Children are told to be realistic. That things aren't possible. So they stop dreaming, and they stop saying the ideas out loud that sound a little bit crazy, because they're scared of being shut down or told they're silly.
I've been trying to teach my daughter Harper the opposite: to say the thing out loud before her brain kicks in and goes “nah, don't be silly.”
One night she told me she was bored. So I showed her my kind of creativity for a change. We would build a game, anything we wanted, as fast as we could think it up. It turned into a game about a chicken that had to jump to escape its pen. Derek's Escape. Simple, easy, and not really the point. The point was to show her that something we just said out loud could become real. That is the world we live in. If we never give those ideas any power, we never believe anything is possible.
Something we said out loud could become real.
So I told her: next time something pops into your head and you think “I want to do that,” come and tell me before your brain has a chance to stop you.
The next morning, she did. “Dad, I have an idea. Me and my friends want to do more when we're out and about. A scavenger hunt where you make a group and invite your friends with a QR code, so we can all play together, wherever we are.”
That was it. Scavvi was born.
Harper has driven every change and every update since. If I ever do something without her, she tells me off, because this is hers. I guide, I open up the discussions, and she thinks, ponders and decides. Then we build. Every step has been like that.
It is a lesson that will serve her far better than most of what school could teach. And it is why Scavvi exists: to get kids and families out into the real world, exploring, and chasing the things they dream up out loud.
Ross, Harper's dad