The Teen Scene

Women’s retreats and teenage young women–how do you handle the teen issue?  We love to include teen girls in our women’s retreats!  Our practice has been to allow young women who are junior high age and up to attend.

Teens who attend our retreats basically fall into these three groups:

• Teens who come to a retreat with their mom and room with their mom;
• Teens who come to the women’s retreat with their friends and their mom will not be in attendance;
• Teens who come to the retreat with their mom, but would prefer to stay with other teens.

Here are a few things we do to accommodate our teens:

• Find a teen chaperone. Do you have a woman wh0 has a heart for teenage girls? Best case scenario, that woman already works with the youth, and is willing to be with them during the retreat.
• Permission slip.  For those whose mom will not be at the retreat, a responsible adult must be identified (in writing) and given written permission to make decisions as a parent at the retreat.  This permission must be signed by the parent.
• Give them a room together.  We ask the hotel or camp for a larger room, so that the teens can all room together with their chaperone.  Hopefully, we can then lower the price for the teens who choose to stay in the group room.
• Plan teen events at the retreat.  We may plan a few special events for the teens, ranging from a special workshop to special free time activities.