Can parents be added to the 'Youth' circle

The gospel living app has a great 'Whatsapp' like facility that we would love to use for our youth to stay in touch and know what's going on. Can youth leaders (administrators to the youth 'circle') add parents to the youth circle? Parents inevitably need to know what's going on with youth group conversations and I am reluctant to move away from WhatsApp if the parents are going to be left out the conversation.

I don't have access currently, but I believe that parents are able to have visibility into their children's circles by default.

sbradshaw wrote:I don't have access currently, but I believe that parents are able to have visibility into their children's circles by default.

From screen shots online, parents are added to their children's circles automatically.

Same goes for your callings. You'll be added to relevant circles automatically.

jokamura wrote:From screen shots online, parents are added to their children's circles automatically.

Same goes for your callings. You'll be added to relevant circles automatically.

I just checked this in the app: as an example, parents are absent in our deacons quorum circle. I also understand we're currently unable to manually add anyone to a given circle. It could be the functionality is different for the "children's" circles (those turning 12 after the current year).

I also just specifically checked the youth circle: the only adults I see are youth leaders (their calling).

Parents have visibility of all their children's circle. This is located under "My Children's Circles." This is by default and looks like parents are not listed as part of the circle.

Parents can currently see the circles, but when will they be able to see the calendar items for youth?

Parents are “view only” on youth circles for their children by default. This is a problem. I don’t receive notifications when new messages are posted even though I have my notifications turned on, and I cannot respond with any questions or comments. Ideally our youth would all be on top of this communication, and be discussing all new items with their parents, but when we are talking about 11 year olds, even if they do have device, they’re not always on them and can’t be counted on to relay important information.

I’d like to know if there’s an update on this?
We need to have the parents be more than View-only in order to implement this tool…specifically parents (as well as the youth) need to be able to view and post to their children’s circles (as many youth are borrowing their parents phones for this communication) and the parents in addition to the youth need to get notifications when a post is made.

yes, parents can be added to the youth circles, but only the circle administrators can do it.
Go to the circle
Click on the people icon at the top right
Then click on the pencil icon in the lower right when you see the list of people already in the circle.
You can add people by calling in the ward or individually.

Our ward is transitioning away from WhatsApp and I have to say, it's frustrating that parents are defaulted as "view only" for teen kids' circles. My 12 year old deacon doesn't have a phone, along with most of his quorum, but I cannot send questions to his leaders via the Deacons circle! Is the Church aware of this issue? Seems like a giant can of worms.

sanaya wrote: Sat May 28, 2022 6:13 am yes, parents can be added to the youth circles, but only the circle administrators can do it.
Go to the circle
Click on the people icon at the top right
Then click on the pencil icon in the lower right when you see the list of people already in the circle.
You can add people by calling in the ward or individually.

This seems like the only way that parents can comment on their kid's circle which isn't ideal. Thank you for letting everyone know.

Parents should be able to comment on their children circle. If a parent can't take their child to an activity or something they could look to the circle to help out. The parents being able to write in that circle should be automatic. When can this be fixed?

When can this be fixed?

This thread doesn't have this info yet, although other threads about the Circles app do have the following information. For your awareness, this Forum is member-to-member help, and not a part of the official Church support. Forum members are in a similar situation as yourself, outside of any Church decision-making process. So it's difficult for anyone here to know if the current implementation is purposeful (privacy laws, etc), or if it's simply a matter of prioritizing the list of enhancements. The only real recourse you have is to submit Feedback (from inside the Circles app), stating your situation and the feature request. Not ideal, but it's all any of the rest of us can do for similar situations.

This app excludes the thousands of parents that are in divorced homes. My children’s records are in both words, but the circles app only works in the wards. The parents records are in so thousands of parents will get cut off from encouraging their children to go to activities does anyone know a solution to this?

ausmil wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2024 8:56 pm This app excludes the thousands of parents that are in divorced homes. My children’s records are in both words, but the circles app only works in the wards. The parents records are in so thousands of parents will get cut off from encouraging their children to go to activities does anyone know a solution to this?

I don't know if for the parent who is not in the child's home ward, creating an "out-of-unit membership record" would work. That seems like the only potential workaround that pops into my mind, although there's possibly other issues with the child only appearing in one household and I don't know if that impacts anything (other Forum members may have experience trying something like this)

At a higher-level, if I was a youth leader and had a youth in that situation, I would be very open to making sure both parents were fully aware of all announcements and communications. Even if it required consistent additional effort on my part, as a youth leader I'd be truly interested in making sure the youth and their parents felt fully included in our efforts. So I would hope that if a divorced parent had a one-on-one conversation with the youth's Bishop and/or other youth leaders, they would do their best to try and keep the out-of-ward parent in the communication loops, and ensure info available in Circles was duplicated to the other parent.

It's a real issue for many youth and parents. Circles definitely has specific limitations, but I think most divorced parents face similar issues with whatever communication method is in place in a local ward.

I'm not sure about circles, but in some situations the parent must be listed as the parent on the child's record and be in the same household as the child.

If true, that's likely to exclude the parent who isn't in the ward. Adding them as a out-of-unit member isn't likely to be a solution as it will show a married family in the ward directory.