parent tips

10 Ways to Ease the Homework Struggle with your Child

At Camp Kupugani, our overnight summer camp in the beautiful Midwest (just two hours northwest of Chicago), we recognize that great campers often make great students, who often become great adults. As child development professionals, we recognize that it’s sometimes a challenge to navigate the craziness of parenting! A recent article from the Washington Post elucidated some of the challenges and proposed ten ways to take the struggle out of homework. Kids procrastinate or shut down because they fail to see the relevance of a task, prefer other distractions, or […]

Teach Your Teenager about Non-Stranger Rape

At our girls-only and boys-only camps in the Midwest, we teach our campers, and enforce, the rule of 3—whereby a child is never to be alone with an adult. I’m not sure why this rule isn’t mandatory at all schools, religious institutions, and anywhere where children and adults interact…but that’s a topic for another day. Part of the reason my wife and I taught our child about ownership of his body from an early age, is so he didn’t run the risk of being abused. Other parents think along the […]

10 Tips to Get your Kids through the Holidays

Around this time of year, it is important for parents to maintain their sanity while also continuing to be intentional about the life lessons their children learn. I recently came across an article by Amy Joyce, editor of On Parenting column for the Washington Post containing some great tips on thriving during the holiday season. The whole article is at this link with bullets below. Have them help with meal preparation. Take them with you when you shop for the holiday meal and ask for their input there and in the […]

4 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Give Back

Especially as the holiday season with its accompanying bombardment of ads and other enticements to folks to buy buy buy, it’s a good time to be mindful of encouraging our children to give back. A recent Washington Post blog by Amy Joyce has some tips from the Family Dinner Project, a grassroots movement to encourage eating well and talking over dinner about things that really matter, about how to encourage children to give back. Text or call someone you appreciate. Talk about people your family appreciates, then take the time to […]

6 Ways to Be a Better Parent

We value working with our campers’ parents at our summer camp near Chicago, Illinois. Just as we continually strive to improve our camp experience via counselor training and continually reviewing our program, we recognize that our parents also seek to be a better parent for their children. A recent article offers some good tips on how to be a more “intentional” parent. Bullets below, with the whole article by Susan Swann available at this link. 1. Be consistent. Be consistent with how you reinforce the implementation of your values. Remember […]

Three Things You Didn’t Know About Teens

Sociologist Christine Carter has an interesting piece culled from her conversation with scientific expert on adolescence Ron Dahl, regarding insights about teens (and pre-teens). Highlights below, with the whole article at this link. #1: Your adolescent isn’t a teenager. Dahl avoids the term “teenager” because it implies that all the action only after the age of 13. Puberty typically lasts only two to four years, with most at the end of puberty by the age of 13. Today kids have a longer period of time to figure out who they […]

Learning How To Let Go

Parents, especially American parents, sometimes obsess about safety. While we certainly want to encourage parental warmth and love (especially with newborns and toddlers), as children mature, you must create safe spaces to let them explore on their own. As we recognize at our girls-only and boys-only summer camps here in the Midwest, by giving children opportunities to overcome discomfort in new situations, they grow into competent, independent adults. As a blog by Steve Baskin—former executive board member of the American Camp Association (in this article from Psychology Today) discusses—children need […]

Tips on Preventing Cyber-Bullying

At our summer camp in the Midwest, we recognize how important parents value the safety of their children in a physical location. It is no less important in the “virtual” world. Indeed, especially as social media become increasingly prevalent in the lives of youth, we need to be mindful of the impact that smartphone and online computer use can have on our children. Cyber-bullying is real, and bears a huge daily toll on many young people. Here are a few ways that we can help. Even if you can’t necessarily be there in […]

The Stuck At Home Generation

The percentage of 20-somethings living at home doubled over the last few decades. Although some critics blame this increase on the struggling economy, statistics prove that the fear of leaving the nest began earlier. It seems that being independent is no longer a characteristic of a young (North) American. Parents can take three steps, detailed fully in a blog by sociologist Christine Carter here, in order to promote their children’s individual growth. (1) Foster the growth-mindset, or the belief that people are successful because of their hard work and effort rather than their innate talents. When we foster the […]

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, […]

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 […]