Camp Kupugani Blog
Children Need Healthy Risk-Taking
It can be a challenge for many parents to let go. Especially in our age of “helicopter parenting”, media reports of dangers lurking for your child around every corner, it can be easy for parents to imagine untold mayhem everywhere if you let your child out of your sight. We want to protect our children and want the best for them. However, for children, and especially teens and older pre-teens, they need to develop their sense of independence and need to grow by having us parents let go… Here’s a good article and podcast by sociologist Christine […]
A 2-Week Camp Experience is a Good Minimum
I attended a recent camp fair, where a prospective camp parent was concerned whether a two-week camp experience was too long for her would-be first-time camper child. Her not necessarily articulated concern was that her child wouldn’t thrive in a two-week program—that it might be too long for her. I responded that it’s not necessarily the length of the experience, but whether the child is “ready.” Two-Week Minimum Experience Encourages Independent Growth My two decades of camp experience at camps of all sorts of lengths—from single-day programs to two-month summer […]
Tips to Keep Your Girl Age Appropriate
At our multicultural girls camp, we are very intentional and mindful of doing activities that empower our young ladies, giving them the tools to be stronger in the outside world. Sadly, however, in that “outside world” there is increasing pressure seemingly everywhere for girls and young women to look older, sexier, and more mature than they are. Children’s cartoons have female characters wearing skimpy clothes; shows that are popular with teens and pre-teens, like Glee and America’s Next Top Model feature “kids” twice their age. Retailers directed at teens and […]
Appreciating MLK by Tackling Race and Identity Issues
It has been almost 45 years since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. A good time to reflect on the issue of race and racism in America. Despite a lot of fear and denial that race is still an issue or being used as an issue, dialogue seems to proceed in fits and starts in this country. Unfortunately, race and racism continues to permeate American institutions, corporations, schools, and communities. Our avoiding the difficult conversations with our families or in our workplaces makes our children pay for our silence […]
Encouraging Independence So Children Can Thrive
Steering Children Toward Healthy Risks Children need to develop a sense of independence to successfully navigate an increasingly complex world. As parents and youth professionals, we need to give them space to grow. But how to do that, given societal pressure on parents to obsess about perceived safety? How do we help parents overcome the pervasive culture of fear so that they can feel comfortable allowing children the opportunities to take on new situations? How do we facilitate children’s growth, via mindful risk-taking, to evolve into competent, independent adults? What […]
Determine if Your Child is Ready for Sleepaway Camp
How can you tell if your child is ready for camp? There’s no tried-and-true perfect formula, but you definitely want to make sure that your child is ready before you send her/him away; the camp experience is far too valuable to turn your child off because s/he isn’t yet ready; it’s better to err on the side of the caution if you’re not sure. Here Are Ten Questions For You To Consider. How old? While there is no specific magic age for a first-time camp experience, the best age is […]
We’re in Charge of Our Own Happiness
At our multicultural summer camp, we’re always mindful about intentional ways to empower girl campers and boy campers, as well as how we can better our own lives. I came across an old article the other day (a blog post by Stephanie Jacobs, citing the work of M.J. Ryan, executive coach and author of “The Happiness Makeover”–the link has since disappeared). It described the link between positive psychology and happiness. The main takeaway is that, whatever your innate happiness level, you can cultivate additional happiness by acting and thinking positively. […]
Progressive Camp Program
I got an inquiry today from a prospective staff member wanting to get a sense of our Camp Kupugani philosophy and approach to multicultural community-building, and what kinds of skills camp teaches kids in order to help them work through differences and address inequalities. I was excited for the question. The cool thing is that–at Camp Kupugani, we uniquely combine the fun of the camp experience with an empowerment program, to allow our campers to have fun while changing their world. As far as the kids know, they have a […]
7 Positive Psychology Parenting Tips
We’ve talked a bit in the past about the importance of positive psychology—basically, the more we can focus on the positives of things rather than the negatives, the more happiness will be created. This is also a technique we try to emphasize at our multicultural summer camp, and something that empowers our girl campers and boy campers. The positive psychology applies quite a bit to parenting. An old article I recently came across again does a good job of summarizing some good parenting techniques that can really help. Below are […]
Resolutions You Can Keep
Hoping to provide some early empowerment tips from our multicultural camp, here’s some early borrowed advice for 2013! As 2013 begins, many folks want to make resolutions that they can keep. But that’s a hard one since they so often fail. Sociologist Christine Carter offers some useful advice on her website on how to make resolutions that will stick. pick just one resolution that research shows will make you happier Some good options to choose from… Spend more time with friends. Study after study shows that we tend to be happier […]
Final Friday!
“There is no time left for anything but to make peace work a dimension of our every waking activity.” -Elise Boulding We spent two weeks focusing on modules such as positive body image and social awareness, and now it’s time to take our knowledge out into the world! With each other’s support and love, we have learned to communicate and trust each other. With tomorrow’s departure from camp, we will go into the world as empowered women and as world changers.
We Love Olympics Day!
After a well-deserved sleep and energizing breakfast, our campers headed out to use teamwork skills like communication and trust to overcome obstacles! Later we all participated in mud tug-o-war, potato sack races, and dam jumping in honor of today being Olympics Day! We finished the day off with a whole camp game of sharks and minnows!