Can children participate in the PEP or SKIP programs?

Hey all! Apologies if this is the wrong section to ask, but I was curious if the PEP/SKIP programs were limited to adults?

For context, there's a gaggle of wonderful youngsters in my family who are very determined to build their advantages and put in their hard work early in life. They all show an interest in various careers of animal training, animal care, and animal husbandry, and each has also expressed a desire to have their own land to build on and farm someday, either as a family or individually.

If they were to document their endeavors, monitored by adults of course, could they also earn badges and become PEP certified? I think they would enjoy the journey greatly.

Why ask? There's no age requirement listed anywhere I've seen, and since the program doesn't require any sensitive information, there's no legal obligation I know of for Permies to exclude the next generation. SKIP has also been advertised as a way to "SKIP College," so that implies a welcome to teenagers at least. Considering the potential time-gap between getting a first air badge and connecting with an Otis, it makes perfect sense to me for a kid to start documenting skills early. (I would advise any minors in my care not to advertise their age in an online forum, by the way!)

Does operating heavy machinery require some sort of license? The earthworks badge might be difficult for younger children if so. Similarly the badge bits that require driving a car would be difficult to complete.

There are no age restrictions at all so have them go for it!  I think the program is ideal for high schoolers looking for an alternative to college and a slog through the working world.

As a general reminder, the submissions have to be done by the person submitting, generally without any help.  So there might be some practical limits to how young you can be.  It someone needs help lifting something, that's ok.  

Harmony d'Eyre wrote:Why ask? There's no age requirement listed anywhere I've seen, and since the program doesn't require any sensitive information, there's no legal obligation I know of for Permies to exclude the next generation. SKIP has also been advertised as a way to "SKIP College," so that implies a welcome to teenagers at least. Considering the potential time-gap between getting a first air badge and connecting with an Otis, it makes perfect sense to me for a kid to start documenting skills early. (I would advise any minors in my care not to advertise their age in an online forum, by the way!)

My thinking was that some things don't list a required age because of an unspoken assumption that those who take an interest will be adults, so I just thought I'd check, what with there being public events/workshops/ect. for the PEP stuff.  --I've been surprised by rules I failed to notice before, so I tend to overthink little things like this now, haha. :P

Definitely would be careful about personal info, you're right!

Mike Haasl wrote:There are no age restrictions at all so have them go for it!  I think the program is ideal for high schoolers looking for an alternative to college and a slog through the working world.

As a general reminder, the submissions have to be done by the person submitting, generally without any help.  So there might be some practical limits to how young you can be.  It someone needs help lifting something, that's ok.  

Oh that's okay! The younger ones can do the simple stuff like bird houses and sewing until they're older--and we just so happen to have a high schooler who is interested in an alternative route in life, so it sounds like a perfect time for him to hop on! Thank you so much!

I would strongly encourage young people to participate, keeping in mind the things Mike Haasl mentioned. It will probably take a few years for almost anyone to complete the entire program so I see no reason not to start as young as possible. Go for it!!!

Mike Barkley wrote:I would strongly encourage young people to participate, keeping in mind the things Mike Haasl mentioned. It will probably take a few years for almost anyone to complete the entire program so I see no reason not start as young as possible. Go for it!!!

Very true! I'll see which kids want to get profiles up and running, they'll be happy to see the support they got!

Personally, I would also be cautious about letting children's photographs be permies. We have at least one member who makes sure that she pixilates the faces of her children if she's posting a photo that includes them, and this is totally acceptable on this site.  Many of the BB's can easily be documented without the candidate's face being shown, but I haven't checked every BB to be sure this won't come up, so I figured I'd mention it.

You don't need to show your face in any of the SKIP/PEP stuff. If the BB requires a picture of me doing it, I just face the other way.

My kids (4 and 7) have been enjoying "helping" with my PEP stuff over the years. They're not quite at the stage to post pictures on permies, but they do love learning along with me. They end up in some of my pictures, but I always make sure the pictures I post of them don't have their faces shown (this isn't required at all--some people do post pictures of their kids on permies, and that's totally okay. But, it's also totally okay to not show faces for their privacy/security).

Each kid will need their own account, with a "real-sounding name," but they can use a first initial for their first name, use a different (real-sounding) last name, use a different (real-sounding) first name, etc, if they (or their parents) want them to. They just have to pretend that it's their name. Thankfully, kids are usually great at that!

I was picking up a load of half-rotted logs from my arborist mate today and he showed me a video clip of his 4-year-old son operating a digger to screen topsoil. Kid was doing a fine job and working carefully.

Phil Stevens wrote:I was picking up a load of half-rotted logs from my arborist mate today and he showed me a video clip of his 4-year-old son operating a digger to screen topsoil. Kid was doing a fine job and working carefully.

That may be true, but statistically *many* children are injured or die in farm equipment accidents. So much is dependent on the specific child, (my oldest could do things I would never have let my youngest even try, but there were areas my youngest excelled compared to the oldest) the specific piece of equipment, and whether the adult can arrange for shit *not* happening! I totally believe that as a North American society, we don't let our current crop of under 18 years old humans take nearly enough "healthy risks" as these are what builds true confidence, but that's from the perspective of someone who's good at identifying the subskills needed for a task, and good at building stepping stones to reach those. Their father had no skills in those two areas and had a personal mantra of, "I'll just figure out how to do what I need to do safely" and equally had difficulty understanding the differences in his two kids - the laws and current standards are built for that second type of adult.

The neat thing about the PEP program is that it is built in small manageable steps, so even if you are the type of parent that's not so good at identifying subskills, the people who were designing PEP generally allowed/relied on input from large numbers of members, and have set some really good examples. We try to be very responsive to queries as well, and if you look at the responses to the OP's question, you will see a generally supportive "yes", with cautions added by people coming from different backgrounds who've had different experiences.

Life is not without risk, but I'd like all our future permies to learn to manage risk "through doing" in a reasonably controlled and intelligent way!

Yup, in fact, my 11-year-old can operate the mini excavator better than I can!! 😆