Years at Camp

Parents often ask whether Rockbrook provides programs for certain aged children, whether it be really young ones, middle school aged kids, teenagers or girls of a certain year in school. It can be a little confusing so we thought a summary of our summer camp’s age categories and overall school year range would be helpful.

The overall age range for Rockbrook is established according to the grade each girl has finished in school. That means we can have girls as young as 5 years old (who have finished kindergarten) and as old as 17 (who have just finished 10th grade). In reality most of the campers fall between 6 and 16 years old.

This is a wide range, so Rockbrook long ago established three different age groups to help foster age-appropriate programs and events. There are three: the “Juniors” are girls who have completed K through 4th grade, the “Middlers” are campers done with 5th or 6th grade, and the “Seniors” have finished their 7th, 8th or 9th year in school. Finally, our 10th graders are in a special program making them “Hi-Ups.”

You can see that Rockbrook is a summer camp for all years, for girls of just about every age in school.

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.’”

It's Easy to Make Friends

When a girl goes to school, chances are she interacts mostly with kids her own age. Both in class and out, her opportunities to make friends don’t reach very far from the other kids in her grade level. When coming to camp, however, a girl spends time with other girls both younger and older than she; pre-teens make friends with young girls, older teens become natural leaders for the younger girls, and so forth. Likewise, all of the campers really get to know the camp counselors, who are generally young women in college or recently graduated from college. And when you consider the senior camp staff, there is a huge age range of people at camp all living together as a community.

The social benefits of this multiage experience are significant. Not only is it more like the real world, but research has shown multiage settings help girls feel less pressure to be competitive with other girls, and this makes it much easier to make friends.

When you think about camp, this makes perfect sense because it really is a special place where teens don’t have to be the “best” to be liked. No matter what, you’ll make really good friends, even if they are a little older or younger.

The Fun and Friends of Camp

“What makes Rockbrook so much fun?”

Wow, that’s a hard one! Of course, the most obvious answer is being able to do all of the great activities at camp— the crafts, the sports, the adventure, the horseback riding, etc. While that’s important, there’s something else that makes Rockbrook especially fun (the most fun, some girls say!). And that’s how amazingly friendly it is, how easy it is to make friends at camp, and how you truly feel you are a part of the group. Feeling at ease around everybody, having all these people who like you, and being supported by teenage girls (as opposed being excluded, or criticized, or put down) is just perfect for having fun.  In other words, not worring about “what people might think” makes it easy to dive right in, be creative, try something new, tell a story, and maybe laugh your head off.  It’s just easier to have fun with your friends, right?  And so, the friendlier you are and the more you are a friend (i.e. have friends), the more fun you’ll be having too.  It’s a great way to think about the fun of camp.