In this article, blogger and mom Barbara Rowley identifies all of the most wonderful parts of camp, and discusses how schools could try to implement some of these strategies as part of our children’s year round education.  We particularly love the part about keeping teachers happy, which in turn keeps children happy!  We absolutely believe that this is the case with our counseling staff and work diligently to ensure that everyone at Kippewa feels supported, cared for, and like they are part of our summer family.

Why Can’t School Be More Like Summer?

By BARBARA ROWLEY
Back to School

From their perspective, the worst thing that happens to my two daughters at the conclusion of each summer is that they have to leave their friends and their joyous days of exploration at their mountain summer camp and come home. The next worst thing that happens to them is that they have to immediately start an experience — school — that feels almost exactly the opposite. The onset of camp-sickness is immediate.

Although schools, summer camps and summer day camps both work with groups of the same-age kids with the same goals of keeping them busy with healthy, educational activities all day, my daughters and their camp friends annually count down the time anxiously until camp begins. Students everywhere count down the days to summer. The start of school, by contrast, is often greeted with less enthusiasm.

Since the school year takes up two-thirds of their lives, I have to say it: Something seems wrong with this equation, and not just for my daughters. With a national high school drop-out rate just shy of 25 percent (and much more in some places) and a tide of teachers leaving the profession after only a few years in the classroom, it seems clear that my girls aren’t the only ones who spend a lot of time at school waiting for summer vacation — and dreading the impending academic year.

And so, as children and teachers around the country return to school this month, it seems like a good time to ask the question my camp-sick girls often ask me: Why can’t school — for all kids — be more like summer camp?

This is not the stretch it may seem to be. While it is true that summer camps, with their campfires, lakefronts and little cabins in the woods, have some obvious inherent fun advantages over schools, I’d argue that the real differences that set summer camps and schools apart have less to do with lanyards and canoes, and more to do with attitude and approach.

To start with, summer camps are by design happy places, run by people who clearly have been selected for their genial and outgoing personalities as well as their willingness to be ridiculous and silly on short notice. Camps embrace what Robert Louis Stevenson called “the duty to be happy”: Happy adults create a happy atmosphere, which makes for happy kids.

Happiness is embedded in the summer camp business plan, and is central to what they do. If children aren’t happy; they won’t come back. Many camps report annual return rates of 75 percent or more. Not every child is happy at camp, and it goes without saying that not every child’s family can afford camp, or wants to send them. But schools could learn a lot about student retention and achievement by taking a page from the summer camp happiness playbook.

This is especially true right now. Driven by a culture, which, rightly or wrongly, too often fails to recognize teachers with respect and economic rewards, teacher unhappiness seems more prevalent than ever. Yet in all the talk about education reform, happiness rarely seems to make the list, even though there’s plenty of evidence out there about what an improved school environment might mean for learning and test scores, not to mention student attitudes and drop-out rates.

Put simply, nobody likes working for an unhappy boss. Schools can’t be enjoyable for kids if teachers aren’t happy. For schools to be more like camp — to be more fun — our education establishment has to put emphasis on hiring positive-minded staff and preaching the importance of exuding happiness in the classroom as well as making the necessary changes in the work environment that will make their happiness genuine.

Of course, detractors might say, it is easier to be happy at camp because camp is (according to my girls) “not boring, not hard, and much more fun” than school. To this I would say, it’s all about spin. At camp, the general expectation is that almost everything is going to be fun and interesting, and this expectation creates the reality. The truth is, there are plenty of things that camps ask children (and counselors) to do that would be, in ordinary circumstances, regarded as unpleasant or personally or physically challenging.

But camp tells kids that what they will be doing will be terrifically enjoyable and voila: My chore-averse 12-year-old happily volunteers to clear the tables, and my teenager is getting up before dawn to climb 14,000-foot mountains. Camps say to children: You are going to love this. Schools tell children: This is work, and work is not supposed to be fun. Not only is this a depressing life lesson, it is an uninspiring one.

I realize that fun may sound like a frivolous goal in the face of the education crisis we face in our public schools, and happiness an extra we can’t afford given our middling rankings among global competitors. But as I grudgingly send my girls back to school this week, I can’t help wishing — just as they do — that school would learn just a little from summer.

Lately, we’ve noticed a buzz on the internet, and other forms of media, all about the advantages that Camp gives our kids.  We whole heatedly agree, a summer camp experience is one of the most precious gifts a parent can give to their child; and we also know, that the skills, experiences, and practical knowledge that children gain at summer camp follow long after they have moved from adolescence into young adulthood and beyond.  

In this article, the author discusses direct links to summer camp positively impacting a student’s performance in college.  At Camp Kippewa, we see first hand the confidence that our campers gain throughout the summer, and throughout their years with us.  Confidence that we know will follow them into their college years, long after their camper days have passed.   

Creating Advantage in College
Summer camp gives children meaningful advantages in college.

When I started my career as a camp director in 1993, my mother (the “Silver Fox”) shared the following thought with me: “summer camp is like college, but just a little bit early”.

Being a strong believer in my mother’s wisdom, I found myself thinking about this statement fairly often. Summer camp had been a huge part of my personal development as a young man, and had even found its way into my college and graduate school applications. Yet the idea that “camp was like college” did not seem to make sense to me at the time.

Over the past 16 years, I have found that this idea is actually a profound one.

Three years ago, we were talking with a friend whose daughter was in her first year at college. Both mother and daughter had struggled mightily with the separation. “During the first semester, we would talk everyday, sometimes 5 or 6 times. She was so sad and uncomfortable away from home. It really affected her grades and social life. She is better in her second semester, and she only calls once or twice a day. I still worry about her though.”

This conversation reminded me of a speech I heard by Dr Wendy Mogel a few years ago. Dr Mogel is a nationally-known clinical psychologist and educator who wrote the best-seller parenting book “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee”. She shared a story about a good friend of hers whose daughter was a freshman at college at Sarah Lawrence.

Unlike my friend, this woman’s daughter thrived in her first semester in college. She earned exceptional marks (making the Dean’s List) and she became president of the freshman class. During Parents weekend, her mother met the mother of a senior who was president of the entire student body and was weighing various job offers. The two mothers were sharing stories about their daughter’s college experience when the mother of the senior shared an unexpected thought:

“I bet your daughter went to overnight summer camp.”

“She did, but what makes you say that?”

“I am not surprised. I have noticed that my daughter’s friends who had strong freshman years all went to overnight camp at some point. The ones that really struggled did not.”

The contrast of these two freshman experiences (our friends and Wendy’s) compelled me to think about why this might be true. Here is what I came up with.

Going to college presents many challenges, three of which jump out at me:

1. Increased academic rigor (college work is simply harder than high school work)
2. Being away from home and your traditional support system (family, friends, familiar places)
3. Dealing with large amounts of uncertainty (what will classes require, how will I fit in socially, can I deal with this new roommate)

Of course, overnight camp does little to deal with the first challenge of academic rigor, but it helps substantially with both of the other challenges.

Camp helps students adjust to being away-from-home by giving them practice being away-from-home. Campers coming to camp (often as young as Kindergarten or 1st grade) get to experience being separated from home successfully. Certainly, most campers have some homesickness, but the supportive camp community and the fun activities help ease them through this initial challenge. Homesickness is natural. Children will miss their parents.

Further, we live in a society that sometimes suggests to children that they are only safe within eyeshot of their parents. Yet, we parents want our children to grow in confidence and independence so that they can live productive, fulfilling and joyous lives. Camp enables children to experience successful independence. Like college, they are away-from-home. Unlike college, they are in a community committed to their physical and emotional safety.

Camp also helps campers deal with uncertainty. The first week of camp is full of uncertainty: Who are these counselors? What are these traditions? Where do I go? Who will be my friends? Will I be successful? Just like college, there is schedule-related uncertainty (where to go and when) and social uncertainty (who, among this group of relative strangers, will be my friend).

The camper gets to experience overcoming this uncertainty. I like to think of it as strengthening the “resilience muscle.” Having done so, the next experience of uncertainty is easier to handle. The camper who comes to camp for several years gets multiple opportunities to strengthen his or her resilience muscle. By the time they go to college, they are much more confident and resilient.

So the former summer camper arriving at college as a Freshman can focus his or her energy on the challenges of academic rigor, but not worry about being away from home and the uncertainty of a new environment. Other students face all three challenges. Seen this way, it is not hard to understand how camp can help later with college.

Last summer, a long-time camp mom shared her thoughts about her oldest son going out-of-state to college. I asked her how she felt. “I’m going to miss him.”

“Are you worried about his first semester?”

“No way. He has already gone to camp for 9 years, so I know he will be fine. He is so excited to face this challenge. Camp has also helped me – I have had practice being separated from him. He is going to shine at school!”

Later that evening, my wife and I agreed on three things: First, this was one of the nicest endorsements of camp we had heard. Second, we are so happy to think that the campers who have become such an important part of our lives will have an advantage in college. Finally, the “Silver Fox,” once again, was right.

Best Gift for Kids, Send them to Summer Camp

By Russell Roeder

I think every parent should figure out a way to get their kid to a sleepaway summer camp. They should go for at least a week (two would be better), and certainly before the child turns 12.

Kids need to get out from under their parents’ wings to spread their own. Whether it’s soccer or baseball or dance lessons or music instruction or karate, our kids spend nearly every waking hour of every day being transported from one highly supervised activity to the next.

As parents, we’ve come to believe that all these structured activities somehow serve the dual purposes of building character and learning about focus and teamwork.

To some extent this is certainly true, but what parents don’t consider is the simple fact that the highly structured and hypercompetitive nature of these activities stifles the most precious and promising elements of childhood: creativity and the joyful freedom to explore, experiment, stumble, recover and succeed on their own terms, and without the unspoken but omnipresent pressure to please us — their parents.

Disagree if you want, but I am pretty sure that if you’re honest you’ll admit that by the time they are 10, every kid has a fairly well-established place in the pecking order of the classroom and school yard. For the 10 percent of kids who are the combination of gregarious, athletic, good looking, funny and smart, this is wonderful. The other 90 percent face the uncertainties of how and where they are going to fit into the increasingly stressful social order.

As well-meaning parents, we do everything we possibly can to get our kids into a better and more competitive position in the social chain by signing them up for all those highly structured activities that we assume will give them a sense of success and bolster their self-esteem.

The problem is that I just don’t think you can manufacture self-esteem in kids. It is a personal discovery. And the more we as parents do to fill their days and structure their lives, the less time and opportunity they have to themselves to find it on their own.

What kids need is a place where they can learn about themselves without the continuous doting eye and well-intentioned judgment of their parents. They need to feel the weird and beautiful exhilaration that comes when you realize you are a stranger among strangers in a safe place and have nothing to lose or prove. You get to discover and be who you really are — not who your schoolmates, teachers and parents expect — or hope you will be.

It doesn’t matter if you’re especially good at soccer or dance or karate. What matters is that you’re willing to cooperate in a group of your peers, find ways to have fun and solve problems and care about the people you are living with. When these are the things that matter, growth and genuine self-esteem follow.

I started going to a summer camp when I was 9. I finished as that camp’s program director when I was 21. It taught me honesty, caring, respect and responsibility. It gave me confidence I never would have discovered in the classroom, school yard or even in the loving home I was blessed to have. It gave me lifelong friendships that have continued to this day (I’m 58). It provided a basis for a long and successful career in the health care industry.

Most importantly, it taught me that collaboration is a more effective way to achieve success than competition. I cite this as the most important lesson of camp because our country is in trouble. We need less competition and more collaboration. We need to get our kids to camp because we need a generation of leaders and citizens who are interested in solving complex problems — not just winning battles.

Christmas is coming. I bet your kid (or grandkids or nieces/nephews) already has a house full of laptops, video game equipment and smartphones. Consider giving them the gift of freedom and discovery. Send your kid to camp next summer.

Bully-proofing your kids

By Katia Hetter, Special to CNN

(CNN) — Miranda Jones can remember many afternoons in the counselor’s office in her small-town Colorado middle school, crying about other kids relentlessly teasing about her weight.

She’d change clothes in the bathroom stall after gym so the other girls wouldn’t laugh at her size. By high school, she was spending countless hours in the library reading to avoid social situations and the possibility of being teased. She rarely complained to her teachers, assuming they would just make it worse if they confronted her bullies.

“I went out on a limb (my freshman year in high school) and decided to join the speech and debate team, which filled countless hours of time that I would have otherwise spent being sad about my lack of friends,” says Jones (who didn’t want to reveal her real name because she’s embarrassed by what happened to her). “Thanks to that activity, I actually made some wonderful friends. I had something to do every weekend. And I was good at it. That was the biggest thing, I think. I excelled at something that terrified most other people my age, and in that, I had some power.”

Now at a top-ranked women’s college in the Northeast, Jones is grateful her debate coaches helped her find something she loved that kept her focused and got her into college. “Without an after-school activity, academic support from adults and without constantly reminding myself that it wasn’t going to last forever, I never would have survived the endless taunts of my peers.”

It’s unfortunate that our children will get bullied at school, whether it’s about their appearance or dress, their academic ability or hobbies, a disability or just the fact that they’re the new kids in town.

Schools with vigorous anti-bullying programming are more likely to stop bullies in their tracks, but not every school has a commitment to stopping the abuse. However, there are things parents can do to strengthen their children before the bullying starts, convince them to tell parents if a verbal or physical attack occurs, and keep them safe.

Start early. Does your child understand the difference between thinking, feeling and action?

Starting when their son was 3, psychologist Tammy Hughes and her school psychologist husband started teaching him. At night, they’d say, “Tell me three good things that happened to you today.” This helped him make the distinction between events and his feelings about them.

Once he had that mastered, they added, “Tell me three good things that happened to someone else (lesson: the world includes me and other people, their feelings and actions).”

Next they asked, “Tell me something you did that worked out well. Now, tell me something that someone else did that worked out well for someone else.”

“These simple questions help children differentiate themselves and others, and (teach them) cause and effect. If you can connect these ideas and feelings, then it helps children to prepare to identify bullying — negative versus positive behaviors — and who did what to cause the outcome,” says Hughes, chair of Duquesne University’s department of counseling, psychology and special education and co-author of “Understanding Girl Bullying and What to Do About It: Strategies to Help Heal the Divide.” “These simple steps help children to guard against blaming themselves for the bullying of others and to help them feel they can act to change the situation.”

When their son turned 6 and was introduced to his school’s formal bully prevention curriculum, he already knew how to talk about feelings and their source and how to act according to the school’s instructions about bullying.

“Parents and teachers will find that it is not how savvy they are in their conversations with their child, but rather how often they engage the child in preparing for thinking, feeling and action when the parent is not around,” says Hughes.

Develop a sense of self. A sense of self isn’t about children feeling good all the time or getting a trophy for showing up to every soccer game. It’s teaching a child to have core sense of sturdiness so her sense of who she is isn’t defined by the whim of her peers.

Parents show their children they know them when they choose an activity with them, discuss personal problems, and talk about their day. It’s also reflected when a parent makes a comment about something unique or challenging for a particular child.

“It’s about parents really being tuned into their children and the kind of people they are,” says Richard Weissbourd, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of “The Parents We Mean to Be.” “We want to reflect back to them who they are, whether they are spirited, soulful, feisty, funny or strong-willed. It’s not explicitly praising them a lot that matters. It’s demonstrating a deep knowledge of and affirming who they are.”

Encourage courageous behavior. Bullying flourishes in school communities when most of the community stays silent while the bullies attack.

Bullies have power when the audience of bystanders is silent.

“When one kid gets bullied, everyone is silent or laughs or goes along with it because they don’t want it to turn on them,” says Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-author of “Letting Go with Love and Confidence: Raising Responsible, Resilient, Self-Sufficient Teens in the 21st Century.” “They sacrifice someone to keep themselves safe.”

Teachers and coaches can encourage students to speak up when someone is attacked. Any student can encourage members of their team or club to do the right thing, but those lessons often start at home.

Raise your child with character and values, sharing stories of people (including you) who have done the right thing in the face of adversity. That way they can stand up against bullying or other injustice when it occurs at school. “Character is about doing the right thing when nobody is watching or when it’s hard to do,” says Ginsburg. “The person with character says, ‘not in my presence.’”

Look in the mirror. Become aware of your own behavior, because your children will copy you.

Parents who are reasonable, calm and practice problem-solving in the face of stress and uncertainty model those skills and attitudes for their children. Once they see it works, children can develop that peaceful approach to their world and the bullies within it.

“Parents whose default response is one of intimidation may inadvertently model bullying behavior for their children,” says Donna Henderson, a professor of counseling at Wake Forest University. “Or, if parents are the targets of bullying behavior from other adults and they don’t address it directly, kids will assume that’s the way to respond to bullies.”

Develop overlapping circles. Encourage your children to become involved in after-school activities and clubs that they enjoy.

That will help them make friends with different groups of children. If one group turns on your child, he will have other friends to support him and remind him he’s not alone.

“This is great for building self-esteem and gaining a greater sense of purpose,” says Virginia Wilkins, director of mentoring for College For Every Student, a nonprofit that helps underserved youth prepare for college and supports them once they’re there. “Say my child is being bullied in an art group. Having other social groups lets my child experience something very different. It’s not all or nothing.”

Develop physical confidence. Some children benefit from developing a sense of their own physical strength, whether in martial arts or another discipline.

Being able to understand the physical movement of one’s body is key to establishing a child’s place in the world, says triple black belt holder Kris Wilder, a Franciscan monk and co-author of “How to Win a Fight.” “The success of martial arts is that it creates an immediate and indelible link to the internal sense of a child’s being via external drills and discipline,” says Wilder, owner of West Seattle Karate Academy.

“This makes a child more confident, (which) carries over into how a kid holds himself in the world. Bullies are predators by nature and prefer the weak as prey. A confident child is less likely to be a victim, and martial arts provides this platform for creating a resilient, confident child.”

When it’s not what it seems. A Los Angeles couple brought their daughter to child psychologist Wendy Mogel because she was getting bullied in school. It turned out the girl was provoking other kids to bully her because she was jealous of the amount of attention her parents gave her little brother.

“She found she could get a tremendous amount of attention with a daily download of bullying and less attention would be paid to her adorable little brother,” says Mogel, author of “The Blessing of a B Minus: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Resilient Teenagers” and other books. “When they stopped rewarding her, it stopped. I advised them to catch her being strong and pay attention to that behavior.”

“I Want to Go Home:” Helping Your Child Overcome Summer Camp Homesickness

Welcome to summer camp season, that time of year when an epidemic illness sweeps across America, striking down children of all ages: homesickness.

As the Girls Leadership Institute summer camp director, I spent countless hours consoling girls longing for home. I’ve also counseled desperate, angry parents ready to jump in their cars, speed towards camp and commando their kids out.

If your child is away at camp this year, and you get that mournful e-fax, letter or phone call, you have my deepest sympathy. There is nothing more anguishing than knowing your child is alone and suffering. Below is some advice and wisdom I’ve accumulated over the years to help you get through this homesickness season.

Remember That Homesickness Comes and Goes. Homesickness is an illness cured by distraction. Most of the time, kids are sad during brief moments of the day. The most common flare-ups occur during unstructured time, like getting ready for bed, or moments when kids are asked to think about home, like during letter writing time or phone calls.

The majority of homesick kids spend most of their days laughing, playing and being, well, happy campers. That means you end up hearing from them at their worst, and not seeing them at their best (how’s that for a raw deal?).

Check in with yourself. Emotional intelligence experts say that knowing you have a feeling is different from just being in that feeling and acting without thought or reflection. When your child is homesick, there are two areas of emotion to look out for within yourself. First, it’s your job as a parent – indeed, it’s built into your biology – to be emotionally activated by the sound or thought of your child’s distress. And by emotionally activated, I do mean literally wanting to get in your car, drive to camp, strangle the staff and pull your kid. Once you reflect on this important  drive, your self-awareness will prevent you from letting it overwhelm your response.

The second area to reflect on is your own experience with abandonment and parental empathy. Are you sensitive to feeling abandoned, or to others feeling that way? Did you grow up with parents who did not take your emotions seriously? If the answer is yes to any of these, you may be reacting to your child’s homesickness with an intensity that is more about your own past than your child’s experience. That doesn’t mean your emotions are “wrong,” only that they should be understood and acted on in context.

As you well know, you sent your child to camp both to enjoy herself and to give her an opportunity to live independently. If you act rashly and pull her now, you take away her chance to overcome her homesickness and accomplish a huge life challenge. That’s not to say that she might not end up coming home, but the decision should be as thoughtful as possible.

Trust Camp Staff. This one’s very important. If staff tell you that your child is okay except for those tough times mentioned above, believe them. I once had a parent tell me, “You have been with my daughter for 11 days. I have been with her for 13 years. You don’t know her at all.” No, staff can’t compete with a parent’s knowledge of her child, but they do see her laughing and playing most of the day – and parents don’t.

Remember that you trusted the camp enough to take care of your child for a reason.
The staff has no interest in making your child suffer unnecessarily. They are experienced with homesickness, and they know the difference between a kid who can make it and a kid who might not.

The most effective response to homesickness will happen with you and staff working in partnership. Ask what staff are doing to support your child and find out how you can help. For example, the camp may ask you to refrain from offering to bring your child home for at least a few days. Do your best to work together.

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize. Overcoming homesickness and sticking out a tough time is an incredible accomplishment for your child. The knowledge that I did it on my own is developmental gold. This is the raw material of resilience, the ability to manage stress and overcome difficulty, and it is associated with less depression and anxiety, and general life success.

Conversely, having to come home is a loss that your child will not soon forget. Keep in mind that pulling your child from camp is not just about responding to a single moment. The experience of not finishing may inspire a new set of painful emotions in your child: feelings of failure, disappointment and regret.

The 6 C’s: Co-Creating Competencies for 21st Century Citizenship
by Cynthia Drew Barnes, Ph.D. (Chief Empowerment Officer, Learning4Change)

Some years ago, my brother, then a Senior Vice President for McDonald’s Corporation Worldwide in charge of Innovation, told me something I’ve yet to forget: “The difference between your industry and mine,” he said, is that “in my industry, we have to change before we need to, while, in your industry, you won’t change even when it’s clear that you must.”

Those words stung, after spending more than 30 years in education, a profession, from pre-kindergarten through graduate school, that looks exactly as it did when I started school more decades ago than I care to admit. No one would want to spend her professional life in a career—one of the most noble of all professions—that 30 years later appears much worse off than it did when she began. With high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent in some urban and rural areas, and college graduation rates limping along at about 29 percent (Harvard Civil Rights Project), something seems intractably wrong with the Nation’s educational system.

Corporate partners lament the lack of qualified workers. Parents and school board members haggle over which latest educational “fad” constitutes the “magic bullet” needed to help children learn. Educational bureaucrats seek new and better ways to leave “no child behind,” at the same time that adults and children lag far behind the performance of learners in such distant lands as Hong Kong, Latvia, and Russia.

And higher education, once the enviable ivy-colored bastions of learning and leading, commissions one more study or panel to provide us with the definitive word on the best policy and practices needed to catapult us into 21st-Century learning and teaching excellence.

Well, after more than 30 years in the profession, one thing rings clear. While we haggle over what strategies and techniques will make a discernible difference in producing a world-class, educated citizenry and we reflect on decades of educational experimentation, those learners languishing in preschool through university classrooms are the real losers. Samuel Clemons quipped many decades ago, “For every complex problem, there’s always a simple solution—and it’s always wrong.”

There is no “magic bullet” for what ails our antiquated assembly-line educational system. We cannot expect to produce innovative, critical thinkers for tech-savvy occupations—most of which do not currently exist—through time-based, seat-based models of schooling that lead to time-based, cubicle-based models of work. If we are to, once and for all, forego schools as the primary sorting mechanisms for capitalism, places where children get sorted into economic and social classes based on such accidents of birth as skin color, median family income, origin of birth, or first language, then we must redesign our educational system—particularly our higher education system—to do much more than divvy out “credits” for time served in our schools.

We must move into a new model that clearly adopts the strategy that “one size does not fit all.” We must embrace the concept that each human being, no matter his or her origin of birth, has been imbued with unique talents and gifts. And that the goal and role of education is to help each person discern, develop, and then use those unique gifts and talents to create not only a better life for that person, but for his or her family and community—and the planet as a whole.

In the 21st Century, the “3 R’s” must give way to the “6 C’s,” competencies each person must master for effective functioning and citizenship in our global village:

The 6 C’s for 21st Century Citizenship

1. Connect
2. Create
3. Collaborate
4. Communicate
5. Compute
6. Think Critically

Camps have never been a ‘fly by the seat of you pants’ experience. The earliest summer camps in the US were created by teachers as a place for children to learn and grow outside of urban areas. The teachers would head back to school from September until May and then make the trip back to camp. In fact, a large number of camps are still run by school teachers. We are a bit different.

As camp professionals, we are in a fortunate situation. We get to spend 9 months planning for the fun of each summer. This gives us time to think about what went right last summer and what we can improve on. It also allows us an opportunity to learn from others. During our ‘off season’, we interact with other camp directors, educators, and other professionals whose work focuses on children and leadership. We read, we share, and we discuss.

Several of the books below are on our bookshelf while others have been recommended by trusted friends. We thought it might be useful to provide this list to you as well. We’ve used a number of these books to prepare our staff orientation each summer and suggest that our staff read them prior to camp. Enjoy!

• Best Friends, Worst Enemies-Understanding the Social Lives of Children by Michael Thompson & Catherine Grace
• Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age by Dan Kindlon
• Good Kids, Difficult Behavior by Joyce Diviny
• How to talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Farber & Elaine Mazlish
• The Blessing of a B Minus by Wendy Mogel, PhD
  

Girl Specific:

• Reviving Ophelia by Mary Phipher
• Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons
• Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman

Boy Specific:

• Real Boys by William Pollack
• Raising Cain-Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon
• The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian

Everyone, at some point in their lives, has experienced bullying. It happens at school, at work, and, yes, even at camp. To keep bullying out of our community, we train our staff using the findings and methods of one man, Dr. Joel Haber. Dr. Haber has been studying bullies and their effect for over 20 years and has recently written a fine book on the subject: Bullyproof Your Child for Life.

We recently sat down to speak with Dr. Haber to talk more about bullying. The following are some of the most pertinent points.

What is Bullying?

Bullying happens when one or more children use their power to hurt another. This can take many forms: physical aggression, verbal, relational/exclusion, and the newest form- cyberbullying..

When does bullying start?

We know from research that bullying starts at age 3 and peaks through the middle school years. Verbal and exclusionary bullying continues from that point but most of the physical aggression is over by the age of 15.

Is there much difference between how boys and girls bully one another?

We used to think that boys were always the physical aggressors and girls resort to emotional tactics. We are finding this to have changed drastically. My data shows that boys and girls now show similar amounts of physical bullying. Over time, girls have become much more empowered to show their physical aggression. At the same time, we have taught boys the words to use when dealing with their feelings. This has led to an increase in emotional and relational bullying of boys.

How can we know if our child has been bullied?

The biggest red flag is a big change in behavior. If your child has enjoyed a certain sport but suddenly doesn’t want to play or suddenly does not want to spend time with a friend, this change should prompt questions about bullying. At camp, where the whole purpose is to connect socially with others, a big red flag alerting us to a possibility of bullying would be seeing a child walk around alone. Be excluded, especially when away from your family, is especially hurtful.

How much damage does bullying do to children?

Almost all of us experience bullying at some point in our lifetimes. Most children have the resiliency to withstand the negative effects, control their reactions, and move on. Ten percent of children, however, get repeatedly targeted. We need to help these children develop greater resiliency and help them come up with skills and strategies to deal with their unique situation.

How can we best prepare our children to deal with bullying?

The main key is being proactive. Role playing with your children on how to deal with bullies can help build their resiliency. Also, asking a lot of questions early on helps set the stage for greater communication if and when your child is bullied.

Another important aspect is feeling safe. Many times, a child who is bullied is embarrassed by the situation and needs a safe place and safe person with whom to speak. At camp, the best person to speak with is usually their bunk counselor. If they do not feel comfortable with the bunk counselor, speaking with a group leader, nurse, or camp director would be the next people I would recommend. The key is finding the right person with whom they can share their experiences and who will help them deal with the situation. It’s also important to let children know that bullying happens everywhere, and staff want to hear about these situations right away.

Camp, which is all about teaching life skills, is a wonderful place for children to feel emotionally and physically safe.

We know from our own experience that ‘cyber bullying’ has grown a great deal. How do you suggest parents handle this?

Yes, cyber bullying is getting huge. Parents have to have a conversation with their children about this aspect of their lives. I suggest that if parents believe their child is being bullied online, they should speak with their children to get as much information as possible, print any evidence of it from their computers, and take this information either to the school or the camp immediately. I know Kippewa is proactive in pursuing bullying, both during camp and during the off season, and this needs to continue.

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At Kippewa, we keep our eyes open for signs of bullies and bullied children. While it is a rare occurrence, we pride ourselves on dealing with the situation quickly by safe guarding and educating those who have been bullied and providing instructional consequences for the bully. If our any of our campers (or staff members) cannot be a positive influence on our community, then they won’t remain at camp.

Again, we have been fortunate to work with and learn from Dr. Haber, either through listening to him speak at the ACA Tri-State Conference, having him to camp to train our staff, or reading his book, BullyProof Your Child for Life. We highly recommend that you contact Dr. Haber through his company, RespectU, or his email, joel@respectu.com, should you have further questions.

Really? No competition at camp? No Honor Bunk (for the cleanest bunk of the week)? No pushing yourself past self set limits? No winner of the Candy Horse Races? No Olympics?

We feel a certain amount of competition is healthy. In fact, if you are interested in improving your skills, be they artistic or athletic, on the lake, or in the riding ring, are not competing against yourself? We want our girls to push themselves, to find out where they can take their creative and athletic gifts.

Dr. Chris Thuber, one of the leading camp thinkers in the country, explains the best type of competition is cooperative. Cooperative competition is “when competition creates just a little anxiety, demands fair play, and emphasizes fun, children’s performance can be enhanced and they learn to make moral decisions independent of adult caregivers.” This is a perfect example of what we follow at Camp Kippewa.

Bob Bigelow, a former member of the Boston Celtics and now a youth sports reformer, explains that “now it’s all top down from the parents [but] what most kids want is just to have fun, develop their skills, run around and socialize.”

This defines the vast majority of campers and exactly the type of environment we create at Kippewa. The kids have fun. They play. They learn from each other AND from our fabulous staff members.

Camp teaches life lessons every day, most of the time without the campers knowing it. How to enjoy pushing yourself, how to be an active part of a team, how to test your skills against the clock, on stage, or in the riding ring… these are the lessons we strive to teach in a safe, positive, and FUN manner.

We are excited to watch what our girls can do this coming summer. See you then!!