Children

A young camper seated indoors weaving pink and purple threads on a wooden loom.
• Children • Jeff Carter

How Camp Helps Build Self-Esteem

self esteem girl camper

How does summer camp help children gain self-esteem?

Parents know it’s important for children to feel good about themselves, to be proud of their abilities and accomplishments, and to be accepted socially. That’s why we take such great care to provide experiences where children will succeed. Music lessons, organized team sports, even the “right” haircut and clothing— we hope all of these will help our kids be more competent, confident, and ultimately happier in life.

Many times this strategy works. Our child may find a talent, rise above the ability of others, gain some praise and recognition for it, and thereby feel good about being “good.” Being recognized for an outstanding ability, winning the competition for social attention, can be a real boost to a young person’s self-esteem. But what if a child doesn’t quite measure up, and she’s not the prettiest, the smartest, the most athletic, or the most talented in some way? What about her self-esteem? Is winning some unspoken competition the only way to feel good about herself?

Fortunately, there’s more to self-esteem than just individual success. It’s also about feeling competent in the face of life’s general problems, having a sense of “personal capacity.” It’s also about being able to simply have fun with others, to be able to make decisions for oneself, and feeling included in group endeavors. Interestingly, self-esteem is also about cooperation and community. In an environment defined by encouragement, mutual respect and collaboration, it’s not important if a child doesn’t stand out as an individual because of some extraordinary talent. Instead, a sense of self-worth and dignity can arise from doing something great together, from being a part of a group accomplishment.

Self-Esteem Through Community

And that’s why camp is so ideal for helping children grow their self-esteem; it is exactly this kind of environment. On the one hand, summer camp is a place for kids to make their own decisions, try new things, and discover individual achievement.  There are small moments of personal success everyday.  And on the other, there is incredible community spirit at camp, with groups of kids working together to solve problems, taking care of each other, and collaborating on creative projects. Regardless of their age or ability, their experience or talent, children at camp are reminded everyday that they can do it, and that they can believe in themselves. Everyone’s in it together at camp, and while we each may not hit the target with every arrow we shoot, there’s laughter and joy among friends no matter what. It’s through building this kind of community that all the girls at camp strengthen their self-esteem. Around here, you can count on it!

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teens seeking sensations
• Children • Jeff Carter

Teens Seeking Sensations

Girls Camp for Teens Thrive on Sensation

If you spend time around teenagers, it’s easy to see them exhibit “sensation seeking” behaviors. They thrive on new experiences and stimuli of all kinds, and tend to take surprising risks. In fact it’s widely accepted within psychology that this personality trait is a dominant force in the lives of teen girls and boys. This sensation seeking is thought to be an evolutionary skill, something that helps teens learn new things, become more independent from their parents and to increase their social competence. Overall, it’s a good thing.

When Sensation Seeking Goes Wrong

On the other hand, chasing novelty like this, even if they’re unaware of it, can sometimes get teenagers into trouble. As a young teen girl or boy is bombarded by urges to experience new things and to be included in their peer group, they may lack the cognitive development to temper risky behaviors, or blindly hold the perceived benefits of that behavior supremely important over everything else. For example, a girl may experiment with drugs at the urging of her friends, effectively ignoring the personal, legal and health consequences of that decision, because she values the approval of her peer group more. Put differently, it’s thought that risky teenage behavior can be understood as “sensation seeking” run amok.

It’s a dilemma; we want our teenagers to experience new things and meet new people, and thereby to learn and grow from that novelty, but we also want them to choose less risky behaviors and seek out positive experiences and peer influences. How to land on the right side of that equation?

Camp as Positive Sensation Seeking

Summer camp is well suited to provide this kind of positive sensation seeking for teens. Everyday at sleepaway camp, girls can enjoy new experiences, whether they be climbing a rock, the excitement of shooting a gun, or just making friends with new and different people.

Camp is a pool of positive peer pressure. Chock full of excellent role models, it promises to help teens channel their urge for novelty and their desire to connect with friends. Camp is also a place where teens can take acceptable risks, challenging themselves in exciting new ways, even as parents can be assured their children are kept safe, encouraged and supported. It’s just an ideal environment for teens seeking sensations. It’s no wonder they love it so much! And need it so clearly!

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A group of girls standing on a wooden porch holding up handmade decorated paper calendars and smiling.
• Children • Jeff Carter

Camp Builds Character

Summer camp builds character

It doesn’t take long, once your daughter has attended an overnight summer camp like Rockbrook, to realize that the weeks spent having fun, enjoying outdoor adventure, horseback riding and all sorts of crafts have also been profoundly formative. Summer camp professionals and camp families alike, all know it; camp builds character.

In fact, it was back in 1929 when Hedley Dimock and Charles Hendry published their study Camping and Character: A Camp Experiment in Character Education. This book reported what the authors saw as positive changes in campers’ behavior as well as the mechanisms that explain how camp can be so “stimulating and enlightening.” Far beyond what ordinary classroom learning can provide, they saw the highly social nature of camp to be most important for helping children grow more responsible, trustworthy and more caring, fair and respectful in their interaction with others.

At Rockbrook we take great care to create a culture where all children feel included and appreciated, where staff members are extraordinarily admirable, and where positive peer pressure reinforces honesty and kindness. This is camp, and this is why camp builds character.

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young camp kids
• Children • Jeff Carter

A Refuge from Advertising

Smiling Child at camp

We’ve written before about how the average American child spends 53 hours per week consuming electronic media— television, computers, cell phones, video games, ebook readers —interacting with various screens. One consequence of this media consumption is all the advertising it includes. Woven throughout these hours of electronic entertainment is a flood of ads and product branding, to the extent of about 3000 ads per day, according to one study. Just about everywhere our children go, including their schools, they are exposed to carefully crafted advertising messages. Advertisers know that children constitute not only a large market themselves, but also a powerful force capable of influencing their parents’ spending. Even more insidiously, they know exposing children to brands very early in life can have lasting brain effects that influence their buying habits as adults.

Recognizing this trend in America, researchers have begun to study the effects pervasive advertising and branding have on children, their (cognitive, social and personal) development, and their overall physical and psychological health. Unfortunately, it’s not good, with links to tobacco, alcohol and drug use, to obesity, to premature sexual activity, and to fostering negative body image ideals. There is strong evidence that advertising and even subtle branding messages have profoundly negative effects, so much so, several European countries, Greece, Belgium and Sweden for example, have banned advertising that explicitly targets children.

The Real Harm of Constant Ads

Fortunately for the children that attend summer camp, there is a true break from media consumption and from its accompanying advertising. Spending time at Rockbrook, playing outside, and enjoying real friends and relationships, function as countering forces. Back to the basics of childhood, girls at camp find they are more creative, more imaginative and more adventurous. We all know camp is a refuge; it is in this way as well— a refuge from advertising and branding.  And that’s a great thing.

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swimming in camp lake
• Children • Jeff Carter

Back to School

swimming in camp lake

This time of year, as we head back to school and the memories of our time at camp can seem far away, it’s a good idea to reflect upon some of the important habits and skills we learned during our stay at Rockbrook, and to realize how important they can be throughout the rest of the year.  But what are some of those values? What are some of the surprising things camp taught us that can still serve us well at school?

At Rockbrook this summer we learned:

—things are more fun when we include everyone
—you can be creative with just about anything
—making friends is easy when we respect and care for each other
—everything is better in a costume 🙂

Of course there are a lot of other ways camp helps kids grow too.

Peg Smith, the CEO of the American Camp Association, also wants kids to remember what they learned at camp, in particular the “Three Cs” — Confidence, Curiosity, and Character. Pack all these great things in your school backpack. You know camp is awesome; now make that true for school too!

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red and white camp uniforms
• Children • rbc

Worth Preserving

Learning archery and arrows at summer camp

The NC Legislature just passed a bill, and the Governor has signed it, establishing a commission to study the current length of the school year in North Carolina. For the last couple of years, there has been a broad debate about how much classroom learning our children should have. On one side there are those that call for more time in school, more minutes in class per day and more days per year, because it’s believed academic achievement is proportional to the amount of time in school and it’s been observed that children lose some of their academic progress over the summer when they aren’t studying. On the other side, there are those that value the traditional summer break from school (June through August) and understand it as an opportunity to learn equally important non-academic skills, so-called “life skills” or “personal skills.” These are things like being creative and independent, being friendly and outgoing, being resilient and determined, and so forth.

It’s easy to guess what side summer camps come down on. We cherish the summer months because they provide time for camp, naturally, but what’s important about that is all the important “whole child” learning camp provides even as our kids are having a great time. Check out these two articles we’ve already written on this issue: Longer School Year and Amy Chua and Camp.

Growth You Can See

There’s plenty to say about this, and I’m sure there will be even more debate as time goes on, but it’s worth remembering the real growth children experience at summer camp. When your Rockbrook girls return home, you’ll see it. They’ll be more excited about things, more likely to “dive right in,” and be quick to smile and laugh at the most common moments. They’ll probably seem just a little taller, in several different ways. A camp experience provides so many benefits that are difficult to reproduce at home and at school, it can make a profound difference in a girl’s overall education, and that’s something really worth preserving.

Girls love sliding rock

Today, as part of our cabin day events, we took all of the mini session Middlers and Seniors to Sliding Rock. The Seniors took a morning trip and the Middlers an evening trip. With snacks packed (and a complete dinner for the Middlers— Rick’s chicken potato casserole, coleslaw, bacon, and nectarines— an amazing, delicious combination), we loaded all the buses for each trip into Pisgah. On both trips we went “after hours” so we could have the rock to ourselves and the girls could slide as many times as they wanted. The record I heard was 11 times. That’s a lot of slippin’ and slidin’! As the girls sit down at the top of the rock and they feel the cold water hit them in the back, it can be bit of a shock, the kind that brings out plenty of wide-mouthed screams. But as they begin sliding, pick up speed and get closer to the final plunge, just about everyone either has her hands in the air, is holding her nose, or is screaming her head off! Sometimes all three!

Topping off these trips, we just had to stop at Dolly’s so everyone could pick out a cup or cone of their favorite flavor of ice cream. Dolly’s is a wonderful ice cream stand located at the entrance to the Pisgah Forest that offers more than 50 different flavors, one of which is named after Rockbrook (there are 20 other camp flavors too), “Rockbrook Chocolate Illusion.” Yes, it’s an all-chocolate flavor with fudge, brownies and chocolate chips mixed in, but also mini-peanut butter cups to “lighten it up.” A little over the top, but yummy.

We are all having a great time… a getting a lot out of it!

Campers Happy at Dolly's
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real friends at summer camp
• Children • Jeff Carter

Camp Friends are Real Friends

Summer Camp Friends Laughing

How many Facebook “friends” do you have? And how many of them are also your “real” friends? Of those, how many do you actually see or talk to regularly? It’s a strange modern American phenomenon that paradoxically, we have loads of these kind of casual contacts, acquaintances and loose relationships, but also often feel profoundly on our own. As we spend more of our time plugged into the virtual world of the Internet (a rather solitary activity, after all), as we are encouraged to be uniquely independent and value our “freedom,” and as we are increasingly “on the move” to pursue professional, financial or lifestyle “opportunities,” we seem to have been quick to sacrifice real friendships.

Daniel Akst, in his essay “America: Land of Loners?” published last year in the Wilson Quarterly, clearly makes this point. He describes how for so many of us, a fierce dedication to independence and self-sufficiency is robbing from us an important form of human relationship that can’t be replaced by one’s spouse, immediate family members (e.g., children, siblings, etc.), or pets. Combine this with complex demands on everyone’s time— work, school, chores, etc. —and it’s easy to see how it’s become quite difficult to make and maintain close friends.

I suspect, also, that children aren’t entirely immune to this phenomenon. They too, though perhaps less so than adults, struggle with being overly busy, with spending a lot of their time alone or online, and with having fewer opportunities to meet new people and share common rewarding experiences. The ordinary lives of children today are generally less suited to building a strong network of close, true friends. This is worrisome, especially when you consider that the forces behind this trend will only get stronger as our children grow older and take on greater responsibilities.

Camp as a Haven for Real Connection

Ah, thankfully, there is camp, that magical place were kids get to relax a bit, take a break from the pressures of school and try some new things just for the fun of it. It’s a place to meet new people, share wonderful experiences, and simply do a lot of things together. Camp gets them outside, away from the buzz and flicker of electronic media, and allows children to explore who they are and be their authentic selves. All of this is the ideal setting to develop real friendships, to connect with others in meaningful ways. Camp is where your real friends are. And everyone will tell you, you have to come back to camp every summer… to be with your friends.

Camp is a haven, a place where children can fulfill their need for true friends, and is something we all can use nowadays.

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Kids use all five senses
• Children • Jeff Carter

All Their Senses

Kids Outdoor Senses

“I worry about how much time my kids spend looking at a screen.”

We’ve heard this more than once recently, perhaps not so surprisingly when you consider how many electronic screens are part of our lives these days. For our kids too, in addition to television, there are cellphones, computers, tablet computers, ebook readers and hand-held video games. Screens are everywhere, even in our pockets! With this kind of availability and often unlimited access to technology, we now see that the average 8-18 year old child in America is spending 53 hours per week consuming electronic media.

We’ve discussed before the value of unplugging from technology and how camp gets kids out of the virtual world of screens and into the actual world of nature. Camp turns off the screens and gets kids actually doing things instead of just watching.

The Benefit of Full Sensory Experience

It’s worth underlining another benefit to turning off the screens. It’s the simple fact that by getting kids outside and giving them lots of fun things to do, they stimulate and utilize all their senses. They feel things— mist in the morning, hear things— owls at night, smell things— galax along the trail, and even taste things— s’mores (!), that can’t come from a screen. By bringing all of their senses into play, instead of just their eyes and ears, kids activate and develop their brains in important ways that can enrich their future experiences.

This is another way camp really matters to kids. It’s fun in creative, imaginative, and sensuous ways. It’s stimulating in the best sense.

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summer camp teenagers
• Children • Jeff Carter

Interrupt the Race to Nowhere

Crazy Summer Fun

After discussing the rigorous, driven parenting style recounted by Amy Chua, the recent documentary film Race to Nowhere adds fuel to the fire. In their desire to do “what’s best” for their kids, to provide them “every opportunity,” and to cheer them on to “work hard” toward their goals, the film shows parents pushing their kids to the brink. It’s heartbreaking to see in the film the anxiety both school kids and their parents are dealing with as they race between school work, team practice, and other responsibilities. The quality of what they eat and the amount of sleep they get are the first to be sacrificed in this pressure to excel, but kids are also, I would say, giving up important parts of their childhood. In the name of “getting into a good college” and later, “getting a good job” they have hopped on a treadmill that’s speeding past valuable opportunities to develop as healthy, happy human beings.

Camp as the Antidote

Here again, we have to applaud the power of a traditional sleepaway summer camp to act as a welcome relief from these pressures. Rockbrook is a down-to-earth community of people who simply love to relax, be themselves, make good solid friendships, and enjoy the pure freedom of summer. We’re a zany bunch, always in motion, and always ready to try something new for the fun of it. Camp, like the best moments of childhood, is full of unexpected pleasures. Surrounded by equally enthusiastic people, it’s easy to be excited about everything!

The lasting benefits of a camp experience are very well documented, but here’s another. It’s simply wonderful for kids to take a break from the pressures of school. Interrupting the “race to nowhere” with camp is a very good idea.

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