To answer Charlotte's questions:

1. I have my suspicions but I don't know 100% for sure because apparently they prefer to complain to the minister rather than come to me. (Which is another problem I have; I feel almost like they're "trying" to get me in trouble by going over my head)

2. No clear idea. I don't THINK so but I'm not 100% sure who all the complainers are.

3. No, they are not parents of other kids in the group. I know that much. The parents seem pretty dang happy with how things are going.

4. I don't know. I've asked for help but I seldom get it. In some cases it's simply a matter of scheduling or the person not being well enough to help, but in some cases I do think it's a lack of interest.

5. I have not spoken to the kids since the meeting (it was today) but last Wednesday night my co-leader and I really laid down the law about the grape fight, and we let the kids know that (a) anyone caught behaving out-of-line will be asked to not come back and (b) if problem behavior keeps up, the group may have to dissolve. We were quite firm about it. I think part of the reason the meeting today was so painful to me was that I felt I had already done what I could do to handle things (and I had told one of the people who came to me, "I will handle it. We will fix this."), and it was just dredging it up again. And it made me feel sort of helpless, like "I already dealt with this the best I can and I'm still having to listen to how it's a problem." I explained what I had said and done. I don't know if it helped. Sometimes I feel there's some kind of link in the communication chain that doesn't make it to me, or things are "delicately" worded and I'm expected to read between the lines...

6. I think they do value the group. There were already some changes Wednesday night after I explained the problems to them. One of my M.O.'s is to be up-front with the kids, to treat them like they were adults. (Which is actually why I think many of the kids respond to me.) I don't sugar-coat things; I figure they need to know when something is very serious. I've also decided that we're going to, as part of this week's lesson, come up with a list of "expectations" that we're going to write out on a posterboard and put up somewhere where people can see it...hopefully as a bit of positive reinforcement. It'll just be simple stuff like, if you spill it, clean it up - but hopefully it will help and it will reduce wear and tear on me and my co-leader. (Honestly? I wish we had just thought to check the restrooms that week; if we had, we would have found the problem and we could have cleaned it up. That doesn't solve the disrespect issue but I'd rather find a problem, take care of it myself, then talk with the kids about it the following week rather than have the custodian complain to the secretary who then passes it on to me.)

And we DO have some good new kids who just started up last week - that's also part of the hurt, it's like corrections have been made but we're not being given time for those corrections to begin to work.

I really don't WANT to stay the extra half-hour after everyone leaves and check every nook and cranny where we've been, but that might be the next step. (Or try to recruit teams of kids to take the responsibility for checking. I don't know.)