Character Development

8 Life Management Tips to Minimize Stress

In trying to empower the children at our girls-only camps and boys-only camps, we help them maximize their personal development. Especially for those of us who prefer summer sunny blue sky days to those of sometimes cloudy winter, it can also be helpful to manage stress during challenging times. A recent article by Diana Rodriguez, medically reviewed by Rosalyn Carson-DeWitt, MD, delineates 8 good tips to help minimize stress. Please see below for highlights and this link for the complete article. Managing Stress: When You Experience a Sudden Spike Put […]

How to Avoid 9 Happiness Mistakes

A recent Huffington Post article emphasizes that, while incorporating “happiness” habits may be a manageable way to integrate joy into our lives every day, we should be mindful of nine potential mistakes we might be making that are detrimental to our overall happiness. Summary below: You’re placing too much emphasis on fulfillment. Concentrating too much on achieving happiness may actually be making you more unhappy. The study found that those who put a higher pressure on themselves to be happy felt more lonely on a daily basis than those who did not. […]

How to Make an Empowering Plan for the New Year

The new year is approaching for us at our summer camp near Chicago, and for everyone around the world. For those who are resolution makers, here’s a recent article from psychotherapist Maud Purcell on how to make a plan that you can stick to. Highlights include: • Work backward: Start now by clarifying your goal and then envisioning, in precise terms, what you want to have accomplished by the end of 2014. Now work backward to determine the objectives necessary to get there. • Create a schedule: Break down your objectives into […]

Are We Wired to Want Stuff?

With the recent coming and going of the craziness of “Black Friday” and its rampant commercialism…with the holiday season ramping up…with my son in the second grade, exposed to classmate talk about what presents they plan on getting in the next few weeks, it reminded me of an article by social psychologist Christine Carter discussing whether we’re “wired to want stuff.” Like the author, as intentional parents, we want to foster positive emotions like gratitude and altruism-to bring meaning, connection, and positive memories. So how can we do so at this challenging […]

Tips on Yelling Less

I like to think that I’m a good parent, and know that I always do my best. Nevertheless, we all have times that we’re challenged more than others to maintain our composure and do right by our kids. Check out this link for tips on doing that and minimizing yelling, especially as holiday tensions might ramp up.

Developing Good Listening Skills

A recent article noted some interesting attention span statistics, including some good tips on how to improve attentiveness and foster good listening skills. A great thing to emphasize at our multicultural summer camp! Some interesting points: The average attention span in 2012: 8 seconds The average attention span in 2000: 12 seconds The average attention span of a goldfish: 9 seconds As we navigate a world of technology seemingly competing for our attention, it’s easy to get increasingly distracted and more difficult to do the one thing that may be […]

How to Wire Your Brain for Happiness

A recent article from the Huffington Post summarized a book by neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence. To summarize, on a day-to-day basis, we need to stay with our positive experiences long enough for them to be encoded into neural structure and transfer better into our long-term memory. Below are five of his tips, that we’ll certainly be sure to try to incorporate further into our multicultural summer camp. Take in the good. Appreciate moments of joy and increase their intensity and duration by lingering […]

12 Things Happy People Do Differently

As a camp director at a multicultural summer camp, I’m aware of our focus on empowering children at our girls-only and boys-only programs. As adults though, we should also focus on our job of taking care of ourselves, so we can be better people for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our children. I came across an article by Jacob Sokol (citing positivity psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky) recently with a nice checklist of 12 things happy people do differently. For more details, including the scientific basis behind how and why these […]

Loving Yourself Unconditionally

At our multicultural summer camp, especially during our all-girls camp, we cover many topics from diversity, empowerment, to self-expression, leadership, and body image. One of our well-loved activities at camp is “Letter to a Body Part”, where we write a letter to one of our body parts expressing how much love we have for it—such as our eyes, stomach, hair, brain, etc. Why should we tell our body we love it? I was recently browsing internet feeds and noticed a variety of posts either encouraging body acceptance or encouraging diets […]

Encourage Kids to Appreciate Diversity

At Camp Kupugani, as a multicultural summer camp that is intentional in our empowerment and safely challenging our campers, we teach about and bleed diversity. It’s part of our mission and as such we are in a structurally and intentionally diverse environment. But what can you do if you’re at home and not necessarily in a diverse and supportive environment? How then to facilitate those important lessons? One article I checked out recently emphasizes: “Parents are uniquely positioned to guide their children to appreciate the differences that make each of us […]

Are You Overscheduling Your Kids?

I recently came across a good piece regarding our tendency as parents to overschedule our children. Even with the best intentions (we are guilty of this at times even at our multicultural summer camp), we want our children to gain so many skills, languages, and other personal development tools that we lose track of what really benefits their self- and character-development. Check out this podcast discussing “Are You Overscheduling Your Kids?” The basic points raised in it are that, to develop truly well-adjusted children need sufficient daily doses of play […]

How to Embrace Your Own Ideas

Today’s blog concerns the issue of how to love your own ideas and not compare yourself to others. This is a partnership with confidence because it involves belief in yourself and your creation. Everyone compares themselves to a friend or a colleague of their every once in a while thinking the other person has a perfect life or is at least better off. Remember: you are comparing yourself to a perception. You only see the positive things you wish you had, but in reality, their true selves could be tumultuous […]