“But you were going to show us how to make water bombs!”: The uniqueness of Child and Youth Care Workers

Karen vanderVen

At a recent conference after lunch (not the best time for a workshop for tired conference-goers) in one of my usual workshops on the theory and practice of activity programming. As I presented some of the theoretical rationales for how activities promote development, I let drop casually that sometimes I showed people how to fold a piece of paper into a container that could hold water and could lead to lots of mischievous fun. Perhaps I might show them later; but now we had other business.

Because of a transportation requirement, I had planned to end the workshop a bit early and didn’t think anybody would mind. As I began to make noises about wrapping things up, suddenly voices spoke up: “But you were going to show us how to make water bombs!” The room sparkled with new energy. So we had a paper folding and demonstration session, with highly attentive participants. We smiled and shared. I still made my ship, and smiled all the way to the other shore. Only in child and youth work !

The notion of “the child within us” sounds almost trite and thus likely to be brushed off.. However, I’ve always felt implicitly and claimed explicitly that being connected with our own childhood memories, recognizing how they affected the way we worked with children and youth now, were not only acceptable attributes of child and youth workers, but also an essential part of our self-understanding and approach that we bring to our work. Now the New York Times, my beacon for articulating trends and legitimizing the questionnable, has just published an article “I Don’t Want to Grow Up!” (Sunday, August 31) Here we meet some “rejuveniles”, adults dedicated to indulging their inner child. Rejuveniles or child and youth workers, the principles are the same. Recalling and still enjoying our favorite childhood activities somehow makes our lives more meaningful, and enables us to make others” lives more meaningful as well. Playing, having fun, having a “bag of tricks” to pull, gives us something special to offer others, be they children and youth or our adult friends. To embrace our “child within” , trite or not, does not mean than we need to abandon our adulthood.

So ... Learn to juggle or to make a water bomb. Read Harry Potter, Nancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins. Play jacks. Make a table-top football. Cut out a snowflake. Walk around town with a red sponge nose on your face. Fly a paper airplane. Polish your yo-yo-ing skills. Buy some fake insects and reptiles. Tell a “Knock, knock” joke. These activities may just have been deemed acceptable by the contemporary press, but we beat them this time. They've been a fundamental part of us and our work all along.