Character Development and Academic Development
I recently communicated with a parent grappling with a decision of not wanting to “reward” her child with summer camp, due to her child’s having to attend summer school. She felt that to reward the child with camp after failing school classes wouldn’t be a good choice.
My response was that, while I certainly appreciate the challenging decisions a parent must make, to encourage her to think further whether camp for her child would be an overall benefit, rather than a negative at this point in her child’s development.
Camp can be an important, sometimes critical part of character development and shouldn’t be viewed as a reward or punishment for good or bad behavior.
I categorize camp as an important growth tool. Just as most folks see school as an essential part of a child’s academic progress, camp can lead to huge strides in personal character development. At our program, because we’re intentionally diverse, intentionally empowering, and intentionally challenging, while focusing on the individual needs of each and every child, we have found that our campers learn a variety of skill sets including appreciation of diversity, communication skills, leadership, positive self image, healthy relationship building, self-expression, social awareness, and environmental awareness. From the kids’ perspective, the learning happens almost without knowing it, so we find that we often see a “different” child develop at our camp than parents might see at school or home. At camp, we redefine the word “supportive” and give children new perspectives on what daily life and an empowering community can be like for them. We believe that children deserve the chance to see that there is something different from the pressures that surround other environments.
I think it works well in large part because our camp provides social opportunities that can’t be experienced in other venues. Social life elsewhere is not likely to provide wholesome, guided, and nurtured opportunities to make sincere friends and respect others. At camp, we’re able to emphasize caring, respect, and guided socialization.
Specific growth opportunities may apply to children who don’t thrive in school environments
A recent study discussed how camps, like good schools and loving families, provide valuable learning tools by giving them manageable amounts of stress and the supports they need to learn how to cope effectively. Dr. Michael Ungar, a professor of social work at Dalhousie University and scientific director of the Resilience Research Centre (go Canada!) describes some experiences that children need, that our camp (and other good camps) can offer:
- New relationships, not just with peers, but with trusted adults other than children’s parents. Just think about how useful a skill like that is: being able to negotiate with an adult on one’s own to get what one needs.
- A powerful identity that makes children feel confident in front of others provides children with something genuine to like about themselves. The camp experience not only helps the child discover what he can do, it also provides an audience that shows appreciation.
- Camps help children feel in control of their lives. The child who has some say over daily activities at a camp and learns to fix problems when they happen (cleaning up a mess when a group of campers get too rowdy) is the child who will take home with her a view of the world as manageable the next time s/he encounters trouble.
- At camp, children get what they need to develop physically. We now know that early experiences of exposure to risk, and poor health resulting from too little exercise when young, have long-term consequences for the child’s healthy development.
- Perhaps best of all, camps offer children a chance to feel like they belong. All those goofy chants and team songs, the sense of common purpose, and the attachment to the identity that camps promote go a long way to offering children a sense of being rooted.
At Kupugani, we like to serve as a trusted third-party youth professional to partner with our camper parents (who are their child’s “experts”) to maximize a child’s growth.
Our parent surveys reinforce that we’re doing our task well. From our past 6 years of parent surveys, 99% of respondents were satisfied with their child’s Camp Kupugani experience, and would recommend our camp to friends. From 2012, an overwhelming majority of parents noted their child’s improvement in a variety of personal development factors. We respect that a Camp Kupugani parent is, for the most part, an “intentional” parent—one who is willing to do the very hard work of helping a child be the best the child can be. The intentional parent does a lot of giving: giving of time, giving of sleep, giving of money, giving of attention—generally, giving mightily of oneself. It is certainly not easy, and as far as we know, is not meant to be.
Parental “gifts” say a lot about parents. The truly intentional parent moves through their child’s world deliberately and purposefully; these parents give what is useful, after carefully thinking through what would be best. It’s certainly not easy, and mostly unrecognized by the kids (until they later have children of their own). We respect how the intentional parent helps to create a better world for their child and the world beyond them.
I appreciate that a child’s parents are (and should be) the experts of her/him as a child. Sometimes though, as camp professionals truly committed to partnering with parents, we can be a valuable resource as trusted third-party youth professionals regarding a child’s character development. We are able to offer a unique insight. An extremely attentive parent might spend a few hours daily and perhaps as much as 10-15 hours with their child in a week. At camp, trained counselors spend 12-15 hours every day! Not just interacting with the children, but seeing how they engage with their peers, with trusted adults, try new things, and resolve conflicts. Camp directors can (and should) be professionals who can offer parents a more objective viewpoint as to their child’s character development.
I told the mom that I appreciate that it can sometimes be hard for a parent to step back. However, when I see kids who perceive an inability to steer their own course at home, and lacking opportunities to gain independence and grow, they often become bullies (or victims of bullies). Hopefully, she’ll consider her child’s whole development as she makes her decision.
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