[KINGOFCLUBS454]

Befriend your kids. Middle school level kids listen better to someone they view as a friend rather than a teacher. Now I'm not saying to drop your role as a teacher in the group, you still need to make sure the kids know you are the one in charge(mostly applies to school based teams from my experience). Work a few jokes into lessons, do lots of hands on stuff(Lego gears are very fun to use to demonstrate concepts) and just overall make the kids know how huge of an accomplishment participating FLL is.