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.
5 Benefits of Attending Summer Camp
- Camp Helps Build Self-Esteem
- Camp Helps Teach Social Skills
- Camp Bonds Deep Friendships
- Camp Instills an Appreciation of Nature
- Camp Gives the Entire Family Joyful Space
Here are each of these benefits in more detail.
1. 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!
2. 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 overnight camps they have to learn to co-exist in a completely new set of living quarters with others, share chores, resolve everyday problems without mom and dad to help, and see firsthand the importance of clear communication. Camp builds teamwork and helps enforce the social skills you’ve already been building in your home environment.
Don’t be surprised to see your camper return home acting a bit more mature and lending more of a helping hand around your homestead.
3. Camp Bonds Deep Friendships
A couple of my kids are very shy and more on the introverted side. I’m not sure where they got that trait from because their father and I are both real “people persons” and can interact and make conversations with just about anyone who has a pulse.
For kids who have more difficulty connecting with their peers and making friendships, camp can be a blessing in disguise. Camp is the place where kids make their very best friends, because there aren’t the same social expectations pressuring them at school. The camp experience encourages kids to relax and make friends easily, which was the case for one of my daughters who was painfully shy growing up. Through some of the group activities at her summer camp, she met another kid who had a very similar personality but they both loved to draw and create things. Finding a new friend to share in the same interests opened the door for her to begin hanging out both in and out of camp. Over ten years later, she and her camp buddy have remained best of friends and have stayed in touch while away at college.
The fun times at camp draw people together through singing, swimming, hiking, roasting marshmallows over a campfire, and telling stories late into the night in their cabins or dorm rooms. They’ll be away from screens for more hours than they have been in a long time. Without that mediation, kids will experience social interactions differently. When kids leave the screens behind, they can see the value in differing opinions, resolve conflict, and learn to communicate better. Be prepared to see a lot of happy campers when you pick your child up at the end of a camp getaway!
4. Camp Instills an Appreciation for Nature
I was a stay-at-home mom (still not crazy about that expression) for my first 12 years of motherhood, and the one thing that helped saved my sanity were the many jaunts my kids and I took to the park playground, beach, and anyplace else that Mother Nature had a hand in orchestrating.
Camp helps to eliminate distractions and improve focus by bringing kids into the great outdoors—sometimes for the first time.
Having an appreciation and respect for nature is an invaluable quality. Kids tend to be drawn to the great outdoors because there are so many adventures to take in and explore. In this day and age, however, more and more kids tend to be drawn to their electronic devices and the comfort of their living room couch rather than frolicking in their backyard or helping to care for a family garden or search for never-ending hiking trails.
Camp activities often bring kids into nature to help them get a better sense of the world outside of their typical environment. Camp helps to eliminate distractions and improve focus by bringing kids into the great outdoors—sometimes for the first time.
In these situations, kids not only experience all the beauty nature has to offer but also learn how to respect nature. I always found that when my kids returned from a camping trip, they wanted the magic of being outdoors 24/7 to continue, and they didn’t congregate in the house nearly as often for weeks afterwards. Even day camps can have this effect on kids, so if away camp isn’t in the cards, your family can still gain many of the same benefits.
5. Camp Gives the Entire Family Joyful Space
Despite the fact that I’ve had a very full house for the past 20 years, it’s never easy for me to drop a kid off at summer camp for a week or two. Just having one kid out of eight gone for a period of time changes the entire dynamics of our family unit. That said, however, I’m definitely an advocate for encouraging personal growth space for child and parents, and summer camp is a great way to do this because both sides learn to have time away from one another, which definitely allows for creating some independence and even better, appreciation for one another when we’re separated for a short period of time.
When our kids are away from us, we can think our own thoughts, spend some well-deserved “me” time, take a temporary break from the grind of running kid errands, eat anything we choose for dinner, sleep in, wear our PJs all day, and never leave the house if we so choose. We get to refuel our tanks and at the same time, our kids can have some breathing space from the constant rules and reminders that they get 24/7 from good old mom or dad. Basically, it’s refreshing and healthy for all involved to have some time apart.
And when you do pick them up from being away for a while, the reunion is grand. You have a new sense of appreciation for one another and get to catch up and listen to all the amazing stories your child will have while she’s been off on her own!
How has camp impacted your family? Share your thoughts in the comments section at quickanddirtytips.com/mighty-mommy, post your ideas on the Mighty Mommy Facebook page. or email me at mommy@quickanddirtytips.com. Visit my family-friendly boards at Pinterest.com/MightyMommyQDT
Image of kids at summer camp © Shutterstock
Awesome Article, Thanks for sharing!
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