Girls and outdoor activities. Where am I going wrong?

I definitely don't think there's anything intrinsic to your activities that sounds girl-unfriendly. DD's (female) friends always love coming to our fields (we're veg growers, but plenty of wild space too), climbing trees, scramble net, campfires, that sort of thing. In fact at her recent birthday party they all turned up en masse and literally scattered up the trees (ages 11-14, mostly girls), it was quite funny.

I'm not at all convinced by a pp's comment that girls are less competitive . . . .

As a parent I wouldn't have been so keen on a come and stay activity for an over eight! But I don't see why that would be more of an issue for girls.

I'd make a girls only group.

My dd wanted to do football but had a horrid time at the mixed class.

She would go to a girls class.

Definitely offer it as full day childcare in the holidays.

Parents have to stay? that wouldn't suit me or my kids unfortunately unless it was specifically designed as a whole family thing, I wouldn't want to hang around waiting for them for hours

Do the parents have to stay?!

DD is within your age range and she is currently off in a city 40 miles away at a band signing with her friends and no adult supervision. They went on the train.

There is no way she would want me to go with her to a kids' activity.

Make it attractive to parents- somewhere they can dump their kids for a few hours.

The "stage" school here is very successful because by the time they do an hour dance, singing, drama, plus 2x 20 min breaks that's nearly 4 hours on a Saturday morning parents can get other stuff done.

Do you have access to a mini bus? I bet if you offered to pick up from school and take the kids until 6pm you'd have a long waiting list...

Jackie some of the Guides I've known would be happy to do an outdoor activity in the most horrendously unsuitable clothing.

In theory putting them in the oversized, unfashionable spare clothing from the cupboard that I tell them hasn't been washed since the last person wore it should make them keen to wear their own outdoor clothing.

I am pretty sure they do all own trousers, and one out of wellies and trainers. You can't wear a sleeveless dress and sandals 365 days of the year, at least not unless your parents are going to be arrested for neglect. Some of them may not own a warm coat though.

Could having (or not having) suitable clothing be a reason?

When you see girls playing out in the summer I often notice how unsuitable their clothes & shoes are. Boys have trainers/wellies/ combats/hoodies. Girls (not all) I see in thin sleeveless dresses in easily stained pale colours and flimsy sandals.

Say you provide outdoors clothes and you may get more girls.

thinking of my guides... they are 10-14 and were quite mature in their attitudes to life, they'd have been more interested in doing practical voluntary conservation work than they would have been in playing or learning about conservation.

iNickedAName- does she have a good well fitting bra? And where is the hair she is worried about?

How about a fairy woodcraft session - make wooden fairy doors, hint for pixie dust etc?

Maybe if you're five! But not 8-13!

Even my Rainbows would find that a bit babyish I think.

If the courses are popular could it be that the girls are taking a little longer to think about it and by the time they apply it is full? I'm not sure the fairest way to even things out if that is the case though.

How about a fairy woodcraft session - make wooden fairy doors, hint for pixie dust etc?

Have some girl only groups. Not every girl wants to be on a bossy boys team, where overexcited and immature boys are telling everyone how things should be done.

There are a lot of comments by boys about how rubbish girls are that you may not be aware of.

Most girls aren't competitive the way boys are and orienteering and geocaching to win can also be very unattractive to girls.

Ime Girls are more mature than boys at this age and have more social skills. Some boys are emotionally blind at this age and it's very unattractive to a girl to be lumped in with this kind of team mate.

Ime girls only clubs for coding are well subscribed, but where the boys are, the girls tend not to want to be as they are bullied. My own dd reeled backwards out of a mixed coding group as she was subjected to boys comments. There were only two girls present in a group of 20 and they were taking notes.
The organisers had NO idea these subtle digs were being made, and immediately started up a very popular girls only group.

You need to tone down the competitive element and separate the sexes to involve girls. Also lay off the primary colours, they aren't attractive to girls.

Meant to add that she has two brothers who were both still little boys at 13 and would happily have joined in with the 8 year olds without blinking, whereas DD is just physically and mentally much more mature. Maybe you need a slight shift of age range with sessions for 11-13s, to make it clear that it won't be full of littlies?

I have one at the upper end of your age range.
Two years ago she would have come to this and loved it. Now, as others have said, she's (a) starting to think of herself as quite grown up, (b) too busy (music, drama, school events) for any extra regular commitments and (c) only willing to try new things if a friend is known to to have signed up to it first .

What might tempt her in is a single long session on a weekend, or a two-day thing during a half-term to try it out.

Meanwhile, can I come??

My dd loves outdoorsy, she's 10 and a year ago would have jumped at this, but in the last year, to the point of feeling sick with anxiety she has grown to dislike PE and physical activities, and after almost a year of trying to figure out why I learned this morning it's down to puberty. I only found this morning when she was shaking with worry at the thought of PE today. She told me her breasts hurt and she worries about her hairs being visible to others in the changing rooms. A bit of a derail but Im at a loss for what to do, I don't want to request that she doesn't do PE ever, but I also don't want my dd feeling embarrassed by her own body and that she has to remove body hair at 10 year old. I just wondered if that could be a reason that girls are put off? I also agree that some parents might see the ads and automatically not consider it for their dds.

Totally agree with Hakluyt. I have two boys and ALL after school clubs are sports orientated at our local primary school so with exception of cubs/beavers it's really hard to find activities that appeal to the non competitive, non sporty types (although ds's both do dance outside of school)

DofE is from 14 though

i was just wondering whether it was something that could be linked up with DofE if it isn't already. if not for the voluntary aspect, for the skills part if it fit in with the criteria

Yes, I would not go down the pink route. There is an age for being into pink. Pink is strongly marketed towards the birth - 8 age range. Older girls often see it as babyish.

Advertise through Brownies and Guides but don't push the arts and crafts side! Guiding is different from Scouting not because of the different activities but because it has no boys. Some Guiding groups choose to be more craft based (it's supposed to be the girls' choice but sometimes it's the leaders')

And DON'T do the pink stereotyped publicity.

It is true that girls do more extracurricular activities (there are more girls in Guiding than there are children of both genders in Scouting, though that may also be partly down to more women being prepared to volunteer, it's rare to have a female-leader-only Scout group, so the groups would tend to struggle more for leaders). This may be partly availability but also that girls are socialised into joining things and into sticking with groups through difficult patches.

I'd be holding girl-only sessions too. One of the lessons of Guiding is that girls love to do exactly the same things that Scouts do only without boys.

It is quite a wide age range as PP have said.

I think it's a combination of the factors mentioned. My DD loved this sort of stuff when she was in primary school (she did some 'bush craft' type things and also belonged to a wildlife trust Watch group). But then she got into watersports and that pretty much took over her available time.

Her DofE volunteering is at a Wildlife Trust reserve - not sure if it's 13 or 14 and up but they do real stuff not playing - though they usually finish with toasting marshmallows. I think there's a fairly even gender divide with this. Which makes me wonder a bit whether for secondary age - especially for the girls who do tend to mature sooner, but I think would be fine for boys too - whether you could make it less 'play' and more real - the bird-box type things could fit into that. The older group could be involved in making things for the younger ones perhaps.

I think pp has a good point, thirteen year old girls may not want to do ' kids' activities as they think they are grown up. can you reposition slightly? Guides 'wellies and wristbands' festival is sold out for this year, have a look at that for ideas? As that is for similar age group and girls must love it for it to be sold out already

My girls get taken to outdoor den building type things by their holiday club, are there any local holiday clubs you can contact to build up custom with?
Brownies etc good idea
Youth club
Leaflets in book bags at local schools
Do you do birthday parties, ny dd went to a great one in the woods sawing things, making things, cooking in campfire etc.
What does your marketing look like?
Girls day good idea