ABSTRACT
Recognizing that recreation, in one form or another, consumes the major portion of a child's waking hours in a residential treatment center, we need to make an effort to evaluate just how the element of the residential program can best be integrated into the total treatment milieu. We tend to describe dynamically, the problems of these children in terms of ego deficiencies, and theoretically base the view of therapeutic recreation on this kind of dynamic-diagnosis basis. This chapter discusses a particular experience that consists of a therapeutic recreation program conducted within a treatment center handling primarily preadolescent children. It emphasizes the importance of allowing the children as much freedom to plan and organize the day as possible. The chapter describes some experiences in emphasizing the use of time-space structure, the support of individual initiative in the craft period, danger of competition, importance of subgroup controls in games of higher and lower organization, and the experience gained in off-campus excursions.
