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)

Scouting from classroom to life experiences

By Greg Nash

In the text, "scouts" are mentioned but can be substituted by other scouting youth sections.

Scouting complements school and family life, filling the needs not met by either. Our scouting youth like lots of other youth in the community engage in a variety of out-of-school activities both social and sporting. Focused activities for example Australian Rules football, Basketball, and Tennis and including other activities similar to music lessons and karate are all great as they offer healthy and excellent outcomes. But focused activities tend to be just that “focused” on the particular chosen leisure pursuit. Scouting may have similar social and to a point, sporting-related outcomes but scouting goes beyond what a dedicated activity can bring to an individual.

Scouting develops self-knowledge, the need to explore, discover, and want to know. All this and more is offered via a badge reward system that accommodates all levels of ability both physical and intellectual. The scout badge system is always evolving and encouraging participation no matter what the interest is.

Scouts have an enhanced School and Family Life

Scouts discover a greater world beyond their school classroom, tapping into the skills of others to learn, and passing that knowledge on to others. To encourage self-discovery scouts are tempted by an expansive badge reward system. Often pursuing badge subjects form topics of interest and school classroom lessons. Often when giving practical instructions leaders discover that their scouts are either talking about the same subject at school or doing projects on it. For example, on a troop meeting night, I was giving practical compass and map demonstrations when a number of scouts told me they have been learning about the earth's magnetic poles in their school class that week.

Scouts are often placed in circumstances where they become the teacher in a peer situation. Some scouts stand out and tend to take a lead role in running their small group known as a patrol. Because scout troops have their bases of learning through small patrols of about five to eight members, each scout generally has an opportunity to take on leadership roles and be responsible to instruct and guide their patrol.

Scouts are involved in a vast number of issues facing the communities where they live. Scouts work with others in the community to achieve mutual objectives. They work with friends, neighbours, community leaders and other organisations.

Parents of Children new to Scouting often comment on how noticeable the changes are, they often see a more positive attitude to home life, more self-reliance and their social network is broadened. These comments are generally echoed by their school teachers.

Among the thousands of adult Australian Scouting volunteers, school teachers account for a good proportion that enjoys the free-flowing nature of an engaging scout programme. In many cases, adding a sense of balance between the classroom and the great outdoors enhances lessons learnt.

A Group Leaders Insight

A Group Leader's insight

By Greg Nash

Being a group leader or leader in charge has its many challenges and when dealing with the many personalities that are present in any group, you could end up having to deal with more than you bargained for and I’m not just talking about the normal day to day life of a group. I’m talking about the leaders you work with and depend upon to deliver great scouting programs.

Often the most devastating problem for groups arises due to the clash of personalities and suspicion of other motives between its adult leadership ranks. At the extreme, these interpersonal relationships end with group conflicts affecting the very scouting concepts we undertake to uphold.

Group leaders work with the people around them to carry out the very ideals that they themselves hold in their leadership position and therefore need to remember that the people who they work with, also what the same. After all, they did signup for the same objectives.

Consider this: My view of the World is my view, and your view of the World is your view. In reality, our views of the World are actually the same, well we could agree on 99% of it, and the rest we can negotiate on.

To avoid unsettling conflicts, leaders need to shift their mindset in the way they think about the people around them. Shift your mindset from terminal certainty, that your perspective is the right one and the only one, and start recognising that your job is to engage diverse thinkers in the group. The more you’re capable of engaging with diversity, the higher your probability of success. Good leaders have to know how to harness it, work with it, and smooth out the rough edges.

Leaders need to have good tools to deal with diversity, they have to be insightful about their own preferences, know the way they make decisions, in thinking about biases of what they see and what they think they see. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know because of a blind spot.

Before trying to understand others it’s better to turn some of the attention to yourself first. Find out if you have a blind spot that makes it difficult to see where others around you are coming from. Do your biases get in the way and stop you from finding out more about how those around you feel? When leaders have self-awareness of their blind spots, it's easier to open up and allow sharing of ideas, goals, and apprehensions.

When leaders don’t have significant insight about themselves, then you will see how significantly diminished is their ability to realise truly great and wonderful outcomes.

Scouting Confidence

By Greg Nash

Scouting has more going for it than many of us give it credit for. I have spoken about scouting and resilient children (presented at a combined all-leaders meeting in 2008) and how by default scouting programs foster better-equipped youth to resist stress and adversity, cope with change and uncertainty, and recover faster and more completely from traumatic events or episodes.

Another positive outcome of scouting is confidence. Time and time again experts give parenting advice on building confident kids, we only need to look at our own training and the scouting program to peel away the barriers preventing children to explore their own confidence. We do this by creating within a safe environment opportunities for our youth to discover their limits, deal with failure and have a go.

All this is good but without the right delivery, all our good work and planning will let those learning possibilities amount to disappointment for youth and leaders. The way we deliver scouting programs can make or break the very confidence we are trying to encourage in those first and vital steps that can be taken.

Leaders need to model confidence in the language that they use because kids need to hear what a confident mindset sounds like. Kids pick up your thinking as well as your language so teach kids how to approach tricky or new situations confidently by doing so yourself. That means, don’t put yourself down if you make a mistake. Instead make sure your thinking reflects that mistakes are acceptable and part of learning, rather than a reflection of your personality.

Encourage kids to look on the bright side because optimism is catchy, and helps kids overcome their fears. Help kids set their antennae to look for the good, something positive, or learning in any situation. The best example I use for this is that moment when abseiling for the first time and just before taking that apprehensive step down the cliff face, all around your friends are telling you it's okay, it is safe, you can do it and no one is saying you’ll fall, you can’t do it, give up.

Look at the many opportunities scouting can offer our youth and take the time to develop and explore new ways of fostering confident children and the adults around you.