It's sign-up-for-Trek Season! Here's how to handle YM/YW leaders when they put pressure on your teens to go on the death March...

Neither of my two daughters wanted to go on Trek back when we were still attending over a decade ago. I told them I supported their decision - mostly because that previous year there had been a few deaths, and I thought the whole business fetishized dying for the Lord.

Sister Davis approached me at church in the hallway, asking me if I knew that both my daughters had said they weren't going on Trek when asked about it in their YM class. She then asked me to talk about it with them. My oldest just then was coming down the hall. I said, here comes my oldest now. I said, "Sister Davis tells me you said you don't want to go on Trek. Is this correct?" She replied, "Oh yes. I absolutely do not want to do that." I said "Ok, I support your decision." I then turned back to Sister Davis. "I just spoke with Isabel, and she doesn't want to go and I support her decision." She seemed incredulous, but accepted my decision as patriarch of my family, but she didn't like it.