This is a common question and the quick answer is: Not really, but you don’t need to.

There is no specific search filter based on the age of your participants. When the database was first created, we added a series of checkboxes that could be ticked for all of the different age groups. But, …we quickly discovered that we were ticking almost every box for every activity, which made the filter pretty useless, so we dropped it.

You see, almost any activity can be adapted and framed to suit almost any group. Yes, there will always be some activities that are less suitable for a particular group – no matter their age – but we prefer to let our members/users make those judgement calls. You know your groups better than we do.

That said, we do acknowledge that you are more likely to squeeze the most value from these activities when leading them with groups aged 9 or 10 years or older.

Generally speaking, this is about the time humans start to understand that relationships matter and that their feelings, thoughts and values can influence their behaviours. This does not mean you can’t integrate experiential activities into your programs with younger children, but they are less likely to obtain the full benefit from them.

If you happen to be struggling to find a way to make a particular activity suit a particular age group – or any group for that matter – reach out to us, and we’ll help you find a way.

Contributor Mark Collard