We have another short highlights video for you! Robbie Francis of FrancisFilmworks spent a day at camp earlier this week filming and now he’s put together a wonderful glimpse into life this session. Robbie has a real talent for capturing the special moments at camp— the girls happily doing their activities, bopping around camp, and just being with friends.
The video shows lots of laughter, moments of focus and accomplishment, and so many, many smiles.
Take a look! We think you’ll enjoy these 2 minutes immensely.
Out on the porch of the Rockbrook dining hall is a row of mailboxes, one for every camper and staff member at camp. Every day after lunch, everyone takes time to peer into their box hoping there’s some mail to find. It could be a card or letter, or an email that the office printed and delivered to the box. This is a highlight of the day because it’s exciting to receive a surprise gift, no matter how small, and think, “I wonder who it’s from.” Receiving letters from home or other friends and family has always been a part of the summer camp experience.
Most parents know they should write to their kids when they’re away at summer camp. But do they know how to do it? Do they know what to say, and perhaps more importantly, what not to say? They may have questions like “How often should I write?” or “Should I tell them about world events, or shield them from troubling news?” In fact, there are good answers here, helpful guidelines to ensure parent letters encourage a camper’s independence while still maintaining a connection to loved ones at home. A great camp letter from home finds this balance between support and the self-confidence that grows while away. Here’s how to do it.
Your goal when writing to your child at camp should be to encourage and support her in this new experience. You want to provide some reassurance as she explores and at the same time be careful not to pull her back home. You want to be upbeat about her abilities to take full advantage of camp life, to try new activities, meet new people, and overcome any challenges that might pop up. It’s through your confidence in her that she will build her own confidence. Home serves as an anchor of love and support as she navigates camp life away. A phrase like “I know you’ll figure it out” goes a long way. Remind her of her strengths: “You’re always so kind and understanding” or “You know what being a good friend means,” for example. You are expressing your trust in her, and in her success at camp.
One trap to avoid is writing too often to your child at camp. Yes, more letters from home isn’t always better. Research has shown that too much communication from parents increases the likelihood of homesickness. After all, you really don’t want your camper thinking about you instead of immersing herself in camp life. It seems counter intuitive, but ideally your camper loves camp so much, they forget about life at home. Too many letters from home, especially the wrong kind of letters, will surely undermine this ideal.
What to Include in your letters
With all these goals in mind, what should parents write about in their letters to camp? What are some content ideas that work?
Describe boring home updates – Tell her how everything is normal at home, all routine sorts of things happening, with very little excitement. The idea is to make camp seem way more fun and exciting by comparison… Because it is! For example, “Dad fixed the sink,” or “We reorganized the garage,” or “I’ve been working in the garden.” But be careful not to make your letter a highlight reel of everything she’s missing while away.
Ask questions about camp – This is a great way to keep the focus on camp. Show your interest in all of the things going on at camp. Reference what you’ve seen in the photo gallery. For example, you can ask “Tried climbing yet?” or “What’s the best muffin flavor so far?” or “I saw a photo of you weaving. That’s so cool! What are you making?” Show your camper you are curious and excited about all of the new experiences she’s having at camp.
Tell her you’re proud – It’s a great accomplishment just being at camp, making so many decisions on her own, navigating the social aspects, taking care of everything without parents guiding every step. You should be proud of your camper! And she should be proud of herself! Tell her about it. “It’s cool you’re doing this on your own.” “I’m so happy you’re trying horseback riding.” “I saw a photo of you shooting archery. That’s amazing!”
Add a bit of fun – This is your chance to get creative. Toss in a new “dad joke,” tell a silly riddle, or compile a funny “top 5 list.” You are providing a little entertainment, or a chuckle she can share with cabin mates and friends. “Q: Where do pirates get their hooks? A: Second-hand stores!” “It really takes guts to be an organ donor.” “I ate a clock the other day. It was very time consuming.” “Here are my top 5 hidden talents.” Word games for older campers, brainteasers and other puzzles are always fun to receive.
What to Avoid in Your Letters
After these good ideas, there are also things to avoid. Some topics can stir up emotions in kids away from home. They might feel guilty about being away, or worried about how parents are doing, for example. What should parents NOT talk about in their letters to camp?
News of exciting events they’re missing – Nobody enjoys skipping something they like, especially kids who might already be missing the comforts of home. Try to avoid making your camper feel torn about what’s happening without her. Don’t say, for example, “We’re going to the beach this weekend” or “We ate dinner at your favorite restaurant.” Feeling left out is hard for everyone.
Emotional manipulation – The risk here is that your feelings of missing your camper will make her feel guilty. Yes you miss them, and you love them, but your job is to encourage their independence while they are away at camp. Don’t undermine that by suggesting people at home aren’t doing well. Avoid saying things like, “The house feels so empty without you,’ or “Your sister (or family pet) is sad and really misses you,” or “I don’t know what to do without you here.”
Vague concerns – Avoid discussing your own specific concerns, even in vague terms. The adult world can be a jumble of anxieties, but camp is designed to be a break from all that. Don’t bring up problems or issues campers can’t solve or control. Some campers are easily worried about life outside of camp, so don’t hint at anything concerning, even if you think they should know eventually. For example, don’t say, “There’s a lot going on, but we’ll tell you later,” or “Grandma was in the hospital, but she’s fine now.”
Pressure and expectations – Be careful not to pressure your camper with high expectations for her time at camp. You want camp to be her experience, something self-directed and enjoyed at her own pace. Let her choices be her own. Similarly, avoid nagging her about schoolwork, room cleaning, or other home responsibilities. For example, avoid asking, “Why are you taking so many crafts activities?” or “Why aren’t you writing me back?” or “There’s a big pile of summer reading books here for you.”
Big things happening at home or in the world – Generally, waiting for your camper to return home is the best time to discuss troubling news. Camp is a haven, a happy place immune from heavy things in the world like natural disasters, sad family events, and incidents of violence. It’s easy to understand why it’s best to avoid discussing anything that might be frightening for a child. Avoid speculative language that may feed anxiety. If you feel you must share some troubling news with your camper, please reach out to us beforehand to coordinate how we can support the process.
Writing to your camper doesn’t have to be complicated. Instead, just keep these tips in mind and rest assured that “getting it right” is mostly about expressing your optimism about the camp experience, and your firm belief in your child. By writing this kind of encouraging letter, by cheering them on from afar, you’re helping your camper get more out of camp. So go ahead, write her a letter. It will truly mean a lot to her.
Robbie Francis of FrancisFilmworks spent another day this past week filming at Rockbrook, and now has edited this wonderful highlights video for us. Once again it’s a lovely glimpse into the upbeat action that fills our days at camp. The video does a great job of depicting the mood of camp right now, the friendships, the laughter, and the huge variety of fun.
There’s a word you’re likely to hear when people describe their camp experience, a word I’ve heard from teenage campers, staff members and adult camp alumni alike. It’s “magical.” When trying to convey how special camp is to them, how extraordinary it feels to simply be at camp, they’ll talk about the “magic of camp” or that “camp magic.”
Yes, camp life is marvelous. It’s awesome, amazing, fantastic. It’s so much better than the “mundane world,” with everything having a little something extra, some power or spirit. That’s why camp friends are your closest, camp sunsets more beautiful, muffins more delicious, being silly more hilarious, and feelings of belonging more genuine. Camp life reveals a magical quality in even the simplest things, enlivening our days wonderfully.
But how does it do that? The sunsets, muffins, and the excitement of a rafting trip are probably pretty similar to what can be found elsewhere. There’s probably nothing material that would make camp life distinctly better than non-camp examples.
So what makes it magical? If there’s something profoundly different about camp life that fills it with amazing people, flashes of beauty, moments of wonder, and surprising feelings of deep happiness, then how?
Here’s an idea.
I believe camp provides the conditions where we can notice what’s been there all along. In other words, the magic is already here; we just don’t see it in our ordinary daily lives. Camp doesn’t have a special power to create magic. Rather, it inspires us simply to become more aware of subtle qualities always available in the world around us.
Rockbrook proves that everyone is a potential friend. It shows us how the briefest encounter with the natural world is wonder-full. Here, conversations are driven by curiosity rather than criticism. Camp days are filled by doing things in the real world, exercising all our senses. Here, what might seem ordinary or routine comes alive with new details, chances to learn and create.
That’s the power of camp, how it’s magical. It encourages a “receptive awareness” that reveals the magical quality of things. By lifting kindness up as its highest ideal, it helps us be generous and see beyond ourselves. By giving us a break from the fast-paced demands of work and school, camp helps us slow down and notice the beautiful details in most things. By being a tech-free environment, it liberates us from a worldview limited to algorithms and sensationalism. By encouraging silliness and play, camp teaches us how to be comfortable with who we are. By establishing a truly supportive community, it draws us closer to the people around us. In the outside world, each of these might require a deliberate choice, but they are built right into our camp life… making it yes, magical.
So let’s celebrate the power of camp to tune our awareness, and perhaps reveal the magic in things long after the summer ends.
Sometimes being messy is the right thing to do. For example, this afternoon when the bell rang, and everyone rolled down to the landsports field dressed in their swimsuits, our goal was just that, to get as messy as possible. We were having a shaving cream fight! It doesn’t take much: a grassy field, about 200 cans of plain shaving cream, water hoses, upbeat music pumping through the speakers, and that familiar slip-n-slide sheet of plastic spread out on a gentle slope. Add a group of campers and counselors who already know each other extraordinarily well, and you’re set.
Today it took only about a minute for the field to erupt into joyful chaos. Girls were racing around, squirting white foam everywhere… all over each other, in their hair, on their shoulders, even on their faces, creating ridiculous foam mustaches and beards. The goal of a shaving cream fight is simple. Spray and be sprayed. It’s less of a fight and more of a party. No teams, no score, no winners or losers. Instead, it’s a fantastic flash of pure, uninhibited fun.
Soon everyone was covered head to toe in slippery white foam, looking absolutely ridiculous and loving every second of it. The youngest juniors shrieked with delight as they chased counselors. Seniors helped each other create the most outrageous foam hairstyles imaginable. Rockbrook folks of all ages were right in the thick of it.
Of course, all of this is absolutely hilarious. Being a part of it you can’t help but smile and laugh, the kind of all-consuming laughter that almost hurts. With the slip-n-slide action, girls launching themselves down the plastic sheet, tumbling and rolling with abandon, we had yet another layer of messy fun.
But here’s the thing. Getting messy this way is good for us. It’s good messy!
Why Getting Messy is Good for Us
When you think about it, we spend most of our time trying to stay clean, composed, and put-together. We worry about our hair, our clothes, our appearance. We’re careful not to spill, not to smudge, not to get dirty, or leave things “out of place.” Certainly, this is important, but what happens when we throw all that caution to the wind, even for just a moment?
Something magical. Especially for kids. There’s an incredible sense of freedom to covering yourself in shaving cream from head to toe, looking absolutely ridiculous. And when everyone around you is equally silly, you can’t help but laugh at yourself. Suddenly all our usual worries about appearance just… dis-appear in the moment. Part of the energy of a shaving cream fight is the release we feel, the permission to simply be real.
The Courage of Being Messy
In this way, getting messy is courageous. It requires letting go of control, of perfectionism, of caring what others think. Being surrounded by friends who are doing the same thing makes this all the more possible. A messy shaving cream fight helps everyone be less shy, less worried, less self-conscious. With no rules, we just do. With no critics, there’s a lot more joy.
This is why we keep having shaving cream fights at Rockbrook, session after session. Sure it’s about the fun, but it’s also about learning something. For young girls, it’s about learning there’s freedom and joy in being who you really are. Being messy, ignoring any notion of “perfect,” is a window into that authenticity.
In a world that so often demands perfection from our girls, sometimes the most radical thing we can do is (first remove their phone! then) hand them a can of shaving cream and say, “Go get messy.” Because in that mess, they discover something really valuable: the feeling of being completely, authentically, joyfully themselves.
OK! You may have been waiting for it, and we’re thrilled to share it… it’s the latest highlights video from Robbie Francis of FrancisFilmworks. You might remember his videos from past years, going all the way back to 2015!
Robbie has returned this summer, once again working his filming and editing magic to capture the sweet interactions, vast activity, and overall feeling of life at camp.
It can sometimes be hard to grasp all that goes on at Rockbrook. But now’s your chance! Take two minutes to watch this video, and you’ll get a pretty good idea.
Yesterday we took two groups of girls whitewater rafting on the Nantahala river, a group of Seniors in the morning and Middlers in the afternoon. Cool morning fog turned into absolutely perfect rafting weather with bright sunshine and warm temperatures, an ideal combination to buffer the 50-degree water. Both trips were equally lucky by avoiding the spotty thunderstorms that were forecast for the day.
Weather like this adds to fun, the playful, silly, often hilarious ride along the river. These rafting trips are a complete blast! The 2-hour trip, from put-in to take-out, alternates between calm floating sections and heart-pounding splashy rapids that send the girls screaming and laughing with delight. Along the way, each boat poses for the camera, waving, making a “high five” with their paddles, or “playing dead,” for example. Of course, falling out of the boat is part of the experience, sometimes accidentally when the boat hits a rock unexpectedly, and sometimes intentionally as a chance to cool off. Either way, those left in the boat work together to pull the swimmer back aboard, all while roaring with laughter. This kind of camaraderie can’t be beat.
The Nantahala Falls Finale
The final rapid, a thrilling Class-III double-drop called the “Nantahala Falls,” is an awesome finale. It never fails to deliver high intensity, wide-eyed screams as the boats drop in and are briefly engulfed in whitewater. At the bottom, the girls look at each other in disbelief. “Yeah! We made it!” Like all great adventures, there’s a sense of celebration, a true feeling of success, afterwards. It’s just one type of fun we enjoy at camp.
The New Health Hut
You probably haven’t heard, but we rebuilt the Rockbrook Health Hut this year. What was once a staff cabin called “2×4” had been converted into the camp infirmary back in the 1990s. It was a small building that served us well, but recently as our team of nurses has grown (now 5 per session) to meet the increasing health care needs of our campers and staff, we decided more space would be helpful.
We worked with a local architect, and now have a wonderful, perfectly suited building. Most significantly, we now have a dozen air-conditioned overnight beds, quarantine rooms, efficient medication storage, additional bathrooms, treatment rooms, nurses’ office and accommodations. My favorite part is the covered porch on the front, with its stone approach, outdoor lighting and seating. We love how the building turned out and are really happy that the entire Rockbrook community can now enjoy the upgrade. Be sure to stop by and see it the next time you’re at camp!
As we launched into our first full day of activities at camp, it’s marvelous already. Literally, there are marvels everywhere. Girls are dancing and laughing, already singing as loud as they can, cheering with abandon. They’re stomping and skipping all over these Rockbrook hills making their way between shooting archery and rolling slabs of clay. They’re down at the barn tacking up horses and over at the Alpine tower climbing on belay. They’re swimming in the lake and playing in the sun. Looms are clicking and ukulele strings are being strummed. It’s astonishing how over there tennis balls zoom over the net, while over here girls zoom through the trees on the zipline.
With so many activities all happening simultaneously, it’s not surprising a typical day at Rockbrook is busy in this way. Everybody is involved. Everyone is switching gears between sports and the arts, between adventure and a surprise encounter with a friend. You might find it surprising, however, just how effortlessly your girls are taking to all this camp action.
It’s only the first day of camp, and they’re showing a natural openness to the challenges of new activities. It might be aiming her target rifle, or steering her tandem canoe, or cutting a piece of wood accurately. It might be mustering the nerve to join a square dancing line, or to “wet exit” after flipping upside down in a kayak. They’re not shrinking away from any of this, not giving in to perhaps little doubts or worries. No, instead they’re feeling the pull of supportive, caring friends, and giving everything a go. Along with simply being away from home, these girls are proving they’re strong.
I think that’s one of the best lessons kids learn while at camp. Around here success follows challenges, realizing “I did it!” follows “I’m not sure I can.” Let’s put it this way… Camp proves for kids, “You’re stronger than you think.” The result of realizing this strength is greater confidence and courage, both qualities we all hope kids can embody as they grow. Another way to say it is “camp is empowering.” It’s the perfect recipe for a young person, nowadays more than ever as uncertainties and worries seem all too common.
I’m sure you can tell from the photo gallery, but let me reassure you. Your girls are doing great. Truly marvelous.
We closed our first session as all Rockbrook Camp sessions have over the years: with a campfire we call our “Spirit Fire.” With the whole camp gathered around a blazing campfire, everyone dressed in their red and white uniforms, we paused to recognize our time together and consider what this means to us. This was a chance to sit shoulder to shoulder, even arm in arm, sing a few traditional songs and listen to campers and staff members alike speak about their camp experience this session. The warm glow of the campfire, the sounds of spring peepers and crickets all around, and the emotions of the moment combined to make a beautiful setting.
Camper and Staff Reflections
As campers and staff members stood to speak, we heard about camp being a “place like home.” One small Junior said it was so easy to make friends at camp, even with older girls. A new staff member said she’d never felt so loved by so many people at once. Every speaker provided a beautiful reminder of what we all cherish about Rockbrook.
This is camp with our very best friends, genuine support from a caring community, joyful silliness, singing and dancing, and more Nature than you can name. Just being here, together with each other, is what makes it special.
The Magic of Community
In a world that’s too often divided, racked by forces that isolate us from each other, this kind of community really is precious. Where else can we relax and be our true selves, fully knowing that we still belong no matter what? Where else can we celebrate each day, laugh with abandon, and feel this kind of positivity so deeply? Where else is there a carefree enthusiasm for just about everything? It’s true; camp is magical, and these campers have proven it.
Thank you everyone for being a part of this special place. Thank you parents for trusting us with your daughters, and for understanding the value of camp. Fortunately, even though we’re sad this session has come to an end, we’ll carry with us the Spirit of Rockbrook. Until we gather again next summer, may that spirit continue to warm us all.
