Questions to Ask Youth Group
Discussion questions for leaders running a teen small group, starting with easy ones that get everybody talking and moving toward doubt, pressure from friends, and what the group could do better.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What was the best part of your week, and the worst?
Why ask it
Giving both halves is what makes this work: a teenager who would never volunteer a problem will mention one when it is simply the second item. Keep your own answer short, because a long leader answer sets the length for everyone after you.
If you could skip one thing coming up this week, what would it be?
Why ask it
Easier than asking what is worrying them, and it surfaces the same information: a test, a match, a visit, a conversation at home. Anyone who names something they cannot get out of has just told you what to check in about next week.
What's everyone at school talking about that adults have no clue about?
Why ask it
Reverses the usual direction and lets them be the ones who know something. It also tells you what is actually circulating, which is often not what the parents are worried about. Resist the urge to comment on whatever they name.
What's something you're good at that nobody here knows about?
Why ask it
Useful in a group where the same three confident people talk. Quieter members often have something specific, a game, an instrument, a job, a sibling they look after, and it changes how the group sees them for months.
What do adults get wrong about people your age?
Why ask it
Expect complaints about phones, laziness, and being told their problems are small. Take it without defending your generation, because how you receive this answer determines whether they risk anything more personal later in the evening.
Where do you go when you need to be by yourself?
Why ask it
A concrete answer, a bedroom, a bus, a bathroom at school, a walk. It tells you how much privacy someone has, which varies enormously between households. Somebody who says there is nowhere is telling you something worth noticing quietly.
What do you do when you can't sleep?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone has an answer, which is why it works in a mixed group. The answers cover phones, worry, noise at home, and sometimes distress they would not name directly. Treat it as a normal question rather than a diagnostic one.
What's the kindest thing someone did for you that they've probably forgotten?
Why ask it
This produces small specific stories rather than platitudes: a lift, a seat saved, a teacher who noticed. It also lands better than asking them to describe kindness in general, which reliably produces the answer they think you want.
Who taught you what you believe: one person, or a lot of small things?
Why ask it
Lets someone describe inherited faith honestly without having to defend it. Answers naming a grandparent, a camp, or a single conversation are common. Anyone who says they are not sure they believe it has been given a safe way to say so.
What's something people at church say that you don't understand, or don't buy?
Why ask it
Permission to be sceptical, framed as a question about language rather than loyalty. If the group is silent, offer one of your own first. The list you get back is a better guide to what to teach than any curriculum plan.
What's a question about God you've never asked out loud in here?
Why ask it
Expect suffering, hell, prayers that were not answered, and friends of other faiths or none. Answer only what you can answer, and say plainly when you do not know. A confident bad answer here costs you the next six months of honesty.
When did you last change your mind about something?
Why ask it
It can be trivial, a band, a subject, a person they had written off. The point is practising the idea that changing your mind is normal, which matters in a setting where teenagers often assume beliefs are meant to be fixed.
What's the hardest part of being honest with your parents?
Why ask it
Note that this asks about the difficulty, not the secrets. Common answers involve disappointing them, being overreacted to, or not wanting to add worry. Do not follow up by asking what they are hiding; that ends the conversation for everyone listening.
When you're stressed, who do you tell first, and who do you never tell?
Why ask it
The second half is where the information is. Someone whose answer is nobody is worth a private word later, and a group that hears the question asked plainly learns that having such a person is normal rather than weak.
When have you gone along with something you didn't agree with?
Why ask it
Better than asking about peer pressure, which invites the rehearsed answer about saying no. Real answers involve laughing at something, staying quiet, or not defending someone. Share your own example, ideally a recent adult one.
If you found out a friend was in real trouble, what would you do first?
Why ask it
Reveals whether they know that telling an adult is an option and which adult they would choose. It is also the moment to say clearly which things you would have to pass on, and to whom, before anyone tests it with something serious.
What's something you'd want us to pray about that isn't about you?
Why ask it
Turns prayer outward and makes it possible to join in without disclosing anything personal. It also shows you what they are carrying on behalf of other people: a grandparent's illness, a friend's family, something from the news.
What do you want to be different about your life a year from now?
Why ask it
Concrete answers about school, sport, a job, or a friendship give you something to remember and ask about. Answers along the lines of wanting to be somewhere else entirely are worth hearing carefully rather than redirecting.
What would you say to someone your age who came here for the first time and felt out of place?
Why ask it
Asks them to be the host, and quietly tells you how welcoming the group actually is. If the honest answers describe the group as hard to join, you have found a real problem that is usually invisible to the leaders.
Is there anything you'd want this group to be that it isn't yet?
Why ask it
Ask it in the last ten minutes and be ready to act on one small suggestion. Requests are usually practical: more time to talk, less talking at them, food, different music. Ignoring the answers teaches them the question was decoration.
Running the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting it up
- 1Say at the start that anyone can pass on any question. Then actually let it happen without comment when someone does.
- 2Be explicit about confidentiality and its limits: what is said here stays here, except anything that suggests someone is being hurt or is at risk, which you must pass to the person responsible for safeguarding.
- 3Break into groups of four to six for the more personal questions. Ten teenagers in a circle produces performance; five in a corner produces conversation.
- 4Put an adult in each group who is briefed to listen rather than teach.
- 5Have food or something to do with their hands. Eye contact is the thing most teenagers find hardest about this format.
While you are asking
Wait longer than is comfortable
Count to ten in your head before rescuing a silence. Most leaders fill the gap at about four seconds, which trains the group to wait for the adult to answer their own question.
Answer first, and briefly
Going first sets the depth, but a five-minute leader answer tells them this is a talk with pauses. Two sentences, including something real, is the right size.
Do not correct the answers
In faith settings teenagers are quick to work out which answer is wanted and to supply it. If you improve on their first honest answer, you will get correct answers from then on and learn nothing.
Follow up with what and how, not why
"Why do you think that?" sounds like a challenge to most teenagers. "What was that like?" or "What happened next?" gets the detail without the sense of being tested.
Protect the quiet ones without spotlighting them
Rather than calling on someone directly, use rounds where everyone gives one word, or written answers on paper for the harder questions. Both let a reluctant member take part without having to perform.
Common pitfalls
Using a personal question as a way into a lesson
If every answer gets tied back to the evening's teaching point, the group will notice and stop offering real material. Some questions should just be answered and left alone.
Promising total secrecy
Never say that whatever they tell you stays between the two of you. Say instead that you will tell them if you have to pass something on and why. Getting this wrong once damages trust more than the disclosure itself would have.
Reacting visibly to something serious
Shock or urgency in front of the group turns a disclosure into a scene. Acknowledge it briefly, keep the session going, and follow up one to one afterwards, then with the appropriate person.
Letting the confident three carry every week
It looks like a lively group and functions as an audience. Track who has not spoken across a month rather than within a session, and design the next one around them.
Asking questions you would not answer
Before using any of the harder items here, answer it yourself in your head. If you would not say your answer in this room, do not ask a fifteen-year-old to.
When something serious comes up
Have the practical details ready before you need them: who your safeguarding lead is, how to reach them out of hours, and the local services you can point a family toward. If a young person describes harm at home, thoughts of suicide, or an unsafe relationship, stay calm, do not interrogate for detail, write down what they said in their words as soon as you can, and pass it on the same day. Tell the young person what you are doing and why. Your role is to notice and to hand over, not to assess or to counsel.