Adventure Guides
Helping foster a lifetime of understanding and companionship between children and parents.
Adventure Guides is a parent-child program designed to help foster a lifetime of understanding and companionship, and to strengthen the relationship between children and parents.
As a member of Adventure Guides, you will have the opportunity to develop a stronger relationship with your child by participating in activities like games, camping trips, ceremonies and family adventures. The immediate gain is evident—spending time together—but the long-tern gains are even more significant. Not only will you build a solid foundation for a friendship that will last a lifetime, but you’ll also be helping to build and develop a set of skills and patterns that your children will carry with them into adolescence and adulthood.
How your children end up has a lot to do with where they start. You and your child will take a journey of discovery and learning. Adventure Guides is for parents (or other significant adults in children’s lives) and their children, ages 5 and older. An adult and child attend all the program activities together.
What YMCA Adventure Guides Do
Small groups of parent-child pairs called Circles meet on a regular basis in each others’ homes, usually monthly. Occasionally, several Circles come together to participate in larger activities such as campouts, parties, or parades. These outings are called Expeditions. The core of the YMCA Adventure Guides program is these Circle and Expedition meetings and adventures.
Adventure Guide Program Objectives
- Foster companionship and understanding and set a foundation for positive, lifelong relationships between parent and child
- Build a sense of self-esteem and personal worth
- Expand awareness of body, mind and spirit
- Provide the framework to meet a mutual need of spending enjoyable, constructive, and quality time together
- Enhance the quality of family time
- Emphasize the vital role that parents play in the growth and development of their children
- Promote Youth Development, Social Responsibility and Healthy Living
- Offers and important and unique opportunity to develop and enjoy volunteer leadership skills
Adventure Guide activities include
- Amusement parks
- Overnights at the zoo
- Fun Day at the YMCA
- Toledo Mud Hens overnight
- Community service
- Fall/Winter/Spring campout
- Tobogganing
- Bowling
- Pinewood Derby
- Ceremonies
- Games, crafts, songs, stories, skits
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Ice Skating