Four More Strategies for Youth Engagement
What to Do When It’s Crickets (or Chaos)
Have you ever stood in front of a full room of teens and it's absolutely crickets? Or maybe even worse, you can't get a word in edgewise because they've completely taken over the space, and you can't get them back on track?
I've been there. And don't worry, I've got some strategies to help.
This is part two in a series on youth engagement strategies. If you haven't read part one on setting the stage with groups of teens, start there!
Once you've set the stage, the next task becomes engaging with youth in ways that both have structure and keep their attention. Read on for four MORE strategies for what to do when engagement dips or when things start to get a little too lively.
Strategy 1: Vary the Ways You Engage
Most folks who work with teens already know that variety in teaching/engagement strategies is important. However, in the day-to-day of teaching, facilitating, or running a group, it's easy to forget to mix things up or get in a pattern of doing the same thing over and over.
If I have a full classroom or group of young people in front of me, I want to offer as many different engagement options as makes sense for the time, the content, and the setting. I usually think about opportunities to share in a large group, small groups and pairs along with individual reflection (journaling, drawing or something similar).
One strategy that I also mention in Part 1 is think-pair-share, where young people first think about a prompt on their own, then pair up with someone else in the room to talk it through, and then share out to the larger group. That's three different types of engagement built into one.
But some of my favorite strategies of all are the ones that use a physical cue so you can see what someone is thinking or feeling without them having to say a word out loud.
The Spectrum: Have young people stand on one side of the room if they agree, stand on the other side of the room if they disagree, or stand in the middle if they’re neutral or somewhere in between. Then ask a few people from each group why they landed where they did. You can use this prompt for almost anything: yes or no, pizza or cheeseburgers, an icebreaker where people just share opinions, or something more substantial, like getting young people to think through what makes a relationship healthy, unhealthy, or abusive.
Thumbs up/down/to the side: This is exactly what it sounds like. Ask a question that folks can vote yes (or agree) for thumbs up, no (or disagree) for thumbs down, and not sure (or neutral) for thumbs to the side. This is a great option if you're in a small space, have desks in the way, or are working with young people who have mobility considerations that make moving around the room difficult.
Finger voting: Have folks hold up a hand to vote one to five and assign a category or meaning to each number. Or you can ask “on a scale of 1 to 5 how strongly do you agree or disagree with this statement”. This is another approach that doesn't require anyone to talk, which makes it especially useful when you've got a group that's dead silent and you need a low-pressure way to get them engaged again.
A note of caution - you don’t want to do activities just for the sake of doing them. The need to make sense and be meaningful for what you’re working on. I also think that with teens, they may be a little reluctant at first to participate but that’s ok. Don’t be afraid to try something and see what works and what doesn’t.
Strategy 2: Get Comfortable With Silence
One of the most common mistakes I see, especially among folks who are newer to working with groups of teens, is trying to fill the silence. Sometimes teens can make you nervous! Especially when they’re just staring at you and saying nothing. A lot of us respond to nervousness by filling empty space with more talking.
We ask a question, wait two seconds, and then either answer it ourselves or move on to a different question entirely. But we have to give people time and space to actually think through their response. WE already know what question we're going to ask, we've thought about it, we've planned for it but they've never heard it before. Formulating an answer, and working up the nerve to say it out loud or raise a hand, takes longer than we think it does. If you're in a virtual setting, you have to wait even longer.
I like to take a breath, check my notes, or take a sip of coffee or water. These small physical things help me manage my own discomfort with silence while I wait for someone to respond. Most people don't love silence either, so eventually, someone will say something!
Strategy 3: Be Genuinely Curious About Teen Culture
There are moments as adults when we want to dismiss whatever trend, show, or song is having a moment (honestly, if I never hear 6/7 again, it will be too soon). However, I've seen people shut down a young person the second they bring one of those references into a conversation, telling them it's not relevant.
I think a more effective strategy is to get genuinely curious about those pop culture references instead. Is what they're saying, in a roundabout way, actually connected to the content or activity you're working on? Listen. Incorporate it if you can. Ask them to help you understand the connection. This can build real rapport while getting a window into what they're thinking and feeling.
You also don't need to already know the reference. Most of us don't, and teen culture moves fast enough that we're not going to keep up in real time anyway. You can simply say, "Tell me what you mean by that. How does that relate to what we're talking about today?" The key is that it has to be genuine, not sarcastic. I've heard people ask "tell me how that relates" in a tone that makes it obvious they don't actually want to know. That's not what we're going for.
We also don't need to use teen slang ourselves to connect with young people. When adults try to work current slang or phrases into conversation, it usually reads as trying too hard (which teens usually hate!). There's also a real risk of misusing a phrase in a way that falls flat, or worse, comes across as harmful, offensive, or discriminatory. A good guideline is to avoid using slang unless you're completely certain you know what it means and how it's being used.
Strategy 4: Incorporate a Closing Reflection
Adding in a closing reflection is a simple and effective strategy, but it's also the one that most often gets skipped when time is running short. And sometimes that’s unavoidable but if you can squeeze it in, do it!
I like to ask something like:
What's one thing you learned today?
What's something that surprised you?
What's one emotion that came up?
What's one word to describe your experience?
This does two things. First, it gets young people to reflect, which helps solidify whatever learning happened during the session. Second, it tells you, as the facilitator or educator, what actually landed and what might have missed the mark.
If a group was chaotic, or completely silent, and you're left wondering whether anything got through, this is usually the moment you find out that something did. An idea stuck. An emotion surfaced. Something mattered.
If you need something even quicker than an open-ended question, you can use the same thumbs up, thumbs to the side, thumbs down approach here too.
Putting It All Together
Here's the recap:
Vary the ways you engage
Get comfortable with silence
Be genuinely curious about teen culture
Incorporate a closing reflection
These four youth engagement strategies are simple, but they work in almost any setting — a classroom, a workshop, a therapy group, a team, a club. Whether you're a coach, a teacher, a group facilitator, or something else entirely, these strategies can help you turn crickets into conversation and chaos into connection.
Want more resources for working with teens? I offer practical training and strategic consulting to help youth-serving professionals show up with confidence. Learn more here.
