You learn to pitch a tent, tie a knot, lead a class, and call a drill formation. But no one teaches you the hardest thing: sitting next to a thirteen-year-old Pathfinder who is too quiet and simply listening. Without fixing. Without a lecture. Just listening.
This is the competence that separates a leader whom teenagers respect from one they merely obey. The young person who trusts you will one day tell you something they tell no one else. And what you do in that minute can change their life.
This guide is practical. How to notice that something has changed, how to open space for them to talk, how to ask without interrogating, how to respect silence, and most importantly: recognizing the signs of risk and knowing that there is a line where your role ends and a professional's begins.
The skill no one trains for in the Club
Think about the training you have already done. Knots and lashings, first aid, drill formation, honors. All important. Now count how many times someone taught you to listen to a teenager in distress. Probably none. And yet, that is what your Pathfinders need most from you.
Active listening is not staying silent while waiting for your turn to speak. It is paying full attention: to what they say, to what they avoid saying, to the tone, the posture, to what was left hanging. It is reflecting back that you understood, without rushing to fix. Most leaders think helping means having the right answer. Almost always, helping is asking the right question and enduring the silence after it.
The teenager between ten and fifteen years old lives through a phase of intense change. They test limits, close off, open up, shift moods. According to the World Health Organization, about one in seven adolescents aged ten to nineteen lives with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depression being the most common. This means that, in an average Club, several of your Pathfinders carry a weight you do not see. Listening is how you begin to see it.
Noticing when something is wrong
A Pathfinder rarely comes up and says: I am not well, I need to talk. What they do is change. And the change is the clue. What you look for is not an isolated sign, but a pattern different from that young person's normal.
The boy who was loud and turned silent. The punctual girl who started missing meetings. The one who always took part and now stays in the corner on the phone. Drop in performance, quick irritation, constant tiredness, long sleeves in the heat, jokes about "disappearing" or "not being able to take it anymore." Isolating from friends in the Unit. Stopping caring about appearance. None of these signs, on its own, proves anything. Together, and persisting for weeks, they call for your attention.
You know each one's normal because you spend time with them. Use that. A simple sentence opens the door without frightening: "Hey, I noticed you have been quieter these last few meetings. Is everything all right?" Do not push. If they deflect, respect it, but make it clear that you noticed and that you are available. Often, just knowing that someone noticed is already the beginning. It is worth making a mental note and talking with the Unit Counselor, discreetly, to follow up together.
Creating a safe space for them to open up
No one pours their heart out in the middle of a noisy meeting, with ten people watching. Trust needs context. The environment you create says, before any word, whether it is safe to talk there.
Choose a private moment, but never an isolated one. A corner of the hall while the others put away the gear, a short walk during the activity, the table after the snack. Sit beside them, not across with a table in between, which feels like an interrogation. Put the phone away. Look at them. Give time. And make the agreement about confidentiality explicit, with honesty: "What you tell me stays between us. Unless it is something that puts you or someone else at risk. Then I will need to seek help, and I will let you know first." Promising absolute secrecy is a trap you cannot honor.
Safety is also you not reacting with alarm. If they tell you something serious and your face turns into shock or disapproval, they close up at once and do not come back. Breathe. Thank them for the trust: "I am glad you told me this." A safe space is one where the young person feels they can tell the truth without being belittled or punished for it.
Read alsoHow to train and delegate to new leadersListening without judging and without lecturing
Here lies leadership's most common mistake. The Pathfinder starts to talk and, by the third sentence, you already interrupt with the solution, the scolding, or the moral lesson. The Bible was direct about this three thousand years ago: "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him" (Proverbs 18:13, KJV). Whoever answers before hearing the whole story almost always answers the wrong thing.
The young person who opens up is not, most of the time, asking for a solution. They are asking to be heard and taken seriously. When you follow up with a lecture, the message that arrives is: your feelings are a problem to be corrected. They learn not to seek you out again. Hold back the impulse to fix. Hold back the "when I was your age I also" and the "this is nothing." To them, it is everything.
Judging also kills the conversation. A shocked reaction, moralizing, comparison to another "better-behaved" Pathfinder: all of this pushes the young person away. Listening without judging does not mean agreeing with everything or giving up your values. It means welcoming the person first and handling guidance later, at the right time, if it is asked for or truly needed. There is a moment to advise. It comes after listening, never in place of listening. It is worth going deeper into this in our guide on how to be a good Counselor.
Good questions and the power of silence
The most powerful listening tool is not a ready-made phrase. It is a good question followed by silence. Proverbs 20:5 (KJV) describes it precisely: "Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out." What the young person feels is deep. Good questions are the bucket that brings it out.
Prefer open questions, ones that cannot be answered with yes or no. Instead of "are you sad?", try "how have your days been?" or "what has been weighing on you most?". Instead of "why did you do that?", which sounds accusatory, prefer "tell me what happened." Reflect back what you heard to confirm: "so you are feeling alone even surrounded by people, is that it?". This shows you understood and invites them to continue.
Jesus is the model. Faced with the blind Bartimaeus, who cried out for help, He assumed nothing. He asked: "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" (Mark 10:51, KJV). The owner of the universe asked before acting. And after asking, wait. Silence is uncomfortable, and the instinct is to fill it with words. Do not fill it. Three, five, ten seconds of pause give the Pathfinder the space to organize what they feel and say what they did not yet have the courage to. Much important truth comes precisely in the silence you had the patience not to interrupt.
Warning signs and the limit of your role
Listening well includes recognizing when the matter is bigger than you. There is a difference between a Pathfinder sad over an argument at home and a Pathfinder at risk. Some signs call for immediate action, not just a good conversation: talking about wanting to die, disappear, or seeing no meaning in living; hurting themselves on purpose; mentions of abuse, violence, or neglect at home; a drastic and prolonged change in behavior; signs of alcohol or drug use. According to the WHO, suicide is among the leading causes of death in the fifteen to nineteen age range. This is not to frighten you. It is for you to take it seriously.
Faced with this, the confidentiality agreement has an exception, and you explained it back at the start. Welcome them calmly, without dramatizing and without promising that "everything will be fine" as if you controlled that. Take every mention of suicide seriously, always. And activate the network: the parents or guardians, the chaplain or pastor, the Director, and professional help. If there is immediate risk to life, call your local emergency number (in Brazil, SAMU 192). For emotional support and suicide prevention, in Brazil the CVV answers free of charge and in confidence at 188, 24 hours a day, every day.
Engrave this sentence: you are a leader, not a psychologist. Your role is to notice, welcome, and refer, with care and without drama. Trying to handle a clinical problem on your own, however good the intention, can make everything worse and overloads you. Referring is not weakness nor is it "passing the problem along." It is the most responsible and most loving thing a leader does. The good leader knows the extent and the limit of what falls to them.
Listening is pastoral care, not just technique
None of this works as a trick. A teenager senses listening technique without real love from a mile away. What holds it all up is genuine care for the person God placed under your responsibility. Listening is the most concrete way of loving someone: you give your time and your full attention, which is what no one else is willing to give anymore.
The biblical guidance sums up the right way to be with another: "let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (James 1:19, KJV). Swift to hear, slow to speak. It is almost the opposite of what we do by instinct. For the Christian, this reflects God himself, who hears us before correcting us. If you are of another faith or none, the principle still holds: presence and patience heal.
Prayer is part of caring, when it fits and with respect. You can say you will pray for the Pathfinder, or ask whether they would like to pray together, without imposing. And remember: caring for others requires that you too be cared for. Talk with your team, have your own support, do not carry it all alone. An emptied-out leader listens to no one. If the matter involved conflict or aggression among the young people, the next step may be our guide on bullying in the Club.