The 5 Biggest Sunday School Mistakes – Part 3

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we discussed 3 of the most common mistakes Sunday School teachers make with their students, and how these errors often lead to increased stress and a more difficult time managing your classroom. In part 3, we discuss 2 more errors I see in Children’s Church classrooms all the time – and exactly how to correct them.

Sunday School Mistake #4: Not Maintaining a Hierarchy

A huge mistake teachers make is to try to be too friendly with their students.  It is natural to want your students to like you, but it is essential that you, as a teacher, maintain distance from your students.  It is extremely difficult to create an environment of friendship and teaching in the same classroom, and it usually results in failure.  Teachers who attempt to be too friendly with their students lose their credibili-ty when they try to revert back to “teacher mode” to regain control or to make assignments or lead the session.

When students see their teachers as friends instead of superiors, they lose respect for the teach-er.  They do not treat themselves or their peers with as much respect as they treat a teacher, and if you make yourself like a peer to them, they will not look at you with as much respect as you deserve.

Along with a loss of respect, your classroom environment will change dramatically if you portray your-self as a friend instead of a teacher.  Your desire in being friends with your students is to create a safe, fun, enjoyable environment where students feel comfortable around you and look at you as someone they can trust.

If you become too much an equal, they will see the space as void of any power figure and take advantage of the “no adults” feel.  When students begin to take over, you lose the safety of the space, as they feel that they are then in charge instead of learning.  While it may turn into a fun space for them, it is no longer a productive one, which makes it less fun for you.

Your feelings are transmitted to your students every day, whether you know it or not, so they get much of their attitude about Sunday school simply from your body language, facial expressions, and perceived enthusiasm for the session.

To keep yourself from becoming too much of a friend and too little of a teacher, try to strike a balance, in your mind, between the teacher you want to be and the teacher you know you need to be.  You may have a perfect picture in your head of a teacher-friend who maintains control but does not need to, be-cause his/her students respect him/her to the point where rules are not necessary.  While this is descriptive of a friendship, it is almost never the case in a classroom, where there is one teacher and many students.

To maintain the respect and control you deserve in a classroom, you must be friendly with students but not overly so.  Show that you are the boss by laying out specific rules, explained quite clearly, and enforce them.  Tell your students that you have developed certain consequences for poor behavior, and do not hesitate to discipline students as you have planned.  The first time you hesitate, your students will know it, and they will look at that as an example of how you plan to proceed in the rest of the sessions.

However, this is not to say that you cannot be friendly with your students.  In fact, you must be.  To run a successful classroom, you must develop a good rapport with your students, so that they feel comfortable sharing their feelings and ideas with you and other students.  It is important that as a teacher, you make your students feel unique and cared about, something a friendship also provides.  You must make an effort to get to know your students, learn about them and feel comfortable with them, but you must separate yourself from them from the beginning.

There needs to be a clear distinction between your role as a supportive teacher and leader and their roles as students.  While this separation might not give you the level of intimacy you desire with your students, it will give you a classroom you can manage and a receptive audience for your Christian teaching.

Sunday School Mistake #5: Not Connecting Enough with Parents

Teachers will tell you over and over the importance of getting to know parents.  They can make or break your relationship with their child, because it is their responsibility to get their child to Sunday school each week!  Contacting parents early on in the sessions opens the door to good communication through-out the year.

This good communication will encourage parents to make sure their students are in atten-dance each week.  Supportive parents are also a great resource to help in the teaching and implementa-tion of different ideas presented during Sunday school.

Teachers often forget the role that parents play in the development of their children’s spiritual lives.  Ultimately, parents are the most important role model and influencer on their kids’ lives.  It is doubly important then for you, as a teacher and supplement to the education the kids receive at home, to create and maintain a good relationship with those parents.

To create a good relationship with parents, there are several things you can do.  During the first few weeks of the session, make a personal phone call home to talk to the parents about their child.  Praise something unique that their child has done, such as, “Sally behaved so well in class last week, she got a reward!” or “John was extremely helpful in setting up the classroom for the day’s activity.  I couldn’t have done it without him!”  This will help parents to feel that their child is engaged, happy, and important to the overall classroom.

Also, newsletters are a great way to stay in contact with parents.  Send home a short newsletter once a month telling parents what events have just passed and what events are coming up.  Let them know the lesson plans you have and the Bible passages that go along with the lessons, so that interested parents can read through the passages with their students before or just after the session.

This is a good way for you to get extra help driving the ideas home to your students.  Repetition is key to understanding, and if you can aid parents in repeating the lessons you have just imparted, your students will come back the next session with a deeper understanding of the previous week’s lesson.

Schedule a meeting with all parents at the beginning of the sessions.  When you have everyone together, tell them about yourself, your experience working with Sunday school or any other teaching setting, and tell them about your plans and goals for the year.  Ask for their help and opinions.  Parents know their children best, so take their advice and concerns seriously.

Ask parents to contact you if something major changes in their home life that might affect their children.  Often, you will notice a change in students, but without an involved parent to let you know the situation, you will not know the reason behind the change in behavior.  Creating a relationship where parents feel comfortable sharing that information will help you and them, because it will better equip you to handle any changes in their child.

When dealing with parents, it also helps to have a documented log of any problems you have experienced with a student.  If you jot down days and events when things have gone wrong, it will give you a better view of the entirety of a problem.  When you have to contact a parent about bad behavior, or perhaps when you meet with them for periodic conferences, you will have a record of any issues you have dealt with regarding their child.

Parents often do not believe that their children are causing problems, so if you can show them a detailed account of each incident, they will be much more likely to believe you and give support in disciplining their child.  This usually will not be a problem because of the environment of Sunday school, but you will always have problem students that you must handle.

It is always easier to deal with these students with the help of their parents.  Otherwise, the parents are likely to withdraw their child from your sessions or tell them that they need to continue going but provide no other support, leading the child to believe the sessions are worthless, and continuing the cycle of disruptive behavior.

What did you think of this article? Agree? Disagree? Let me know by leaving a comment in the box below! And if you’d like to get more free Sunday School teaching tips, ideas, and activities, please visit my free Sunday School video page.