5 Reasons Your Child Should Attend a Summer Camp

 

As the school year winds down and temps begin to heat up, thousands of kids across the country are beginning to gear up for the carefree days of summer. Time spent out of the classroom is welcome to the many students who long to kick back and enjoy hanging out with friends and family at the beach, the park, or in their own backyards.

In addition to downtime away from school, there’s another highly anticipated item happening for lots of kids: summer camp! Whether it be a day camp, sleepaway camp, sports or theater camp, attending some type of camp program offers multiple benefits for not only your child but you as the parent.

With hundreds of camps to choose from each summer, Mighty Mommy offers five ways you and your child can gain a positive experience from participating in camp.

Camp Helps Build Self-Esteem

Most of my eight kids attended some type of camp while growing up. My youngest daughter, now 12, is looking forward to an acting camp later this summer as well as volunteering at a nature camp for pre-schoolers. Though not all kids want to participate in a summer camp program, I noticed a positive change in my kids who attended once their camp was finished. They made friends easier as a result of going to camp because they had to learn to mix in with kids who didn’t go to their school. They also learned to cook, problem-solve, learned fun new skills like kayaking and experienced many hands-on activities as they constructed things from scratch.

Camp offers a well-rounded experience that satisfies a child’s need for physical activity, a creative outlet, and a community-building environment. "The building blocks of self-esteem are belonging, learning, and contributing. Camps offer unique opportunities for children to succeed in these three vital areas and even beyond home and school,” says Michael Popkin, Ph.D., family therapist and founder of Active Parenting.

Summer camp can help instill the extremely important gift of self-esteem while doing so in a natural and fun environment—a life asset that lasts well beyond summer time!

Camp offers a well-rounded experience that satisfies a child’s need for physical activity, a creative outlet, and a community-building environment.

Camp Helps Teach Social Skills

When your child attends any program where he is in a setting outside your home, he will have to abide by another set of rules, and have to interact with adults he may not know very well or at all.

Coming to camp means joining a close-knit community where everyone must agree to cooperate and respect each other. When kids attend...

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