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"But you told us you’d show us how to make water bombs!" Activity, that is, doing, and its benefits has received relatively little attention in the child and youth work literature. In direct care settings, what the children and youth actually do to occupy their time productively is similarly underemphasized. There may be boredom due to lack of interesting and engaging activities, lack of challenge with activities pitched below the competence level of the youth, or an overemphasis on a particular domain of activity — too often video games. Given these factors, there is a great need for child and youth staff to have: a sense of their role in providing activities; the developmental and therapeutic reasons for the significance of activities in the lives of youth; and some practical ideas on how to successfully design and implement activities in their own settings. The workshop upon which this report is based focused on the following.
The concept of the Culture of Childhood refers to the collective folklore of children that is transmitted down the generations, across geographic areas, and among cultural subgroups. The forms and domains of activity that are transmitted include tricks, rituals, sayings, games, crafts, and the like that engage and focus exchanges among children and youth. At the same time, these exchanges generate changes in children and youth. There are universal patterns found in all cultures that underlie many of the activities in the Culture of Childhood. It is easy to help a group recognize the Culture of Childhood and its power in transmitting childhood-pertinent information and in enabling children to have a basis for forming connections with each other In this workshop, participants were offered paper of different colors, scissors, glue, and tape. They were invited to make something out of paper they recalled making during their own childhood. In the meantime, the workshop leader made a list of items she thought they might construct, including fortune tellers, table top footballs, weavings, fans, chains, lanterns, and the like. Indeed, almost all of these were produced. Several points were made regarding the Culture of Childhood. Knowledge of these kinds of simple activities can serve as social coin to help children gain entry into their peer group. However, many children and youth in care may not have been exposed to such activities due either to restrictions and deprivation in their earlier environments or to their own particular social or physical limitations, and the activity, therefore, is not in their repertoire. Thus, paradoxically, adults must take responsibility for conveying the activities of the Culture of Childhood to them. Another exercise that demonstrates the connection between practitioners’ own interests and their ability to provide activities for children and youth in an activity-programming format is for each of them to recall — and share with the group —those activities that they enjoyed as children and still enjoy now. These can be recorded and then compiled using the concept of domains of activity as an organizer (A domain of activity is a meaningful category for organizing a number of similar activities, e.g., football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, soccer, swimming, etc. would fall under the domain of sports.) When this compilation is made, it will be apparent that therein exists an entire activity program, reflecting the interests and skills of the participants and covering a multitude of activity domains. This recognition can serve as the basis for any staff member to return to his or her setting, conduct a similar inquiry, and encourage the staff to recognize that, among them, they have the capacity to build on, or to enhance, whatever activities are already in place. This also supports the premise that, ultimately, activities come from the self. If we recognize the role of activity in our own development, that we have experienced an array of interesting and meaningful activities, then we are equipped to use our selfhood as a springboard for engaging youth in the activities and relationships that are encouraged by activities and that they so desperately need. |
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