I read this guest post over on morethandodgeball by Matt McGill last week, regarding play fighting (or ‘hazing’) with young people. From the article:
Through the years, I’ve wrestled with tons of guys… a handful of times things spun out of control… but most of the time it’s great ministry. We’ve never had any regular “hazing,†but there’s been plenty of horsing around… We’ve never had a list or standard, this is something we’ve always handled verbally or “culturally†(new leaders learning through watching and experiencing).
The post goes on to try and define what is or isn’t acceptable when getting physical with teens, by using some questions to help youth workers decide for themselves. It’s actually pretty good guidance:
- When it’s all over, will the kid feel more accepted and belonging or rejected and humiliated?
- When it’s all over, what would the kid’s parents say if they were standing there?
- Is this something you’d do to your own kid, better yet, how would you feel if someone else did this?
But the whole idea of playing rough got me thinking, should we really be doing this?
My personal default position is “no”. I will rarely engage in physical play with young people (except within sports) and would encourage my staff and volunteers to do the same, although I’ve never thought much about why this is. From a safety point of view, I never want any of my team to hurt or humiliate a young person, and I never want them to be in a position where they could be accused of anything against a young person – it’s standard safeguarding principles.
However, I do realise that there are times when rough play can be useful. Often young people (particularly boys) like to bundle and play rough with each other. For a significant adult, like a youth worker, to join in with this can be a significant moment that helps to build a positive relationship and can even help young people to feel included in the group or activity.
So when and how should we do this? At what point should a worker play rough and how do you know? Are we too afraid of getting in trouble and having accusations made against us, or should we rightly be cautious about physical games?
Let me know in the comments!
(Image Credit: Spencer Finnley on Flickr)
6 responses to “Playing Rough With Young People”
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What a great set of questions? Many eons back I would have willingly played in some of the rougher horseplay games (“King of the Ring” springs to mind) but for the last 10 years or more that has been very different, never thought deeply on it but realising that your post is making me reflect quite a bit on this one.
Thanks for provoking some great thought
Thanks Roy, I hadn't given it much thought either. In the past I've had some volunteers who would get a little rough – much to the delight of the young people who would jump and climb all over them. I was always pretty uncomfortable with this because I was the one in charge. Perhaps it comes down to how well we know the young people concerned?
When I attended my youth club as a young person we used to do all sorts of fun activities like “wide games” (basically man-hunt in the woods – at night) We didn't think anything of it… it was completely normal and we all loved it. Nowadays as a youth worker myself I wouldn't dream of running an activity like that. It's a real shame because I think young people miss out on loads of great learning opportunities simply through youth organisations being paralysed by fear. Not fear that their staff would do anything inappropriate, but fear of what other professionals would think.
When I attended my youth club as a young person we used to do all sorts of fun activities like “wide games” (basically man-hunt in the woods – at night) We didn't think anything of it… it was completely normal and we all loved it. Nowadays as a youth worker myself I wouldn't dream of running an activity like that. It's a real shame because I think young people miss out on loads of great learning opportunities simply through youth organisations being paralysed by fear. Not fear that their staff would do anything inappropriate, but fear of what other professionals would think.
Thanks for the comment. We still do run activities like you describe, but have to put a lot of effort in to make sure that the game is safe(r)! Things like; setting clear geographical boundaries for the game, having marshals in day-glo with radios stationed around the area, etc. It's well worth it though because, as you say, the young people don't get a chance to do these activities elsewhere. It builds memories for them.
I suppose though, if we go back to the “playing rough” idea, that we really play down that side of it and make it a clean, safe game instead.