Adapting your lessons to engage every child

Picture this scenario: you are teaching a kids’ church lesson. It’s a great lesson! You’ve prepared really well, you have great visual aids ready to go and almost all of the children are engaged and attentive. Almost.

There’s that one child who isn’t engaged. What are they doing? Perhaps they’re touching things on the wall. Maybe they’re moving from spot to spot on the floor. They may have even gotten up and started walking around the room. They’re definitely doing their best to distract other children.

We’ve all experienced something like this in children’s ministry. When it happens, we usually ask the question, either consciously or subconsciously:

How do I get this child to do what I want them to do?

What we usually mean is:

 How do I get this child to sit still and listen like everyone else?

Many times the answer is to change up our teaching style. Some children respond well to being involved in the lesson, others will really enjoy great visual aids. Using multiple teaching styles will work for most of the children in your ministry. And what about the rest?

Sometimes the answer to one question is actually to ask a different question altogether.

Because for some children the answer to How do I get this child to do what I want them to do? is this: You don’t. This is particularly, though not exclusively, true for children who are neurodivergent.

Neurodivergent is a term used to describe brain function. For most of us our brain function, including the way we think and learn is pretty similar from person to person. However, for some people, including those with ADHD or Autism, their brain works in a different way. Thought processes are different. How they engage with learning can look very different than those around them.

If we want to engage children like this in our children’s ministry, we need to change the question we ask from How do I get this child to do what I want them to do? and instead ask: What does this child need from me to help them engage in this lesson?

The most effective children’s ministry is characterised by relational discipleship. This means we aren’t just concerned about delivery a good lesson, but about helping each individual child to know and respond to Jesus.

This can be challenging but it presents us with an opportunity to find new and different ways to engage these children. Finding out how they like to learn and what their strengths are will help answer that question.

A few years ago, I had a child in my children’s ministry who had ADHD. He found it very difficult to sit and listen to a lesson even if that lesson had visual and kinaesthetic teaching. After talking to him for a while about his favourite things to do, I learned that he was incredibly creative and he loved to draw and read. So, each week as we started our lesson I would give him a Bible, an A3 piece of paper and some textas. While I went on with the lesson he would read the passage himself and draw a picture to represent what he had read. We would finish each lesson with him presenting and explaining his drawing to everyone else. Not only did this mean he was able to engage with God’s Word in a way that was helpful for him, but it also meant that the rest of us could benefit from being encouraged by him.

Finding the strategy or strategies that work best for an individual child will take time and effort and probably lots of trial and error. If you try something and it doesn’t work, you haven’t failed! You’ve just eliminated one of the many options.

To find those strategies, you need to get to know the children in your ministry. What you do should flow from knowing their strengths and things that they enjoy. Talk to them. Talk to their parents. Even talk to their siblings. There is no silver bullet that will work for everyone but, aside from engaging their creative side like I did with my friend who liked to draw, here’s three suggestions of a starting point as you think about this.

Consider opportunities for one-on-one ministry

This might require you to recruit more leaders, and I know that might be overwhelming. But you may also be able to do this with the leaders you have.

This could be as simple as having one of your leaders sit with a child away from the group (but still in the same room) and draw with them, or build something with them or read with them, all the while chatting about whatever that lesson is about. One-on one-conversations, happening within Safe Ministry boundaries, are an excellent way to teach and disciple children. 

 Create a safe and quiet space to retreat to

For neurodivergent children, sensory processing can be overwhelming in a room full of noisy children and colour and activities. Creating a space that children can retreat to when they feel overwhelmed can be significant for them. Purchasing an inexpensive child’s tepee or something similar is a worthwhile investment. Put it in the corner of the room with some cushions and perhaps a few Bible storybooks and allow children to retreat to that space when necessary. You could also include some emoji flashcards that children can use to signal how they are feeling when they are in the tent. This is a non-confronting way for them to communicate to you what’s happening.

Use sensory toys

Whenever I’m teaching children, I make sure I’m equipped with a handful of sensory toys. This is something small and quiet that a child can play with as they sit and listen. For many of us, even if we are not neurodivergent, having something for our hands to do helps our brain to focus. You can buy sensory toys, or you could simply use a ball of blu-tac.

I often get asked isn’t it unfair to have one child doing something different. If each child is being engaged and discipled according to what they need, fairness is not an issue. For the majority of the children in your ministry a tent to retreat to, or a sensory toy aren’t going to be helpful and they won’t be interested in them anyway.

I was reminded of this last week in my SRE class. One of the students in the class was a bit restless and I offered him one of my sensory toys. He played with it for a few minutes then quietly came and put it on the table next to me. Even though two other students in the class had one, it wasn’t a help to him, so he voluntarily gave it up.

Our goal for children’s ministry is to engage every child with God’s word, but that doesn’t mean engaging them all the same way. Whether the answer is a different activity for one child, or a collection of sensory toys the question should always be: What does this child need from me to help them engage in this lesson?