Cool Posters for Girls
Graphic artist Amanda Vissell has done it again and drawn four more super cool posters especially for girls. Each has a simple declaration and shows a girl smiling with great confidence and independence— “Explore,” Dream Big,” “Get Dirty,” and “Be You.” Click the image to see a larger version.
The artist explains:
I got down to basics a little more this time, imagining what we all need to see when we wake up in the morning. To know its not just okay to be who we are, but when we are ourselves we shine.
We love these posters because they line right up with camp, with the kind of encouragement and empowering experience time at Rockbrook provides our girls. Around here, we’re always exploring, creating something, dreaming up something imaginative. It’s just part of our daily life in the summer to be outside and get a little dirty in the forest. And perhaps most importantly, Rockbrook is a place where girls can relax and find the freedom and support to be their true selves. It’s where they can uncover hidden talents and admirable aspects of their personality. Camp is a magical place because, at least in part, it makes all of these possible.
Ready to explore? Let’s go!
5 Ways Camp Helps Children Grow
Summer camp professionals around the country, largely encouraged by the American Camp Association, have begun to refer to camps as “Youth Development Organizations.” Being at summer camp, we all agree it seems, is more than just “fun and games.” It’s beneficial for children in unique and lasting ways. Summer camps are dedicated to helping children grow, certainly also to have a good time, but perhaps most importantly, to gain valuable skills and foster personal development.
But what are the ways children grow while at camp? We’ve often said Rockbrook is “a place for girls to grow,” but what kind of growth can we expect?
Here are 5 powerful ways a summer camp experience fosters youth development and growth for children:
1. Social growth: Going to a sleepaway summer camp means joining a close community of people living and playing together 24/7. It builds inter-personal skills like sincere communication, conflict resolution, a willingness to share, and an enthusiasm for working as a team. Perhaps more importantly, the highly social nature of camp really encourages children to make friends easily. It’s a fun, down-to-earth, friendly environment that naturally draws children together.
2. Character growth: Summer camp, simply because it’s living away from home, is an ideal opportunity for children to become more independent. As they make decisions for themselves, for example when selecting their activity schedule, children learn to embrace the freedom (opportunities) and responsibility (consequences) their choices entail. With its non-competitive activities and with the care and support of the camp counselors and staff, camp provides children fantastic opportunities to succeed. It’s a real boost to campers’ self-confidence and self-esteem when every day includes accomplishment. Of course, it can also include setbacks and disappointments, but summer camp is always supportive and encouraging. It inspires resilience by providing role models of courage and determination.
3. Humane growth: An overnight camp like Rockbrook is also a great place for children to strengthen and develop greater humane values. Starting with a general warmth and sensitivity toward others, camp fosters cooperation and respect. Camp is also a place to meet children from different countries with perhaps unfamiliar cultural assumptions and religious traditions. It provides real world reminders, despite these differences, of our common humanity.
4. Practical growth: Residential summer camps provide an incredible variety of activities for children. They combine quality instruction, equipment and facilities specially designed to challenge kids’ sports abilities (like tennis and horseback riding), nurture their artistic and creative talents (painting, ceramics, and dance for example), and build their outdoor adventure abilities— all practical, real world, life-long skills.
5. Physical growth: Camp is chock full of action! Whether it be swimming, jumping, climbing, dancing, riding or running, Rockbrook keeps girls in motion. It introduces them to all kinds of ways to develop physical skills. With all the great food (made from scratch!), outdoor living, and big active fun, camp has important health benefits for children.
Everyone knows Rockbrook is super fun, but in these five ways, it’s powerfully formative as well.
Camp as Community
Spending time at Rockbrook, it becomes clear just how strong the sense of community is for the girls at camp. It’s remarkable really how quickly and easily girls from so many different home towns and different schools can grow so close and care about each other in personal and meaningful ways. After this most recent long session, and probably because these girls have spent 4 weeks together, it was even more apparent that camp is a community in the best sense of the word.
It begins with a group of well-trained, caring adult role models who exhibit the kind of personal character that fosters community. From the directors to the cabin counselors and staff members, we know the importance of compassion, generosity, contribution and patient understanding. Quite naturally, but also intentionally, we set the tone at camp so everyone can feel loved, capable and included. Through encouragement and enthusiasm, the leaders at camp nurture positive relationships.
And the results? Well, the benefits of camp are clear. Kids feel good about themselves (improved self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence), are better communicators (both expressing themselves and listening to others), and are more aware and responsible. Becoming a member of this kind of community is the secret here. It has a powerful, wonderful effect on the girls at Rockbrook. Sure, the activities, special events, the food, and the sheer fun of it all go into it, but a girl knowing wholeheartedly she is a member of the camp community, knowing Rockbrook is “my camp,” helps explain why she loves it so much. Pretty cool.
A Case for Summer Camp
Head on over to the Chicago Tribune web site and read a fantastic article by Josh Noel entitled: Making a case for camp: This summer institution is old-fashioned — and as relevant as ever.
Describing a camp in Michigan, the article reminds us of why camp is so important to kids. As we’ve mentioned before, the benefits are so crucial given how most children these days find themselves at school and at home.
Anyone who has been to summer camp knows that the relationships are like few others. Friendships form quickly, intensely and with open minds. Even if camp friends don’t keep in touch long-term, what has been shared is long remembered.
Camp is an open and friendly place. It’s where you can put aside your reputation from school, avoid a lot of the drama, and just relax into who you really are. That’s a big part of why you make your best friends at camp; you’re not trying to impress or be someone else. It’s just you, and you soon see, that’s just fine.
Once you experience it, you understand it, and you too will be coming back to camp for the friendships it provides.
A True Rockbrook Girl
A camp parent from Georgia recently passed this along to us. We liked it so much, we thought we’d share.
“Rockbrook is near and dear to my child’s heart. She has grown up coming to camp, has been on all three lines, and is now an independent teenager, full of confidence, self esteem, and spirit— a true ‘Rockbrook girl.’”
