Brain Builders: Adventure- The Joy of Unstructured Play

Adventure helps children grow in confidence, creativity, and joy, but it requires a balance between safety and freedom. Kids need a secure foundation and supportive adults to feel safe exploring beyond their comfort zones. Real adventure happens through unstructured play, trying new things, and learning through experience—not screens. Small, interest-based adventures can build toward greater challenges, and success is found in the effort, not just the outcome.

Let them try. Let them fail. Let them know they’re still loved.

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Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
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Transcript

Introduction to Brain-Based Parenting

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Brain-Based Parenting, the Boys Ranch podcast for families. We all know how hard being a parent is, and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling. Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions, utilizing the knowledge, experience and professional training Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, cal Farley's Staff Development Coordinator, joshua Sprock.

Speaker 2 0:35

Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us today as we continue through the next part of our Model Leadership and Service adventure. Today, I'm joined by Michelle MikeheadEtter, suzanne Wright and Mike Wilhelm, as we do each week. Let's start off by jumping into our question of the day. When I was thinking about today's topic and what to ask for a question, for some reason camping popped into my head, because nothing says adventure more than camping. So what is your opinion on camping?

Speaker 5 1:03

So what is your opinion on camping? No, no, camping, no. I prefer indoor toilets. I like heaters, I like air conditioners. I refuse to participate in the adventure of camping.

Speaker 3 1:14

So when I first got out of college I did not want to work in an office. I know it's hard to believe now and so I went into wilderness programming for my first six years of working in social work. And it was at that time. It was a long-term program and we lived outside. So I worked six, seven days on, three days off and literally camped out during that whole time. And so at one point in time, when I was younger, I loved camping out, didn't mind sleeping on the ground, didn't mind being outside majority of the time. Now that I've gotten older, I have stayed in a yurt at Abilene State Park Super fun, but I do prefer it to be a little less rustic.

Speaker 4 1:55

Yeah, I love the settings to be in the outdoors and all, but not sleeping in my own bed is, yeah, just not very restful. It seems like just uncomfortable, I don't know, it's a lot of work.

Speaker 4 2:08

Yeah, my predecessor, the person who was chaplain before me out here, his wife. He loved camping. That was his thing and he wanted to go camping all the time and it would be. You know, this is a great vacation, right? And his wife had a saying that if where you sleep is not as nice as where you sleep at home, that is not a vacation. That was her go-to saying.

Speaker 5 2:32

I think there was wisdom in those words. What about you, Josh?

Speaker 2 2:36

I love camping. It's one of my favorite things. My family goes camping up in the mountains of Colorado every year. It's great, and I do hope someday to be on Survivor where you can camp outside. So yeah, I love it. So you camp in a tent, not in a camper, oh yeah, in a tent on the ground there you go.

Speaker 5 2:56

Yep, we're hardcore, we will cheer you on in Survivor from the comfort of our own home, absolutely.

Defining Adventure for Parents and Kids

Speaker 2 3:04

Today we're finishing out our series on the model of leadership and service, talking about adventure. How would you all define adventure?

Speaker 3 3:11

I think we're going to have some different ideas about what adventure is, and I was just saying I think it depends on the person. It's individualized. I think what we consider to be adventure, but probably new and novel, come to mind when I think of trying something new, going somewhere new, meeting someone new, attempting a new skill or that kind of thing. So not just kind of some of the things that you might like camping, but anything that's kind of outside your comfort zone.

Speaker 4 3:36

Go ahead, Suzanne.

Speaker 5 3:37

Sometimes we use the phrase challenge by choice, and so I think there has to be some desire to go on that adventure.

Speaker 3 3:46

To be challenged Right.

Speaker 5 3:47

You know, I think it's wonderful to try new challenges, but I think you want some choice in that and I think, if we go back to the foundation of our model of leadership and service, which is safety, I think that to try new things, you have to feel safe in that setting or with the people that you're surrounded by in order to have that spirit of adventure.

Speaker 4 4:09

Yeah, I was just thinking very simply, just trying new things. But perhaps there's more to it than just trying new things Trying new things where there might be a benefit at hand.

Speaker 2 4:19

Do you think there's a difference between how adults define adventure and how kids define adventure?

Speaker 3 4:24

Oh yeah, I think just the fact that you like to camp and you're younger, josh, I think that just helps illustrate that.

Speaker 5 4:32

I think that kids don't always think ahead about the possibilities of what could go wrong in an adventure, whereas adults do, because our brains are more fully developed. Right, but if you have a 14-year-old boy standing on a roof and there's a trampoline on the ground, what does his brain say? Jump right. And if that were a 40-year-old man standing on the now, some would still say jump right. But a lot of adults' brains would say what if I miss? What if the trampoline busts? What if I break a bone? How long would I be in the hospital? So we like to go on adventures, but we have to be responsible. We have to think about all the possibilities and kids hopefully have that ability just to have some fun without the responsibility of worry.

Speaker 4 5:23

So you're saying you think the kids are more reckless and the adults are more careful?

Speaker 5 5:28

I don't know that I would use the word reckless, but adults have responsibilities that kids don't, and kids aren't restrained or confined by those responsibilities. I would say kids are sometimes more adventurous.

Speaker 2 5:41

So why is that difference between how kids see adventure and adults see adventure important to understand?

Speaker 3 5:49

Yeah, I think we can get so focused on something being dangerous, something being scary, something being novel that we forget what it was like to be younger and want to explore and do those different things and so kind of like what Suzanne was saying. How do we provide those interests and that enthusiasm in a way that mitigates all the risk involved with it?

How Adults Limit Children's Adventures

Speaker 5 6:08

There's an episode of the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon says I had to leave because they were having fun wrong, and so I think that's kind of our adult brains. There's a specific way to do things in a correct way and a wrong way, and sometimes we take the fun out of an experience because we think, well, they're having fun wrong, instead of just able to allow that fun to happen.

Speaker 3 6:38

Yes, and I think in those attempts to keep everyone safe, sometimes we add too many rules and too many restrictions. Attempts to keep everyone safe Sometimes we add too many rules and too many restrictions. I can remember the kiddo being in kindergarten and the kindergarten teacher were putting so many rules on the Easter egg hunt that they had to concentrate so hard on the rules they couldn't even find the eggs. And so I think we do that a lot with things. When we're trying to add too much control and safety to something, we take all the fun and adventure out of it.

Speaker 4 7:03

And safety to something, we take all the fun and adventure out of it. Oh yes, I've seen this happen before, for sure. We used to do a particular backpacking trip and we probably were on the other end of that spectrum to where maybe we needed a few more safety rules in place. But then we had someone come along one particular year who was very safety conscious and great person and, you know, trying hard to do a good job. But we were so inundated with, overwhelmed with all these rules and protocols and to where we were missing the trip itself because we were just all, we were just consumed with oh my gosh, what's that rule about this? What's the rule about this? So there's definitely a point where we can just kind of suck all the magic out of the adventure.

Speaker 5 7:56

I think a lot of parents can relate to your child opening a Christmas gift and discarding the gift and playing with the box and the wrapping paper Right, and we as adults get frustrated. But I bought this gift and I put time into this gift and we want them to play with the gift instead of just enjoying the fact that they're joyful and they're happy in that moment and whatever brings that joy we should celebrate, Right? So if they want to play with the box, play with that box.

Speaker 4 8:24

Yeah, I've been reading some recently about the need for unsupervised play. I don't know if Josh, suzanne or Michelle have heard any of that out there right now that's in play and I really appreciate some of the things it's caused me to think about. And obviously, if you're a residential child care setting like ours, that's difficult to do. But even for those listening at home seems like there's ways to incorporate some of that to where there's still some safety things in place or watch it from a distance. But for that, for a child to explore and try new things and build a fort with their friend or what you know to be, it seems like there's imagination and creative capacity. All this awakens when there's some unsupervised play that are probably our culture right now doesn't have much space for that, don't you?

Speaker 3 9:20

think Well, and I was in unstructured like unstructured play yeah, that's a better way.

Speaker 4 9:25

Unsupervised is very terrible.

Speaker 3 9:26

Yeah, because that scared me when you said unsupervised but, yeah, unstructured time to be able to play, because, I think about it, I'm a pretty lazy parent. My kids weren't involved in a whole bunch of activities and then when I talk to my friends, their kids are heavily scheduled throughout the week and I used to feel very guilty about that, about I should, you know, get up earlier and my kids should stay longer, and all this kind of stuff. And I do think it's a balance, right. Everything we're talking about, with having some safety and some rules and then allowing some freedom and some, you know, flexibility with things, is following that balance where kids do have unstructured time to be creative and to figure things out without adults telling them how to do something and when to do it.

Speaker 4 10:06

The capacity just to develop. Problem solving seems to happen through good attention to this, don't?

Speaker 5 10:13

you think?

Speaker 4 10:15

And if everything all play, everything is structured without any unstructured time, I wonder if we're going to have children that don't have their capacity to problem solve is going to seem to be compromised.

Speaker 5 10:32

When my oldest daughter was young we frequently ate at a Mexican food restaurant that had a sombrero on the wall and she kept pointing to that hat saying candy cane, and I kept correcting her and after several instances I looked and indeed there were shapes of a candy cane on that hat and I thought I'm so limited, right, my brain has been trained to see one thing and have one correct answer, and her imagination was wide open and she could see things that I couldn't see. Yes, and that was an aha moment for me.

Speaker 3 11:07

Yes, and I remember that just with my kids doing artwork. You want them to have the grass green and the sky blue and the sun's yellow and all those kind of things, and in some ways it's really sad when we constrain them in that way and try to get them to conform to how we think it should be, instead of just allowing them to do it.

Speaker 5 11:24

It sounds like we can learn.

Speaker 2 11:28

So what does it look like when a child is having success with adventure?

Speaker 3 11:31

Smiles is the first thing that came to mind.

Speaker 5 11:34

I think there is so much that we want our kids to accomplish right. We want them to do well in school and if they're in activities, we want them to be successful in those activities and sometimes we forget how important play is. That goes back to that unstructured play. But kids need time to use their imagination and to explore and to try new things. And success with adventurous things doesn't just mean accomplishment or winning, doing the best, but it just means that they are willing to try and that they're having fun.

Signs of Successful Adventures

Speaker 4 12:09

Well, I have to guess another horse story. Fun Well, I have to guess another horse story. But just this fall there was a young man that's here from lives in a city and comes to Boy's Ranch and at first, when he's here, he was pretty withdrawn and, lo and behold, he decides to come out on a prayer ride. And what we do on a prayer ride is we saddle up and ride two and a half miles west, have a little simple prayer at sunset, and then we ride back under the stars, first time he'd ever ridden a horse, and then, of all things, you're even riding back in the dark. So he really stretched himself.

Speaker 4 12:47

But he talked on the way back and he says you know, when I first got here I just thought I was going to just do my time and just do what I need to do until I graduated or went home or whatever he says. You know, I decided, as long as I'm here, I want to try new things. And he was so proud of himself. He just had this euphoria, as he was at this point in the prayer ride where he was on this horse, and he really realized he wasn't going to die and he was giddy about it, but it seems like it instills some confidence and they're ready to try other new things, and I noticed that as those that are engaged with adventure. It seems like maybe they came in and didn't have much practice with relationships with adults eye contact and conversation. It seems like the next thing you know, that's another new thing they're trying and maybe, whether or not they're realizing it or not, don't you think, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 13:45

How important is it to have that safe, supportive adult to have success with adventure.

Speaker 5 13:50

I think it's very important. I think that all children need a safe base right so that they can go out and experiment and try new things. But if it starts to feel unsafe or overwhelming, that they've got a relationship with an adult that they can check back in, that they can receive more encouragement or more support, or make that choice. I don't wanna proceed any further with this adventure. Right, I tried riding horses. I don't like it. I don't want to proceed any further with this adventure. Right, I tried riding horses. I don't like it, I don't want to do it anymore. But that they have a safe, supportive adult to say okay, that's good, thanks for trying, but I honor your decision.

Speaker 3 14:23

I think there's two pieces to what you just said is super important. One is unconditional acceptance right, so that even if you are unsuccessful, you're still cared for, you're still valued. I think that's such an important piece to being okay, to trying things. And then the other one is that you know being okay to say that I don't like this and I don't want to do this, and that's honored too. Because I think a lot of times we try to teach kids you don't ever quit. You know you do have to do your best at every single thing, and so to give them that freedom to say there's going to be some things you're good at and some things you're not, and some things you don't like and some things you do, I think that is very freeing to allow them to figure that out.

Supporting Children Through New Experiences

Speaker 2 14:57

What does it look like or what are some warning signs that a child is struggling with having an adventure?

Speaker 5 15:02

I think it's almost impossible for a child to have adventure if they don't first feel safe and if they don't have belonging and if they don't have belonging. So when we look back at all the components of the model of leadership and service, I think they're all important leading up to adventure. And so when you feel safe, when you feel connected to other people, when you have a sense of achievement, you can take that next step and try things that are new or different or possibly scary. But if you don't have that basic felt safety, then it's almost impossible to try new things.

Speaker 3 15:38

You know, then I kind of think of it the other way around.

Speaker 3 15:40

Like I remember, we had a school that consolidated with ours when I was in high school and they brought these other kids in and of course that's a weird situation because they're all in their own group and we're already established as a group and the kids came in and they were at that time breakdancing was really popular and parachute pants and they came in and we were not doing that at my school and they came in and started breakdancing during the lunch period and that brought them belonging and through that they got safety, because we were all so intrigued that they could do this really cool thing that none of us could do. Safety because we were all so intrigued that they could do this really cool thing that none of us could do. And I thought it took a lot of bravery for them to do something, but because it was something they enjoyed and they were good at, they were willing to do that in a setting which probably did not feel very safe to them, but because they did it, it brought these other things to them.

Speaker 5 16:25

So. So the follow up question is then did you start to wear parachute pants? I did have parachute pants.

Speaker 3 16:31

I did not break dance. Okay, that's.

Speaker 2 16:37

If our listeners felt that their kids were struggling with having a sense of adventure in their lives, how would you recommend that they help them with this?

Speaker 5 16:44

I think I would look for opportunities that matched the interest of my child. So I would start with something that there was an interest in, that maybe felt safe. If they were interested in animals, I might not take them to ride a horse, that might be too big of a step. But we might go visit dogs at an animal shelter or, you know, visit a neighbor's dog, or I just think you start with something that already feels familiar to them and then expand on that connection.

Speaker 4 17:15

No, I think that's good, suzanne, what you just said, and if you wouldn't want to have too many new things happening at one time, probably if I'm thinking, suddenly I'm a stranger in a new small group that's going to do something, that's a stretch, that's an adventure, but that might be too much at once.

Speaker 4 17:38

But, if I have a small group that I become comfortable with and familiar with it's a safe number and there's that safe person that's the mentor leader then I'm probably ready to go do something. But sometimes we probably can make a mistake of throwing too much at once, don't you think?

Speaker 3 17:56

Yeah, Well, I know I've talked about, you know, my goat yoga and my aerial yoga, but the friend I do that with is one particular friend who's very adventurous and I feel brave when I'm with her because she is so adventurous. I do things with her that I wouldn't normally do on my own.

Speaker 4 18:11

Now do you wear your parachute pants when you do aerial goat yoga?

Speaker 3 18:15

I wish I could find those parachute pants. They were orange.

Speaker 4 18:20

Yeah, because they might as well be, were they MC Hammer pants.

Speaker 3 18:24

No, those are different.

Speaker 5 18:27

I think that this makes me think about setting New Year's resolutions and how frequently people set big resolutions or numerous resolutions and within a month, they've not been able to follow through because it was too much. Right, and so, just as you said, mike, joining a new group and participating in a new activity may be too much at one time right, and so we've talked about this in previous episodes. But to make changes incrementally, make small changes right, small steps, small connections, rather than try some big, overwhelming goal or activity at once.

Speaker 2 19:10

If a kid doesn't have a sense of adventure in their life, what can that lead to?

Speaker 3 19:13

I mean, I think you can miss out on a lot of things, a lot of opportunities to probably meet some pretty cool people then experience some joy, you might also miss out on opportunities that help you define your purpose and learn about yourself.

Video Games vs. Real-World Adventures

Speaker 2 19:27

What do you think the impact of kids getting their adventure needs met with video games or being so connected with the virtual world that they don't get out into the real world and have a real adventure?

Speaker 4 19:37

Oh boy, I think that's a big one and I've been thinking about that here through this whole discussion the role video games are playing in this. Some may disagree with me but I don't think video games taps into this need for adventure or if it does, maybe just minimally. And I imagine there'll be a lot of listeners that probably struggle with kiddos at home around video games or being on their phones and you're probably nagging at them a lot about it and it's frustrating and I get that. But there's a mistake we can make in this and that is to just nag for them to get away from the video games or from the phone instead of inviting them into something better, and that takes some forethought and being intentional and takes time. But invite them into an adventure and suddenly the video game doesn't have to have the last say right.

Speaker 2 20:39

We have to put our phones and video games down as well to do that forethought and set things up.

Speaker 4 20:45

Yeah, I know. I just know I could get stuck in that mode where you know I'm frustrated that the child is stuck into the video games or in the phone and you just want to lecture and nag, but that's not going to help anything. What I need to do is let's find some ways to do something better together and invite them into adventure.

Speaker 5 21:05

There was a study done just recently where the people surveyed were asked do you think that you could land a passenger plane in an emergency? And an overwhelming number of people it was I don't remember exactly. 30 to 50% of respondents said I don't remember exactly. 30 to 50% of respondents said yeah, I've landed a plane on a video game.

Speaker 5 21:26

Sure I could do it right as long as the tower was talking me through it. And so the discussion was they're not taking into consideration, like the g-force and the actual physicality of being in that plane. But I thought we assume that that video world is way more real life than it is, so much so that and these were adults who were surveyed by the way that's become our reality, and I think that there's danger in that for all of us, adults as well as children. But I love your idea to invite them to something better, something different.

Speaker 4 22:00

An adventure. An adventure, a real life adventure. Yeah, the video games. Michelle, josh, suzanne helped me understand this. It would seem like the video game is tapping into stimulation into the central nervous system, so that there's an addictive quality to this. But adventure would be different, because there would be some nice rush to adventure but there seems like there's real meaning at the center, rather than just empty, just playing upon my central nervous system like a video game would do. Are you following me?

Speaker 3 22:39

Is that right.

Speaker 4 22:40

Am I off on this, or is there something to that?

Speaker 3 22:43

No, I think that's right. I was trying to think how you could distinguish. I'm sure there's a biological way you can distinguish that. But I was thinking about the difference between when we use devices or electronics to connect versus disconnect, Because we do both with them. We use them to disconnect from the real world, but then we also use them to stay connected to people in ways that are new to it recently. New to us, I guess, as a species. But I think that when we leave out the relational component to anything we're not, it's kind of like having an artificial sweetener instead of sugar, right, it's kind of like it kind of tricks your brain into thinking you're getting something that you're really not getting. And so that's kind of the way I feel about video games and being on teams and that kind of thing, and virtually I'm sure there is some aspect of that to feel like you belong and you're accomplishing something, but it's kind of an artificial piece of it instead of an authentic relationship.

Speaker 4 23:36

That makes sense. It would seem like that boredom is a byproduct where we become very dependent on that stimulation. So when we're not getting that stimulation, just by default the person is bored. But adventure seems to be something that is a good remedy for boredom.

Speaker 4 23:53

And I don't know if I've shared this with the group here before on podcast, but there was a day one of the groups of young boys out here at Boys Ranch were having a really bad day and one of our co-workers out here stopped by the house and checked on them and the people on duty said, well, this is a bad day.

Speaker 4 24:16

You might want to come back tomorrow. And he says well, I'm going over to the other side of the highway to catalog insects. Would you mind if I took the boys with me? And the staff on duty says, well, you know, that's really nice of you, but I just don't think it would possibly work. And he says give me, let me just have a try at it. So these boys that were having a bad day okay, they were very dysregulated got in the truck, they went over the other side of the road and they were over there for hours and didn't want to come back, and they were just quiet and intense and they were looking for different bugs and figuring out from the guide what kind they were. And they were on an adventure.

Speaker 2 25:03

Well, it has been an adventure with you all these last several weeks exploring the model of leadership and service. Remember you might have to loan out your frontal lobes today. Just make sure you remember to get them back.

Closing Thoughts

Speaker 1 25:14

Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your child, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit calfarleyorg. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for Cal Farley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.