Scout time is play time

SCOUT TIME IS PLAYTIME

By Greg Nash

It’s well known that Children these days live highly organized, structured lives and at times we too become unwitting accomplices so that the concept of free play becomes more foreign.

A balanced scouting program can create the possibilities for safe free play.

The importance of play for children is often underestimated and free, unrestricted play is the right of childhood. Playtime is growing time as Children begin to explore their abilities in judgment-making, limits in physical skills, and the impact they have on others around them as they become more self-aware.

Our scout founder Robert Baden-Powell (BP) had always intended scouting to be a game and I'll bet you, that he knew exactly what he was doing. Throughout many of his world tours, BP would always remind us to enjoy the great “game of scouting” and maybe it was his way of reminding us of just how important play is, not only for our youth but also the adults.

Playtime has some serious spinoffs that can not be undervalued:

It has impacts on all aspects of the way children develop. Outside games develop balance, coordination, and fitness. Singing and rhyming games promote language development. Board games and puzzles help intellectual development. Free play at home is therapeutic for children. Play is an important way that children can express and work through their feelings. When children use dress-up boxes, art boxes, and other objects they use their imaginations and initiative when they play. Older children and I’m not excluding our Rover section with this comment, still enjoy these things but usually, they like board games and outside games and sports that challenge them and maintain their interest. In reflection to all, I’ve just said without a doubt that it all makes aspects of play in our scouting program even more important and should never be undervalued.

There are some playtime rules to follow that encourage self-development and one of them is to remember that when Children are left to their own devices they generally attend to about the right ratio of work, rest, and play - that is, play comes before work and just after rest in most children’s scheme of things. Enjoyable play generally happens as long as it doesn’t always turn into lessons. This is where training leaders in presenting planned activities as a fun game that ends up looking like play should be in all Scouter training levels. Parenting experts say that the key is to be led by children and to allow enough time to play on their terms and that in the last decade, there has seen almost universal acceptance by parents and caregivers of its place in building self-esteem in a child’s development.

We should be careful not to over-organize and over-complicate our youth activities at the expense of free, unstructured play for the sake of promoting healthy self-esteem.

The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself. Quote by: Robert Baden-Powell. (1941)

Remember, learning time is scout time and scout time is playtime. That’s my quote. (2010)