leadership

Brevard Mountains North Carolina
• Summer Camp • Sofie Ehlinger

How to Conquer Your Fears

It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who reminded us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Camp provides one of the most gentle, nurturing backdrops to encourage girls to face their fears and conquer their anxieties. As counselors we are an integral part of this process. Here are some simple tools to help your campers overcome three common fears at camp.

The Fear of Water

  1. Start by encouraging the camper to ease into the water. Sit by the lake with only her toes in the water.
  2. Once the camper is comfortable, move to standing calf-deep in the water. Ask the camper to splash herself with water on her thighs. Once confident with this, splash water on her arms and chest.
  3. When the camper feels comfortable submerging most of her body in the water help her learn how to get her face wet.
  4. Sprinkle only “raindrops” on the camper’s face and hair, to mimic the sensation of a shower. Once the camper’s hair is wet ask her to dip her chin underneath the water. Have her then tilt her face toward the surface of the water and get her forehead wet. Once the camper feels very comfortable performing these tasks, move to teach her to blow bubbles underwater.
  5. Place your index finger in front of the camper’s face. Tell her to imagine your finger is a birthday candle that she must blow out. Once the camper masters the blowing technique, slowly lower your finger having the camper repeat the process until your finger is under the surface of the water and she must have her mouth is the water to “blow out the candle.”

The Fear of Spiders

  1. Begin by educating your camper about spiders. Explain how important spiders our to our ecosystem and how many good things they do for us. Describe how most spiders do not wish to engage with humans (we are bigger than they are- that’s scary to a little, old spider!), primarily eat insects, and lack the capability to bite a human even if they wanted to.
  2. Next introduce your camper to some spider-friendly books. In some cases, the more pictures the better, so that the camper can interact imaginatively with a friendly image of a spider. Other campers will respond to you reading aloud about spiders before bed. Some of our favorite books include Charlotte’s Web, Simon and Schuster Children’s Guide to Insects and Spiders, The Very Busy Spider, and The Eensy Weensy Spider Freaks Out!
  3. Incorporate spider toys as part of your cabin decorations. These could be paper hangings your campers have designed and constructed themselves, toy models of spiders, or stuffed animal spiders. This will help the camper become acquainted with both the form and function of spiders.
  4. Find a real spider (at camp this is not hard!) Have the camper stand next to you, but at a distance to the spider that she feels comfortable. While in the physical proximity of a spider have your camper recall all the ways in which spiders benefit society. Help her to visually identify different parts of the spider’s body and describe their function.

The Fear of Heights

  1. Encourage your camper to sign up for gymnastics. Here, she can begin by balancing on the low balance beam and work towards balancing on the full beam.
  2. Once your camper has slowing exposed herself to these, move to take her on a hike where she can clearly see the altitude increasing, but is assured a gentle path with solid footing.
  3. Before beginning the hike establish at “scared scale” with your camper. Tell her that at different points in the hike you would like to gauge her fear level. One representing “very comfortable” and ten representing “extremely fearful.”Ask her what number she feels comfortable reaching and tell her the moment she feels that number you will immediately turn around. Each day challenge your camper to get a little farther on the hike.
  4. Once a camper has acclimated to a height where she feels comfortable spend time with her in this space. Encourage her to engage in activities that relax her in these elevated places. For example, bring a bottle of lemonade for your camper and her cabin mates  to enjoy at a mountain summit, or have your camper and her friends make bracelets on a waterfall bridge.

When helping a camper overcome a fear it is important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all policy that will work for every girl. The key is patience. Your job is to help a camper face her fear when she is ready, but only she can decide when the time is right.

The Heart of a Wooded Mountain
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Girls Camps Counselors
• Counselors • Jeff Carter

Be a Camp Counselor Instead

Two girls being camp counselors

Did you know that being a summer camp counselor is more beneficial to your career than taking a summer internship, that the skills practiced and learned working at camp have far more value than the clerical duties often assigned college student interns? That’s exactly the claim put forward by Darryl Brown in his short article appearing in USA Today. He describes being a camp counselor as the “perfect summer job.”

“In this job, I am part of an organization that gives me duties that are critical to its long- and short-term success. Supervisors give me responsibilities such as interacting directly with customers on a daily basis, and they fully integrate me into the professional hierarchy. To top it all off, I am learning legitimate skills that will help me develop professionally when I move into the workforce.”

It’s true; having “camp counselor” on your resume is a very good thing. The skills required to be a great counselor are valuable and in demand by employers, things like problem solving, leadership, creativity and imagination, being a “team player,” stamina, compassion, responsibility and maturity.

Being a camp counselor means receiving training in all of these areas, and then means practicing them in the real world, working with kids and taking on the complexities of life in a summer camp community. Everyone will tell you that being a camp counselor was the most challenging and the most fun job they ever had. I suspect most summer interns won’t be able to say that.

What are you going to do this summer?

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Camper with Character
• 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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summer camp community tradition
• Summer Camp • Jeff Carter

Camp as Community

Girls Camp Community Togetherness

Spending time at Rockbrook, it becomes clear just how strong the sense of community is for the girls at camp. It’s remarkable really how quickly and easily girls from so many different home towns and different schools can grow so close and care about each other in personal and meaningful ways. After this most recent long session, and probably because these girls have spent 4 weeks together, it was even more apparent that camp is a community in the best sense of the word.

It begins with a group of well-trained, caring adult role models who exhibit the kind of personal character that fosters community. From the directors to the cabin counselors and staff members, we know the importance of compassion, generosity, contribution and patient understanding. Quite naturally, but also intentionally, we set the tone at camp so everyone can feel loved, capable and included. Through encouragement and enthusiasm, the leaders at camp nurture positive relationships.

And the results? Well, the benefits of camp are clear. Kids feel good about themselves (improved self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence), are better communicators (both expressing themselves and listening to others), and are more aware and responsible. Becoming a member of this kind of community is the secret here. It has a powerful, wonderful effect on the girls at Rockbrook. Sure, the activities, special events, the food, and the sheer fun of it all go into it, but a girl knowing wholeheartedly she is a member of the camp community, knowing Rockbrook is “my camp,” helps explain why she loves it so much.  Pretty cool.

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summer camp female leaders
• Counselors • Jeff Carter

Being a Camp Leader

Leadership for Summer Camp Kids

One important mark of leadership for the staff at Rockbrook is their ability to model personal character for the girls at camp. We strive to hire cabin counselors and activity staff members who exemplify good character and thereby can serve as role models for the campers. It means a lot to children to see others they admire make good decisions. It’s just a crucial part of building character— having positive relationships with others who embody exemplary habits and attitudes. When we talk about “leadership” at camp, this is what we mean: being that sort of exemplary person.

But what is exemplary character, how do you recognize it, and how do you encourage its development? We’ve found the approach taken by the Josephson Institute to be extremely articulate and practical. It’s “Six Pillars of Character” is a well thought out resource. Essentially, the “pillars” are fundamental principles and values that serve as a core for ethical decision making. They are:

  • Trustworthiness
  • Respect
  • Responsibility
  • Fairness
  • Caring
  • Citizenship. 

Without appealing to religion, politics or ideology, we strive to realize these six values in our camp community.

There’s a lot of good stuff in all of this, so go learn more about character.

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Girls Camp Job
• Counselors • rbc

Is Camp Employment for You?

Summer Camp Employment

There are so many things a college student can do in the summer; camp employment is just one option. So why choose to work at a summer camp? Well the most obvious reason is a camp job is way more fun than most other short term jobs. You’re outside a lot, you’re goofing around with kids pretty much all day, and you get to live in a beautiful part of the country. It’s also true that being employed as a camp counselor helps you develop leadership skills, communication and organization skills. As you help the campers grow and learn new activities and personal skills, you do too. Working to make a difference in the lives of children, makes one in your own as well.

But perhaps the best thing about working at a summer camp is joining the tight-knit community of people that makes Rockbrook so special. It’s just so easy to make friends, you end up enjoying everything that much more. Sure, camp is employment and you’ll earn (and save!) some money, but it’s so much more. Rewarding, definitely rewarding, all around.

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Girls Learning Leadership
• Summer Camp • rbc

Leadership Summer Camp

Kids Learning Leadership

Summer camp is one of the best places for children to learn about leadership, to explore what it means to be a good leader, and to practice the kinds of personal skills important to being a leader. Bring together kids of different ages (at Rockbrook that’s girls between 6 and 16 years old) and provide so many activities where they interact and play together, and you’ll have one event after another where leadership is central. Campers find themselves asking questions like, “How can we work together on this?” and saying things like “Let’s make a plan.” It might be for a cabin skit or preparing for a group hike, but being a good listener, cooperating, maybe compromising, being creative about individual contributions, and being confident about being part of a team are almost daily parts of camp. Particularly for our oldest campers, for example the CAs who plan the end-of-session banquet, overnight camp offers (even requires, at times) chances to develop leadership skills and serve as leaders for the younger campers.

Sure there’s lots of crazy fun going on, but we’re growing as well.

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