Girls and outdoor activities. Where am I going wrong?

[BarbarianMum]

Would really appreciate some advice.

I work for a charity that (amongst other things) promotes outdoor play for children. As part of this we run structured outdoor sessions during school holidays.

Sessions for the under 8s have proved really popular, so we have started some for the 8-13 age group. These are also proving really popular but (and this is the problem for me) overwhelming they are attended by boys only (maybe 80%+). The Junior sessions attract equal numbers of either sex.

So what is going on here. The sessions involve a good deal of bush craft type activity (fire making/den building), but also wildlife type stuff (making bat boxes and bird feeders, minibeast hunts, tracks and signs), plus other stuff like geocaching, orienteering and woodlandy arts and crafts. All stuff that I've always considered as pretty unisex.

We are always careful to advertise in a gender neutral way (images of both boys and girls taking part are used), primary colours. The leaders are both male and female.

Feedback from the girls and their parents who do come is very positive and we are careful to ensure that everyone gets to participate fully (so no chance of girls being pushed to the back).

So why am I not attracting more girls? Or rather, why am I not attracting more parents of girls, as the decision to book on sessions is obviously very parent led? Any thoughts, suggestions or opinions welcome. I only have boys and sometimes worry that I am fundamentally wrong about what girls will like (I would have loved something like this as a child but I was a 'tomboy' whose ended up in an outdoorsy job so maybe I'm not representative).

DofE is from 14 though

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)

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.

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??

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?

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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...

All very interesting, esp the stuff about the age ranges.

I can certainly see how having sessions where your parent has to stay might not be attractive to older girls/boys/young people. Doesn't explain the lack of younger girls though, so maybe that's down to other factors mentioned above.

Will cogitate further.

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.

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

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.

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.

Survival skills - map reading, how to cook on an open fire, that sort of thing. Not everyone has access to brownies/guides? What are the outdoorsy "badges" that are achieved through those movements that could be enhanced?

I appreciate that the parents do the booking but two things I note from your summary - I would have to google geo-caching to know what is was and is your brochure actually easily understood to an 8yr old who is more than capable of asking to do things/stating a preference?

Not all girls, but many are less willing to be cold and wet and "covered" in mud. I think appropriate clothing is an issue depending on where you are in the country. City children particularly girls are far less likely to have proper wellies and waterproofs than more rural children. Lots of exceptions but generally I do note that girls are far more likely to be ferried to school if the weather is bad than the boys are.

I'm not sure if it's a worse suggestion than the "pink" element but there is also the celebrity get me out of here angle. I've never watched it but it seems to have massive appeal. Other than getting locked in glass boxes with creepy crawlies, is there any component of the programme which might appeal to a 13yo? I'm thinking of trips to places with hire wires and that sort of thing? You only have to have one "main attraction" potentially to draw them in for the other elements. ?

I'd love it - and I'd send my girls if they were old enough, they love the woods. 12/13 I recall as being a lot of hanging around listening to music though so I think that's a market segment all on it's own with the DoE skills a possible draw?

Hakluyt she has a been wearing a sports bra for a while but I'm going to take her to get fitted for a more supportive one at the weekend, I feel bad at not noticing it wasn't enough, she has quite a lot of pubic hair, and she says when they have to sit with their legs crossed then it's noticible because of the style of shorts they have to wear in PE and the last few months she has also started growing armpit hair. It's hardly noticible but she knows it's there and is worried about it. She hates changing for swimming and PE and tries to do it under a towel when swimming, but for PE she can't so it's making her anxious.

Do you do themed sessions? I worked for a similar sounding organisation, and our sessions for 7-10 years olds were full, but dropped dramatically after that. We introduced a 'Hunger games' themed session - basically survival skills and archery for that age range, and ended up full with a waiting list.

We do theme sessions, but have never done a hunger games one . Good idea - we do all the components anyway (except for the killing bit).

Post 13 we tend to work with youth groups and what's left of the youth service and have always got a good gender balance that way.

I've got 2 boys and a girl. Whilst it was easy to get DD into holiday clubs when she was younger it became increasingly harder to get her involved in things as she got older because of the friendship thing - the boys would happily go off and muck in, but if her couple of close friends weren't there she would feel very left out as girls tend to form these cliques which can be quite off-putting.

I wonder if you could make separate the ages so that the older ones are not lumped in with the younger ones, and if you could make it clear that they would be part of a group as opposed to being left in their own cliques to build fires etc, with support from the leaders at all times?

I don't think the problem is the parents. If it were you'd have the same trouble in the younger group. Parents have less say over the activities their children do as they get older, not more. It doesn't make send that they're sending their little girls and then banning their older girls from going!

It could be a bit of a chicken and egg situation, there are far more boys there and so that gives the impression it's more suited to boys and so girls don't want to come. You might find if you run a girls session, even if you do exactly the same activities and advertise it the same (i.e. it doesn't need to be pink and glittery) you'll get more girls coming.

DS's ballet teacher had a similar problem, boys would come, but then be put off by the number of girls and leave. She started a boys only class and it was full!