mum
March 29, 2024

Interview with Isabelle Brousse for the leisure site "mercrediapresmidi.com"

Why did you create the site "mercredisapresmidi.com"? And when did you come up with this idea?

The idea was born when two mothers decided, during the Easter holidays, to launch a blog called "Wednesdays Afternoon" to exchange good ideas of moms to intelligently occupy their children. Thanks to the Rivages Guides, the idea was later transformed into a web-based device, with the desire to make available to all parents a selection of quality leisure activities, checked and checked on the ground by our team of authors, and so to renew the offer for children and teenagers throughout France. This is how Mercredisapremidi.com was born!
In addition, wanting to meet the expectations of "digital natives", today young parents, we wished that our selection of leisure for children and teenagers is accessible at any time. Which explains the parallel launch of the site, an iPhone application "Wednesday Afternoon, the reference of leisure for your children" and soon a version for i-Pad.

What activities are most popular with parents and children so far? 

According to the audience recorded on the site since its launch, we see a real craze for creative activities, theater and circus workshops, as well as cooking classes. This phenomenon can be explained in different ways. First, since the site was launched on December 8, 2010, parents are looking to keep their children occupied during the winter with indoor activities.
Second, the French have a renewed interest in rediscovering traditional know-how, such as home-made cooking, knitting or embroidery. However, with the arrival of warm weather, we are waiting for more interest in outdoor recreation, such as horse riding, hiking and team sports.
 
For younger children, do educators receive specific training?

We have established our range of more than 2000 hobbies for children and teens according to several specific criteria, namely the quality of the reception and the infrastructures, the conviviality of the sessions and, of course, the pedagogy implemented by the children. animators and educators. We thus verify that each address we propose is committed to having a staff that has followed a training adapted to the public it supports. This method of selection concerns both leisure activities for the youngest children and those for adolescents.

I saw on your website that Dominique Rocheteau used his know-how, his experience to advance budding footballers and teach them the fundamental values ​​of the sport. Are there other sportsmen or other stars who intend to transmit their knowledge in the themes proposed by mercrediapresmidi.com. If yes, which ones ?

It is not uncommon for high-level professional athletes to share their passion and know-how with children and teenagers. Dominique Rocheteau is far from an exception in our selection of internship organizers. Marc Andrieu, a former player in France's rugby team, also organizes courses around his favorite sport and you will also find, among the dance activities listed on our website, many international professional dancers who devote part of their time to to teach dance to the youngest enthusiasts. However, our choice of leisure is solely in accordance with our selection criteria and not on the celebrity of the organizers in question.

From what age can you enroll children in your different activities?

Our desire is to offer a selection of recreation for children and adolescents as wide and complete as possible. In this way, each parent will be able to find suitable leisure activities for each of their children, regardless of age. birth with swimmers' classes, for example, at 18, with more extreme sports like karting.

For you, at what age does a child begin to focus? To be attentive to the activities especially manual?

The duration of concentration varies according to the age of the children. This is why we propose a classification of leisure activities according to different age groups. Awakening activities begin as early as 3 years, for example, but the duration of concentration of a child between 3 and 5 years is about 20 minutes. Activities are therefore built and organized to naturally follow these cycles of concentration. Manual activities are part of the hobbies that interest children from an early age. From 2-3 years, you can introduce the youngest to pottery, collage, painting, music, ...

Since the launch of your site, what is the profile of children who participated in your activities (large family, girls or boys, brother and sister, very young, teenagers ...)?

The launch of the site is very recent, it is still too early to determine an exact profile of the children and adolescents who participated in the entertainment that we put forward on our site. Especially since we have made sure to offer the widest possible leisure offer to satisfy all budgets, ages and interests. We therefore give you an appointment later in the year, if you wish, to tell you whether or not there is a particular profile of children and teenagers who participated in recreation that we propose and whose parents went through our site to book them.

I imagine that your activities were built according to age group. Can you tell us more?

All parents know that a 12-year-old does not necessarily have the same interests and maturity as a 16-year-old. This is why we are committed for each child activity to associate a specific age group that corresponds to the different stages of evolution and maturity of children. This makes it possible to guarantee the smooth running of leisure activities by creating homogeneous groups. We invite you to use our search engine and discover the range of leisure we offer for each age group, the birth to the majority.

There may be parents who are reluctant to entrust you with their toddlers for an afternoon or vacation. Do you have a message for them?

It is not Mercredisapresmidi.com that directly supports children. On the other hand, we control all the addresses that we refer in our guides and check on the ground every year the quality of more than 600 organized leisure activities. In the same way, we attach great importance to the opinions of our Internet users and to the feedbacks which are addressed to us. Any negative comments or reservations will systematically trigger a control visit. Finally, as we ourselves have children, it is easy for us to organize mystery visits and to ensure on our small scale that the content of our offer remains in line with our objectives of awakening, quality and of conviviality. It is essential for us to offer the opportunity for children and adolescents to bring their passions to life in complete safety.



Interview d'Isabelle BROUSSE (March 2024)