Information, thinking and ideas about summer camp drawn using examples from Rockbrook Camp located in the mountains of Brevard, North Carolina.
With Halloween approaching, everyone’s thinking about what costume to wear and camp is a place with a highly-concentrated amount of costume ideas! It’s typical to change clothes more than once a day to dress up for things like Granny Bingo, ’80’s Dance Party, Harry Potter-themed Birthday Night, twin day, and lots of other happenings. Here are some stellar costumes from this year:
One of the most common questions we hear is “What’s the food like,” which translates into, “How often do you eat tater tots and chicken fingers?” The answer is, not very often! The kitchen strives to find that balance between kid-pleasing-comfort-food while at the same time being health conscious. There is always a deluxe salad bar at lunch and dinner and a vegetarian option at all meals.
Rick Hastings was our Head Chef this year. He has a background in vegetarian cooking and has also worked at a camp before. He and his fabulous kitchen crew welcomed campers into the kitchen to help prepare the day’s meals and snacks – including muffins for the daily mid-morning muffin break!
Here is what the Senior linehead counselor, Sarah Thompson, said about the food and kitchen staff this year:
“I cannot praise the kitchen staff highly enough. A happy camp is a well-fed camp and they feed us exceedingly well! The magic started during staff orientation (Capers? Fresh Basil? Is this really camp food?) and did not let up as the summer weared on. The food is healthy, innovative and delicious.
What impresses me the most, though, is the staff’s attitude. They are unfailingly helpful and upbeat, even when faced with hordes of hungry and demanding people. More importantly, they realize that the kitchen affords valuable opportunities for the camper. The kitchen staff has opened its doors to several campers this summer, allowing girls to assist. Often, they are girls who are somehow most in need of the opportunity. There are some places at camp – the climbing tower, for instance – where girls are clearly going to gain confidence and other skills. This year’s kitchen staff has turned the kitchen into such a place for campers. The knowledge, independence and self-confidence they have instilled in the girls is nothing short of amazing.”
“Cooks you made a wonderful dinner! You know we’ll never get any thinner!” – From the Cook Song
What do Emma Roberts, Lisa Loeb, Blair Underwood, Frank Sesno, Ashlan Gorse, and Lisa Raye have in common? They all believe who they are today is, at least partly, because of camp. Take a look.
It’s hard to predict how children will benefit from the experience of summer camp, but there is overwhelming evidence that they do. The American Camp Association has studied this, and written about it, and now produced this great video illustrating what real people feel about camp. It’s heartwarming to see that a quality camp experience can be such a powerful force in the lives of adults, and exciting to know today’s children have the same opportunity.
We bumped into an article the other day by Anne O’Connor entitled, Is Summer Camp Good for Her? It’s a great discussion of why traditional overnight summer camps offer so much, and how many “specialty” camps (e.g., computer camp, soccer camp, etc.) often lose track of important social benefits. The article quotes Dr. Chris Thurber. He says camps are not about “the equipment or specific attractions— it’s the friends.” He claims, “it’s much more valuable to have social skills and a friendship base than to be an expert soccer player.”
What caught our eye was the quote in the article from a Rockbrook dad describing the value of the camp friendships his daughter made over the years. He also describes the skills she developed as well. “When they have to be independent, when they have the responsibility for planning their days, their self-esteem goes through the roof,” he said.
Camps— so good in so many ways! 🙂
Going away to camp, particularly to an overnight or sleepaway camp, is a big step for kid. Being separated from parents, meeting loads of new people, and trying lots of new challenging activities— all these can be a little scary. Imagining it all, it’s easy to worry and find yourself asking “What if…?” kinds of questions. In fact, it’s just as common for parents to be scared and worried too. They also can suffer from a certain amount of “separation anxiety.”
There are a couple of things that can help both parents and kids feel better about this. First, realize that this is perfectly normal and all parents feel nervous about being away from their children for extended periods of time. Likewise, all children see their parents as their basic source of comfort and can at first be reluctant to go without it. Being away from each other requires both parents and children to develop a new sense of trust. Parents must trust the camp (its directors and staff, in particular) to take good care of their children, and each child must learn to trust themselves and their abilities away from home.
Fortunately, summer camps are ideal places for this kind of growth. They offer safe, structured environments where each girl finds plenty of fun things to do, but more importantly, caring adults trained to encourage her to make her own decisions, and to be more independent and self-confident. Camps have a lot of experience in this. They know it can take time, but have seen thousands of children succeed at camp and be better prepared for challenges later in life.
If you are considering summer camp for the first time, it can help to practice the kind of healthy separation camps represent. For example, it’s a good idea to schedule sleepovers at friends’ houses or other long weekends away from home. Even with something this simple, kids learn they can do things on their own.
Camp is a wonderful experience for everyone. For both parents and kids, it’s a chance to grow up a little.
As a summer youth camp, Rockbrook’s mission is to be
“a haven for girls, a place of their own, where they can explore the beauty of nature, try new things, enjoy carefree summer living, and make some of their very best friends.”
And of course, camp is all about the fun, the super silliness of it all, too.
But it’s also more than all that, because camp is also a place where you learn a ton. Camp is definitely educational, and in the very best sense of the word. It teaches you how to be more independent, more creative, braver, and more socially adept. Camp helps you learn new ways to get along with others, to trust the people around you, and to feel good about what you do. It’s really true; youth camps help young people learn about themselves.
When you add the sort of caring spirited people that work at Rockbrook, you begin to understand how summer camps can be one of the most valuable educational experiences around.
We hear this a lot, actually: that camp is a refuge. It’s a place where girls can escape the busy, sometimes overwhelming pace of their regular lives. For many young kids, each day is a bombardment of stimuli, new information and entertainment. There are school responsibilities, social demands, and activities at home all demanding attention. Increasingly, parents have noticed that the intensity of their children’s lives is making them more anxious, fearful, and worried. There’s so much going on, it’s difficult for kids to really connect with the people (family and friends) around them, adding even more to the burden of handling everything on their own. Everything around them seems to be shouting, and sometimes it’s just too much!
Thank goodness for camp. It really can be a refuge, a huge relief from all of this. Simply being outside, unplugged from rapid-fire electronic stimulation, is a powerful antidote. Having daily opportunities to engage creative talents, physical challenges, and deep social/personal relationships is so welcome, kids just blossom in a camp setting. It’s the greatest gift to simply have time to relax, to play in the creek, dress a little silly, or chat with a friend in the porch rocking chairs. The environment of a kids camp is a powerful healthy response to the extreme busyness of ordinary life. It always has been, and these days, it seems like it’s needed more than ever.
Here’s a great early photo collage of Rockbrook girls from the 1926 camp catalog. Kells Hogan brought it over to us after finding it among his mother’s artifacts. She attended camp in her youth. We love how the photos show the real spirit of adventure the girls had back then. It looks like there was plenty of dressing up going on too!
Recognize those waterfalls?
We ran into this quote the other day and thought we should share it. It’s from Charles William Eliot, who at 35 was the youngest president of Harvard University.
“I have a conviction that a few weeks spent in a well-organized summer camp may be of more value educationally than a whole year of formal school work.”
It’s nice to see the value of camp being endorsed by highly educated people. We agree. Camp is educational in the broadest, but also most fundamental, sense of the word. Through personal experience, it offers opportunities to forge connections and nurture children far beyond what school can provide. There’s really nothing quite like camp!
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.
