Why is Camp Good for your Child?

Written by Amy Leadbetter

The decision to send a child to summer camp is deeply personal and knowing what type of summer camp is “best” varies dramatically, depending on the disposition and needs of the child.

Summer camp broadens social skills and often taps resources your child never had to call on previously. Depending on the type of camp you choose, it may also heighten a child’s awareness of the relationship between man and nature or spark new curiosity.

When children do well in school they earn good grades. But when children succeed in camp and an outdoor, physical environment, they learn valuable lessons they carry with them for a lifetime.

The notion of children and nature has evoked great discussion particularly since the publication of Richard Louv’s book, “Last Child in the Woods.” Most camps continue to emphasize the importance of the outdoors and now perhaps more than ever have an integral role to play in connecting children, youth, and families to the outdoors.

Louv’s message validated what we intuitively knew to be true: children are not as connected to the natural world as they were in previous generations. His message launched a national movement to reconnect children with nature, and camp is leading the charge in the battle to combat nature-deficit disorder.

Camp has used the natural environment to provide opportunities for youth development and outdoor recreation for nearly 150 years. The majority of camp directors believed that opportunities to connect with the natural environment at camp are important for children and that camp plays a more important role today in fostering children’s connection to both other children and nature than in the past.

Camps connect people to the environment and their community by instilling the ideals of conservation and respect. They teach lessons that are both educational, fun and have a long-lasting impact on the camper’s life. Here are five reasons that summer camps prove to not only be beneficial but a growing experience filled with knowledge that cannot be gained in the classroom.

• Getting in touch with nature. Camps provide opportunities for children to engage the natural world in meaningful ways. They involve attitudes, emotions, and awareness toward a resource. Activities might include hiking through a beautiful forest, canoeing up a canyon, or wading in a pristine stream. Each of these activities encourages an awareness of the resource and provides numerous “teachable-moment” opportunities to increase appreciation. On top of the many outdoor activities, campers are encouraged to be good stewards of the environment by stressing the importance of not taking resources for granted, not littering, employing the 3 R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle), and so forth.

• Hands-on experience. Camps accomplish factual knowledge through hands-on exploration, direct observation, and discovery. The need for campers to foster interest, curiosity and exploration is important. Campers gain a “sense of wonder” about life.

• Interacting positively with each other. Camp is a social place, a community of young people and adults who work together toward a common goal. Participation in leisure activities at camp result in the development of cooperation and effective communication (i.e. teamwork). Youth camps specifically target skill-related and interpersonal relationships, mutual support and group goal settings that provide young people with experiences in team building and teamwork. Campers who learn to work interdependently toward personal and team goals learn lifelong skills. Since not all children participate in organized sports programs at home, activities done at camp can give them a somewhat comparable team opportunity to feel a part of both large and small groups at camp.

• Camps encourage physical activity. The current generation of children is one of the most inactive and unhealthy in history. Camps are a place where children can participate in adequate amounts of physical activity while learning new skills. The unique physical environment including lakes, swimming pools, climbing walls, gymnasiums, sports fields and natural surroundings result in the best opportunities for physical activity encouragement. Positive outcomes are cultivated through the combination of using outdoor settings and guidance from trained leadership.

• A new adventure to be experienced. Camp is a venue where numerous out-of-the-ordinary and interesting opportunities provide challenge through various activities that are a necessary component to aid in youth development. Challenging means participants stretch beyond their current range of knowledge and skills and have opportunities to test and master their skills in the real world. They become more adventurous and eager to try new things.

Summer camps prove to have profound positive effects. Children are increasingly spending more time indoors and camp provides a wonderful opportunity to be active while experiencing and learning through physical activities. Camp is a wonderful antidote to “nature deficit disorder” and to the narrow experience of modern indoor life. Outdoor experience enriches kid’s perception of the world and supports healthy child development.

—Additional reporting by Amy Leadbetter.

Resource: www.acacamps.org