Story: Childhood
Page 3 – Friendship, sport and youth groups
Friends and peer groups
Developing friendships is a critical activity for children. Communal spaces like churches, town centres, schools and early-childhood centres brought children together. Children living in isolated districts often had to rely on siblings and animals for companionship.
Children’s friendships were shaped by their peer groupings at school, for example single-sex schools could limit children’s choice of friends.
Developments in communication technology – telephones, and later text messaging and internet chat-rooms – enabled children to keep in touch more frequently outside school hours. Mobile phones could be misused for bullying. In the 2000s children calling telephone support services like Kidsline (aimed at 9 to 13 year olds) mostly called because they were worried about friendship problems and bullying.
Cultural difference
Most children liked to blend in with their peers. Immigrant children were one group who sometimes found this difficult, because their family lives and practices were so different to their Kiwi counterparts’. Lucie, who immigrated to New Zealand with her parents from Bratislava in 1940, aged eight, would pretend that cottage cheese (then an exotic food) was custard, called Wiener schnitzel ‘crumbed cutlet’1 and forced her mother to make scones and pikelets when she had friends over.
Organised sport
Organised sport for children started in schools. It was intended to improve the health of children and instill values like leadership, competitiveness and teamwork.
Games like rugby and cricket were played in most schools from the early 1900s. Early sports were mostly for boys. Girls’ indoor basketball was widely played from about 1910. The popular game netball evolved from basketball. From the First World War organised sport was an established element in the New Zealand school curriculum. Many children also played sport outside school – rugby clubs, which divided children by age and weight, were popular.
By the 2000s children had a wide range of sports to choose from. New sports like surfing and skateboarding often combined recreation and competition. At the same time, children were less likely to play sport because they had more active and sedentary recreational options than in the past.
Skinned shins
Shinty was an early form of hockey played by children (mainly boys) in the 19th century before organised school sports became the norm. It was not a game for the faint-hearted: sticks of any size and shape were permitted, swings in any direction allowed and injuries expected. Referees were unheard of. An ex-player described it as a craze. ‘In the heat of willing contests, someone would suffer serious damage and Shinty would be proscribed. Few indeed escaped without hard knocks and losses of skin. But under the pressure of eager spirits the embargo would relax until another casualty imposed the ban.’2
Youth groups
Early organised youth groups were usually religious. The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA from 1855) and the Boys’ Brigade (from 1886) gathered children and teenagers together for religious instruction and physical activity – at first just boys, but later girls too, in separate groups.
Many children attended their local church’s Sunday school and Bible class, for social and educational as much as religious purposes. Attendance was high in the past – between 1896 and 1911, 67% of New Zealand children were enrolled at a Sunday school. By the 1960s the rate had dropped to 40%, and continued to decline. Churches also ran denominational youth groups which held activities and socials for older children.
The most significant youth groups were Boy Scouts (from 1908) and Girl Guides (started in 1908 as the Peace Scouts Movement). Both had separate divisions – cubs and brownies – for younger children. The original aim was to prepare children to defend their countries at war. Girl Guides also taught domestic skills like making beds. Over time this was replaced by an emphasis on life skills through physical activity, bushcraft, leadership and friendship development.
Both organisations grew rapidly after the Second World War but declined later in the century as children’s recreation diversified and parents had less time to volunteer. At its height in the mid-1970s Scouts had over 53,000 members. In 2007 it had 15,000. Public perceptions (whether justified or not) about paedophiles infiltrating Scouts had a significant impact on membership of that organisation.
