Camp Kupugani Blog
10 Things a First-Time Camper Should Know
At our intentional summer camp program near Chicago, Illinois, we recognize that it’s natural for a child to be nervous about attending summer camp. To ease a child’s mind, here are ten things that every camper should know before enjoying their first sleepaway camp experience. 1. After the first day or two of camp, you will have made new friends. 2. If you ever have a time that you become homesick (which is normal, and 95% of campers get it at some point…including many returning campers), you can talk to […]
3 Ways to Foster Independence in your Child
At our summer camp outside of Chicago, we recognize how we contribute to the growth and independence of our campers. We also recognize that is every (okay, most) parents’ dream to have a self-reliant, successful child! However;, it’s also becoming more common for parents to dread the day their child leaves the nest. What parents forget is that self-sufficiency can help a child grow tremendously. One way to kick-start a child’s feelings of independence is to foster their independence. Here are three ways from psychologist Christine Carter explaining how. Excerpts below, […]
5 Ways Music Can Help You Live a Happier Life
Jill Suttie wrote a recent article detailing five ways that music can help you live a happier and healthier life. Click here for the full article, with bulleted takeaways below to a happier life. Reducing stress and anxiety. Listening to music can slow down your heart rate when it’s increased during an anxiety attack. Music lowers elevated cortisol levels that happen with stress and anxiety. It helps people sync breathing with heart rates which also makes it easier to breathe when stressed. Help decrease pain. Music can help release dopamine […]
100 Great Lessons to Teach Your Daughter
At our girls-only summer camp, we try to facilitate an environment where girls can maximize their growth and development through lessons. Author Lisa-Jo Baker created a fantastic list of things she would like to teach her daughter and shared it online. This list of values, concepts, and fun stuff can help you facilitate your own daughter’s solid foundation for her development as she undertakes her life’s journey. From body image to relationship advice, Baker covers it all in this list of 100 notable lessons. See the whole list at this […]
Help Kids Develop Money Management Habits
At our Illinois summer camp, we focus on intentionally empowering campers during our girls-only and boys-only camp sessions. We help them with the concept of economic literacy both with direct activities that help them learn the concepts, and also with their awareness and management of their limited camp store budgets—their spending money for their time at camp. We recognize, and try to help our campers recognize concepts like waiting to make purchases and choosing wisely whether to spend or save (or donate to worthy causes). I recently checked out a […]
Being a Camp Counselor is the Best Job Ever!
Reasons why being a camp counselor is the best job ever: No more windowless office cubicles; your office is the great outdoors! It’s not only acceptable at camp to act goofy and be unique, it’s a job requirement. Kids become your biggest fans, and you become theirs. You get paid to have fun! Singing songs at the top of your lungs (and not necessarily in tune) is expected. Dressing for work means putting on a tie-dye t-shirts and sandals, and making sure your friendship bracelet(s) are still on. Getting messy […]
What Camp Can Teach Your Child
At Camp Kupugani, whether at our girls-only camp or boys-only camp, we facilitate the empowerment and challenges that contribute to positive child development. Those who have experienced camp life at a good camp know how powerful the experience can be. For those who haven’t, they may ask: Do these values really make a difference in a child’s life? Can camp really impact a child during only a couple weeks being away from home? The answer is yes, they can learn many life lessons while being away at camp. Writer Jennifer […]
Tips for Maximizing Your Son’s Development
During the boys-only session of our summer camp, we recognize that boys come in all shapes, temperaments, and characters. The more we can encourage them to explore and truly be themselves, the more they develop their unique characters. Blogger Lauren Knight (see her blogs at Crumb Bums shared some good tips regarding maximizing her boys’ development. See the full Washington Post article, entitled “5 Things I Learned About Raising Boys (So Far)” here, with her condensed language below with our headlines. Encourage Physical Activity Encourage it. Let them roughhouse a bit, […]
5 Tips to Connect with Your Tween
At our summer camp programs west of Chicago, we have the great opportunity to have the youth of all ages connect with young adults (and older adults), who have the great ability to have children listen to what they have to say and actually abide by their respectful requests. Wouldn’t it be amazing to connect consistently in your household too? Oh, the seemingly unpredictable “tween”…it can feel daunting trying to figure out what to say and what to do to connect with your pre-adolescent child—going through the rigors of middle […]
How Summer Camp Helped A Camper to Never Say “I Can’t”
At our multicultural summer camp near Chicago, we recognize the power of a good camp experience to transform campers’ lives, and the impact of positive psychology. A recent blog by author Blake Boles reinforces the powerful lessons he learned. As he puts it, “Summer camp taught me that my habit of saying ‘I can’t’ was a cage, and this cage had a key called ‘I could if I.’ To escape the cage, all I had to do was pick up the key and think a little differently.” Other positive lessons he […]
8 Good Tips on How to Be an Intentional Parent
At our multicultural summer camp near Chicago, we strive to be intentionally challenging, intentionally empowering, and intentionally fun. The concept of intentionality appeals to many of our parents, who are also quite intentional in the values and character development they wish for their children. A recent blog post by Jon Helmkamp—who writes a good series called Finding Fatherhood—gives some good tips on ways that parents can be intentional in their parenting. Below are some bullets summarizing his blog entry. 1. Think about how you were raised..about the day in, day […]
Camp as a 21st Century Skills Learning Environment
At our summer camp outside of Chicago, Illinois, we recognize the critical piece that a summer camp experience can play in the development of children and young adults in the 21st century. A recent blog by Andy Pritikin (Owner/Director of Liberty Lake Day Camp in New Jersey and the President of the American Camp Association, New York, and New Jersey) recognizes how a good camp program is critical to developing an important forward-thinking skill set. Pritikin recognizes that child-rearing occurs in multiple ways: what parents teach their children at home, […]
