ES - Children at events

Christine Huse maria_elfsea at hotmail.com
Sun Feb 18 18:55:09 PST 2001


Buenos Dias!

Ok, I think it's time for the ex-single mom to speak up.....

One of the deciding factors in my decisions to join the SCA was the fact 
that I was told that there are children's activities. Though I feel guilty 
for leaving Ameline with my children, it does allow me to work as a 
Chirurgeon or a water bearer at the field while they are with Ameline. But, 
I do try my best to get over there and help her. I agree that some adults do 
abuse the system, but those few rotten apples shouldn't be allowed to spoil 
a good thing.

Darius, great ideas! I don't think "page" would be a good term. I've been 
giving serious consideration of starting a page program for our youth who 
interested in the sports aspect of our game (ie. heavy and light fighting 
and archery). However, I think we could make a teen group, maybe call it the 
"Rising Star Club" (it's just an idea)? You are correct in saying that the 
children over the age of 10 don't want to go to children's acitivty.  This 
new teen club could be responsible at events for such things as classes for 
their age group or other such activities that would keep this older group of 
children busy. We could set this up very much like Explorer Scouts (I was 
one mundanely). In Explorer Scouts, the children run the meetings and set up 
the activities while the adults are there merely as adivsors (much like 
Mistress Stella is to us..ie. she keeps us in line and makes sure we follow 
the rules and regulations).

I think that giving this age group responsibilites is a good thing. It will 
not only help us out at events, but most importantly it will make our older 
children feel important and worthwhile in our game.

Maria

------
Hey every body Darius here, anfter our recent experiance I got to doing
some thinking about how we handle children at events.  I have come up
with a few ideas that could maybe help on a local lever but need some
development of the ideas.

1. Most of the kids I see at childrens activities are between the ages
of 6 and 10 (Amiline please corect me if I am off) Elfsea has been
wonderfully generous in the past with our childrens activities and
Amiline and several others have done great jobs. The issue is what to do
with the older children. Well How Many of us would be willing to take on
a Page. Teaching them proper courtly behavior as well as helping them
get involved in a positive Manner??? This is an activity that would
require a good relationship between the people having a page, the youth
in question and of course the youth's parents. When I first started
playing SCA 9 or ten years back this was marginally practiced and themn
has faded out into the mist. Pages would not be slaves, although I am
sure some fetch and carry would be involved, but a wise man once said "I
would rather but one men follow me out of love than one hundred out of
obligation."

2. I think a sign up for helping with Childrens activities is a great
Idea. Just like we have a sign up for troll. We can run the activities
with out killing our MOC.  I would still be willing to sign up to help
some one who was in charge of them for an hour or two I just need to be
able to schedule it into my day.

3. Enlist the Older children.  Most kids 13 -16 want to stop "sitting at
the kids table" They want to be involved in the event, how can we help
them do so?? If the older kids set an example of working with the
adults  _and being recognized for it occaisionaly_ the younger ones will
typicaly follow.


Well there is where my brain took me, any other suggestions??
Darius

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