the young women plan their own activities without micromanaging from the priesthood”

“But . . . But . . . We didn’t have the money!  You gave it all to the Boy Scouts.  Why didn’t allocate funds for us to go camping?”

”Sister, we spent millions upon millions of dollars maintaining a network of summer camps for the exclusive use of the young women, and your leaders repeatedly complained to us about what an ordeal it was and how you hated every minute of it.”

”OPPRESSION!”)

The tough thing about this new program—and it came up last night, but I think the issue will continue to bedevil us—will be how, in the absence of a centralized program, to balance the needs and interests of a disparate group of kids; and not let any particular tail begin wagging the whole dog.  That’s a lot for a teenaged class/quorum presidency to undertake.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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28 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Dears, we know eighty percent of you have no interest in high school football, but for mutual this year we’re going to go to every high school football game because Lusty Lisa has a thing for the quarterback

Oh of course that's how it works. After all, a girl can't really be interested in sports because she's interested in sports. She must have a crush on the players. And anyway, if she wasn't interested in doing "feminine" things like baking and dreaming about her wedding that makes her a whore. 

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48 minutes ago, Fether said:

This was one thing that my sister hated about church prior to leaving it. It was all lessons on being mothers, sewing, and other typical motherly/womanly activities while I was rock climbing. There were other young woman like her, all of which have sadly left the church too.

It is sad. My wife isn't into the traditional feminine things so she has a hard time seeking out and finding friendships in the wards we've attended. Luckily, we're both blessed to have deep, personal friendships outside the church. 

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47 minutes ago, Fether said:

This was one thing that my sister hated about church prior to leaving it. It was all lessons on being mothers, sewing, and other typical motherly/womanly activities while I was rock climbing. There were other young woman like her, all of which have sadly left the church too.

I hear her.

I was one of those girls that HATED most YW activities, because they were so completely focused on what I looked like, dating, and things I just found frivolous.  (Note: that the rest of the girls I was with really liked those activities).  I still had a strong testimony, but is was in spite of Church activities, not because of it.  In collage it got horribly bad, fueled my depression, and I had to quit going to church things completely for mental health reasons.

Now, obviously not all wards are like that.  I've had some great ones that were supportive of both genders as well-rounded people.  And some more that...aren't.

Edited by Jane_Doe
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10 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Oh of course that's how it works. After all, a girl can't really be interested in sports because she's interested in sports. She must have a crush on the players. And anyway, if she wasn't interested in doing "feminine" things like baking and dreaming about her wedding that obviously makes her a slut. 

MG, FWIW, that happened in my wife’s group. And first, it had nothing to do with anyone having a genuine interest in football; and second, even if it did, it was *every* activity for months on end.  The entire program for nearly a dozen girls was hijacked and flushed down the toilet in a wrong-headed attempt to “save” a dopey little girl who didn’t want to be saved—all at the unilateral discretion of the four females in the class presidency, with support from their all-female advisor and their all-female YW presidency; and twenty years later it’s somehow all The Priesthood’s fault.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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6 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

MG, FWIW, that happened in my wife’s group. And first, it had nothing to do with anyone having a genuine interest in football; and second, even if it did, it was *every* activity for months on end.

I agree. That clearly means that every woman who shows an interest in sports will behave in the exact same way as the girl in your wifes group did, so we shouldn't allow them that option.

The truth is that it's an issue. We've already had three experiences in this thread with women having a hard time fitting in if they like/don't like certain activities. For all we know, there might be even more women who feel that way but "go with the program" just because they don't want to rock the boat. 

 

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40 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I agree. That clearly means that every woman who shows an interest in sports will behave in the exact same way as the girl in your wifes group did, so we shouldn't allow them that option.

The truth is that it's an issue. We've already had three experiences in this thread with women having a hard time fitting in if they like/don't like certain activities. For all we know, there might be even more women who feel that way but "go with the program" just because they don't want to rock the boat. 

 

Not just the women either...  The idea that all boys enjoy the same activities is equally off.  I know when I was in young men many of the weekly activities were playing basketball in the gym.. That had no interest to me then.. it has no interest to me now.  Of course I was the odd one back then (and I am still).

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1 minute ago, estradling75 said:

Not just the women either...  The idea that all boys enjoy the same activities is equally off.  I know when I was in young men many of the weekly activities were playing basketball in the gym.. That had no interest to me then.. it has no interest to me now.  Of course I was the odd one back then (and I am still).

Worlds are colliding because we've found something we agree on. I've spoken to a ton of LDS men who feel out of place because they don't like sports or camping, etc. So I know how you feel.  

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In my experience, the decisions were made by the YW presidency, often without regard to what the girls actually wanted. I liked  the members of the YW Presidency just fine, but they would not step outside their own comfort zone.

For example, when my daughter (who was the Laurel class president) and many other girls wanted to go camping, the YW President gently but firmly shot down the proposal, suggesting instead that the girls go camping in her back yard. Which might have been fine for eight- or nine-year-old girls, but these young women were twice that age.

And then, as JAG lamented, at least some remember the cause to have been the oppressive patriarchy. For the record, the bishopric was fully supportive of the girls going camping. I know, because I was a bishopric counselor at the time. I offered to go and help, as did other dads. Didn't matter.

Again, this is not to criticize the adult leaders, but to point out that the failures were not where many want to insist they were.

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From the three wards I've been in that I had some access or knowledge of budgets, the Young Women had between 2/3 to 1/2 the funds budgeted that the Young Men did.  The Young Men's fund raisers were also given more attention.

That probably had a lot to do with what activities each organization was doing.

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4 minutes ago, Vort said:

Again, this is not to criticize the adult leaders, but to point out that the failures were not where many want to insist they were.

Which this program does not really fix...  The program is suppose to support and encourage the goals that the kids want... With the leaders working to balance the various desires..  However if the leaders impose their will and sense of what "should be" onto the program... it failed then... and it will fail now.

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1 minute ago, estradling75 said:

Which this program does not really fix...  The program is suppose to support and encourage the goals that the kids want... With the leaders working to balance the various desires..  However if the leaders impose their will and sense of what "should be" onto the program... it failed then... and it will fail now.

The point being (IMO) that the problem does not lie in the program. Which I frankly think was true to a large extent with BSA.

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5 minutes ago, Vort said:

but to point out that the failures were not where many want to insist they were.

I don't think it's a "patriarchy" problem at all. I'm not sure if I blame anyone or anything. I sort of blame the "old way of thinking"-which I freely admit that young people can be guilty of.  I do think that older people generally have a problem accepting things that they didn't grow up with, but they have an excuse because it's how they were taught. People under 40ish really shouldn't say "What? A girl wants to go to college? She's a witch! Burn her!" We have no excuse. 

4 minutes ago, dprh said:

From the three wards I've been in that I had some access or knowledge of budgets, the Young Women had between 2/3 to 1/2 the funds budgeted that the Young Men did.  The Young Men's fund raisers were also given more attention.

 

Why? 

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