They Need Summer Camp

If you could reform the common education of teenagers, change something about how teenagers today learn, or what they learn, what would you do? Looking around, what do you think teenagers need to understand? How do they need to change if they are to become happy, well-grounded, satisfied adults? Is there a skill, a personal value, some rule of thumb that you wish all teenagers today would adopt? Is there one crucial thing that today’s teens are missing, and as a result has placed them on a path toward trouble later in life?

You get the picture; the assumption here is that our young people are already having trouble, and aren’t measuring up to the ideal outcomes our education system, culture, and families define. It might be declining test scores, weak academic competencies (compared with children in other countries), unhealthy eating and exercise habits, poor social skills (e.g., difficulty making friends, disrespecting others), decreased creativity, or a general failure to overcome unexpected challenges. Any of these, or several, might be identified as the core problem facing our teenagers these days.

So what can we do to help? If your teen is slipping in any of these ways, how can you improve the situation, make a difference in some way? One proposal suggested, and increasingly so it seems, is to lengthen the school year. It’s claimed that organized classroom education provides the best chance to “reach” the youth and “make a difference in their lives.” As we’ve mentioned before, this is a weak, incomplete solution at best, one that fails to understand the complexities of youth development and the many dimensions it demands. It might be easy to understand and simple to measure, but extending the school calendar is not going to help our teenagers navigate their lives better. If your teen can’t make choices for herself, extra math homework isn’t going to help.

Again, what is there to do? How can we complement our current education system, augment what we already do in the classroom with learning that addresses the complete human being? What experiential gaps should we fill, opportunities should we create, models should we provide? What setting would best support these ordinarily neglected aspects of growing up?

One answer, we, and so many other youth development professionals, advocate is the benefits provided by summer camps. Camps are organized settings that encourage young people to reach beyond what they know, interact with others positively, take responsibility for their own decisions, physically engage the natural world, build self-esteem, and experience meaningful success. Summer camps are incredibly effective educational institutions, that camp parents will tell you, make a huge difference in the health and well-being of their children. Summer camps are just very good at helping children grow in these very important ways.

Yes, we should extend the education of our teenagers and children, not by lengthening the school year, but by providing greater experiential opportunities like those found at summer camps. Send your teenager to camp. That’s what you can do.

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.’”

Top 5 Summer Camp Directories

When searching for summer camps, it’s always good to look at several to compare them and learn about which might best fit your child. You can spend a lot of time searching the Internet and reading different camps’ individual websites, but you can also visit one of the many summer camp directories out there. These are special sites designed to help sift through all the options. You can narrow the complete list of camps by region, by activity specialty, by gender, by type (sleepaway vs. day, e.g.), even by religion. As you enter your preferences, you’ll be presented with a more manageable list of camps to research in more detail, for example by requesting their catalogs and promotional DVDs.

Ah, but there are lots of summer camp directories out there too!  So here are what we consider the top 5 camp directories to visit.  Each is organized a little differently and will therefore yield somewhat different search results.  Looking for a residential girls camp in the southeast?  In addition to Rockbrook, each of these directories will reveal a range of options.  After spending some time on these sites, you’ll have an excellent idea about which summer camp will be right for your child.

Let's play some Tennis!

Tennis at camp? Of course! In fact, it seems like the tennis courts are always busy at Rockbrook because, as a teen sleepaway camp, there are so many chances to play throughout the day. You can sign up for the camp tennis activity and have a lesson, get together with a friend and head down to the courts during the free time before lunch and/or dinner, or even get a bunch of teens together and play after dinner during the “twilight” free time. That’s our favorite time to play… the cool evening air, the colorful setting sun, the ease and fun of it all.  With a session at sleepaway camp, you sure can play a lot of tennis!

Building Teen Self Esteem

It’s not something we talk about much— mostly because it happens without any extra effort —but camp is a place where everyday you can achieve something great. You can make something, do something extra-ordinary (if ordinary is what happens at home or at school), meet some challenge, and feel good about it. For a teen girl, especially, camp proves you can do it, and you can believe in yourself.  It’s a real boost to your self-esteem. Sure things can sometimes go badly, like when you can’t quite hit the target at first, but camp is also a place where you get plenty of encouragement and support from the people around you. Particularly at Rockbrook, we’re not competing. We’re all trying new things and enjoying each other’s company, no matter what our “score.” Here too, it feels so good when you realise that these people are your friends, no matter what. Ask the teen girls that come to camp every summer, and they’ll tell you. It’s just like this.

Kayaking Adventure at Camp

Outdoor adventure is one of the core camp activity areas at Rockbrook. Our outdoor adventure summer camps focus on backpacking (hiking and camping), rock climbing, whitewater rafting and kayaking. Most recently, rock climbing and kayaking have become increasingly popular, especially with the teens and older girls at camp.

After learning basic kayaking techniques like how to “wet exit” (That’s when you get out of the boat when it tips over upside down.), or how to “roll” (That’s when you roll back rightside up instead of wet exiting.), we head out to some of the local rivers for more outdoor action.  For the more advanced paddlers, we’ll even take trips to the Nantahala river, a Class I, II and II whitewater river nearby.  The mountains of NC, and the rivers that run between them, are just perfect for summer camps and this kind of adventure.

Camp for Teens

Often when parents begin researching a camp for teens they have some kind of growth experience in mind, something they hope their teen will gain from his or her time at camp. Sure they want the experience to be fun, but they also hope it will be formative too. There’s a lot to go through in your teen years, so having a place in the summer that helps is a good thing.

Some camps are explicitly designed to address these kinds of issues and provide specific activities to help teens gain “personal power,” build “self-confidence and self-esteem” and develop “deep friendships.”  Others, and Rockbrook’s teen program fits in here, emphasize creating a friendly and noncompetetive environment where teens can relax, be themselves, and try new activities.  In this kind of setting and with true encoragement and support, teens find they have hidden talents and abilities and they do grow more confident and capable.  The culture of camp, as the foundation for the excitement and fun, is the driving force for the transformation our teenagers experience and parents appreciate.

Camp is Open !!!

We’ve all been waiting, been busy preparing, and been ready for the longest time, but finally it’s here. Rockbrook is open for the summer! It’s going to be fabulous, and we’re all incredibly excited! Let the fun begin! Yeah!