[Ansteorra] children and teen activities in the SCA

Sun Jan 20 07:36:03 PST 2008

When I was young I brought books. I found the SCA atmosphere a wonderful place for reading, esp. the fantasy genre. :) I recently saw a group on children (that have gotten all too old recently, they were prolly 8-13 age range) playing RPGs while their parents took classes. My son will watch the fighters happily *all day long*, although both of my older children prefer boffer to watching someone else. I do wish that there were more oppurtunities for boffer. I have only been to (or heard of) one event recently that offered the boffer authorizing class, and none that offer youth boffer activities. I'd be willing to drive if I saw one. I wonder how many people we have that can authorize or marshall that type of activity?

Mystique <Mystique at phulesgold.com> wrote:  We have been here for about 8 months now and have gone to 5 events.. only TWO 
had anything for the over 10 crowd.. The small event of Quest for the Round 
Table (I think is what it was called.. hosted by Tir Medoin) where only one 
other kid showed up and my son was able to boffer fight. The other was 
BrynGwlad's Baronial where there was youth fighting and archery.. my son won the 
archery competition. HE SO WANTS TO FIGHT.. and here in the KINGDOM LANDS of the 
Southern Region (middlford) we try desperately to keep him interested. He won't 
even ATTEMPT to go to an event with us if there is nothing Youth set up.. like 
Archery or Boffer. He is 12. He did come to BAM with us and he did find a few 
kids his age to hang with but there was nothing for them to really do. And it 
turns out they also boffer but there was none at the event.

My family has alot of hobbies.. SCA is just one of them.. and darn near all of 
them the family does together.. we play Paintball, SCA, kids are in Scouts and 
we are volunteer adults for scouts, we play role playing games .. and we all 
enjoy them. But it seems the SCA is where our kids are losing interest. There is 
never anything for them.

It's just a shame as we have tried and tried to get something going with the 
other groups closest to us. They either don't even have youth activities or they 
are having the problem of keeping them going.

Just my two cents.

Maire' O'Halowrane
Kingdom Lands

----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 5:37 PM
Subject: [Ansteorra] children and teen activities in the SCA

There isn't much for the under 18 crowd at most events I go to. First, a 
disclaimr: I don't have children, and unsupervised or poorly behaved children 
really annoy me. I have been known to snap and snarl at them. That said, while 
some events seem to have a few hours of supervised activities for the under 10 
crowd, the 10-18 crowd seems to be left out in the cold. This is a problem for 
two reasons: 1) if they are not happy at events, their parents either don't go 
or have to find a place to put them while the parents attend, and 2) this is the 
age where kids seem to decide what activities they will be interested in as 
adults. If there is nothing for them to do and they find events a drag, they 
will not stay in the SCA. It is a lot easier to keep people then to find new 
people, so there ought to be more activities aimed at building skills and 
captivating this group so they stay involved in the SCA. Now, I realize that at 
least one reason there is not more activities is
there are not people willing to supervise them. While I can teach some 
embroidery skills to well behaved children, I refuse to deal with poorly behaved 
ones, and they are the ones who most need something to occupy their attention 
and minds. I am not sure what the answer is, but the problem needs to be 
recognized.

Lady Stephanie Lilburn
Stephanie Smith, Ph.D
Hunt County, Texas
Owned by a Poodle and an Australian Cattle Dog
K5AMK

-- Quill wrote:
How many LARPers does it take to take down an angry Italian child armed with
a sword?
Quite a few it seems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkirTaTwPBw&NR=1

But seriously, I'm not just spamming the list. I was wondering what the
attitude of the kingdom was toward children in general is. (This would be
anyone required to be accompanied with an over-21 at events.)
There are those who have them, and there are those who don't, those who
technically are and those who until recently /were/ children. I myself fall
somewhat into the latter category (no I don't, I was born old, it just took
everyone awhile to catch on) but more importantly to me, I have younger
brothers, (4, 8, and 16) who want to follow their "little big brother" to
events (I asked one of them what he thinks he wants to do - he said he wants
to be king, so look out people!), and I'd love to take them, but I'm curious
to know what kind of world they'd be entering.
So a couple things to think about in answering: what are your attitudes
toward children (especially those of other people)? What is there - in the
SCA or at any given event - for children to be involved in? What do we do to
not just make room for them in our dream, but make them a /part/ of it, and
make ourselves a part of their dream? And to those of you who were "born
into the Society"... what keeps you here?

((I know I'm going to regret this when I get inundated with responses; my
inbox is sore already.))
-- 
In service to The Dream and Dreamers all,
Cuillioc /|\ "Quill"
Titled Bard of the Barony of Bonwicke

"It is said that the Devil never crossed the Tamar into Cornwall on account
of the well-known habit of Cornish women of putting everything into a pasty,
and that he was not sufficiently courageous to risk such a fate!"

-From the cookbook _Cornish Recipes Ancient and Modern_
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