5 Reasons to Watch a Summer Camp Video
Best Summer Camps.
So you've decided you want your child to go to summer camp? Before getting camp information you should have a goal in mind. Make a list of things you feel you want your kid to gain from a summer camp experience. Make sure it's not just about activities. What about a camp's physical attributes, like cabins or tents? Is it a small, personal camp or a large camp with loads of campers? Once you have this information, you can create a check list to help compare camps and narrow down your search for the |
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So you've decided you want your child to go to summer camp? Before getting camp information you should have a goal in mind. Make a list of things you feel you want your kid to gain from a summer camp experience. Make sure it's not just about activities. What about a camp's physical attributes, like cabins or tents? Is it a small, personal camp or a large camp with loads of campers? Once you have this information, you can create a check list to help compare camps and narrow down your search for the Best Summer Camps.
Narrow your search to four or five possibilities, and then call or e-mail each camp to ask for information. Perhaps more important than printed materials, camps will send you a promotional video. Remember, these DVDs are tools to help you find the right summer camp. But they are also tools for camps to SELL a place in their camp to you and your child. So keep that in mind when you view them.
Now it is time get to get your child involved. Sit down as a family and watch the videos. Let your child take the lead talking about what he or she saw, and tell you more about what he or she is looking for. You may need to do a little encouraging to get your new camper talking. Doing this persisitently will help you see what is important in a camp to your child. Prior to going to camp, please explain to your child that the videos are advertisements and that the reality may not always match what you see on the screen. It is good to stop for brief reality check now and then!
The DVD can tell you much more than what you see on the surface if you pay close attention for clues about the camp's philosophy and strengths. Also look for the following indicators:
-Does the video answer your questions about the camp? While there should be additional questions that you will want to ask the director, the video should give you a comprehensive overview.
-What does the video emphasize? Pay attention to what activities and facilities get the most time in the video.
-How old is the video? If there is no date, then estimate the age based on the campers' clothing and the background music. No matter how recent the video appears to be, you should ask the camp director what has changed or been added to the video program since its filming.
-What philosophies does the video suggest? Does the video seem to complement the philosophies expressed in the camp's printed materials?
-What level of sports are shown, in terms of skill and sophistication? If you're looking for a specialty sports camp, does the level of play look too advanced or too basic?
-What philosophical qualities does the video stress? Does the video seem to be consistent with and complement the philosophies expressed in the camp's printed materials?
-What is your and your child's general impression after watching? Sometimes a gut instinct may tell you the most.
DVDs are a great way to get a feel about each individual childrens summer camp, but it should not be the only factor in the important decision about a camp. Be sure to talk to the camp directors and talk to campers' parents.
If this is your first time looking for a summer camp please go to Summer Camp Advice a FREE online reference that helps parents figure out what Summer Camp is about
About the author: Lonnie lorenz has been the owner of Swift Nature Camp since 1996. She has created a is a Minnesota Outdoors Summer Camp for boys and girls ages 6-15. Our focus is to blend traditional summer camp activities with that of aAnimal Camp and Science Summer Camp
Even with a challenging economy, many parents realize the benefits of investing in their kids' futures with the summer camp experiences . Summer Camp is a safe and nurturing place that promotes outdoor play but more importantly it builds important life skills.
Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" and chairman of the Children & Nature Network, believes "Free play in natural areas enhances children's cognitive flexibility, problem-solving ability, creativity, self-esteem and self-discipline." and that "Children are simply happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for experiences in the out-of-doors,"
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Even with a challenging economy, many parents realize the benefits of investing in their kids' futures with the summer camp experiences . Summer Camp is a safe and nurturing place that promotes outdoor play but more importantly it builds important life skills.
Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" and chairman of the Children & Nature Network, believes "Free play in natural areas enhances children's cognitive flexibility, problem-solving ability, creativity, self-esteem and self-discipline." and that "Children are simply happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for experiences in the out-of-doors,"
Summer camp provides the right setting for building self-confidence, social comfort, peer relationships, environmental awareness and a deeper sense of values. It is clear that "Overnight" camps result in even higher levels of success in fostering relationships and building life skills. just ask Michael Eisner, past president of Disney in his book "Camp" believes in the summer camp experience.
Along with the benefits of supervised, outdoor recreation and play, there are other reasons to consider camp as an important part of youth development:
* Build self-esteem -- Studies show self-esteem comes from feeling competent and having successful experiences, and youth report significant increases after attending camp.
*Build leadership skills -- Camps play a critical role in fostering leadership skills by giving young people responsibilities unavailable in other settings, such as self-selecting activities, maintaining camp areas and mentoring younger campers.
* Learn life skills -- Camps provide fun and positive ways to define and cultivate life skills, whether learning patience through archery, building confidence by zip lining or working as a team playing water polo.
* Get kids outdoors -- Summer camp teaches youth to be "more green" by connecting campers with their outdoor surroundings and opening awareness for our planet. The Children & Nature Network, an organization that is dedicated to help children experience nature's joys and lessons, supports summer camps as a way to connect children with nature.
* Push comfort zones -- Trying new challenges is the key to building self-confidence, and ACA research shows 75 percent of campers push themselves to learn new things at camp. ACA accredited camps like Camp Lincoln/Camp Lake Hubert, must comply with up to 300 health and safety standards.
* Have fun -- Counselors help campers discover how fun the great outdoors can be designing safe, engaging activities that let kids be kids, while teaching valuable life lessons.
* Develop quality relationships -- Camps create community cultures that minimize social pressures, making campers feel more themselves. Camp fosters an environment for supportive adult relationships, like those between counselors and campers, which research proves is a source of emotional guidance.
* Gain independence -- While the idea of sending kids away to camp may give parents uneasy feelings, the American Camp Association reports the experience of achievement and social connection away from home can nurture a child's independence.
More information on ACA accredited camps and related studies are available at www.acacamps.org. To learn more about selecting a camp see Summer Camp Advice
1. Have your son or daughter stay on any medications they take during the school year. If it’s helpful at home or school, it will be helpful at camp.
2. Don’t make major medication changes just prior to camp. The transition to camp is............
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Top Ten Medication Management Tips at Camp
1. Have your son or daughter stay on any medications they take during the school year. If it’s helpful at home or school, it will be helpful at camp.
2. Don’t make major medication changes just prior to camp. The transition to camp is enough of an adjustment without further complications from medication discontinuance or prescription switches. Make any adjustments a few months before opening day.
3. Discuss dosing and the camp’s daily schedule with your child’s prescribing physician to ensure smooth administration of all medications. The timing of doses at home or school may have to be adjusted at camp because of how the camp’s daily schedule works.
4. Clearly label everything with your child’s name. Prescription bottles are already labeled, but be sure inhalers, nebulizers, Advair discs, and everything elseyour child brings to camp is clearly labeled with his or her name.
5. Openly discuss any medication your child takes with him or her. A surprising number of children don’t understand why they take certain medications and/or why their dosing schedule is designed the way it’s designed. Campers’ adherence to prescription directions will be much better—and any shame will be greatly reduced—if the prescriber and parents have had honest discussions with the child about the medication’s purpose and dosing.
6. Share your child’s medication history with the camp’s health care providers, both on the camp’s health form and in person. Each detail about a child’s assessment, diagnosis, and treatment that parents provide to the camp’s health care providers puts those professionals in a better position to care for that child. Leaving the camp nurse or doctor in the dark about some medical or psychological condition greatly compromises the quality of care they can provide. Trust that the information you provide will be treated confidentially.
7. Meet the camp nurses and doctors on opening day. It’s nice to put a face with a name in case you need to be in contact during the session.
8. Meet your child’s cabin leader on opening day. Share helpful information with him or her about your child and his treatment. (or, if your child travels to camp on a bus, be sure to write a personal letter to the cabin leader about your child and his or her treatment.)
9. Provide the camp with all your contact information (cell, home, work, vacation home, etc.)
10. Relax…camp will take good care of your child.
Dr. Thurber also offered ACA attendees a terrific medication resource he created with the help of his colleague, Joshua Gear, M.D.: “Psychotropic Medication Rapid Reference: A Guide for Camping Professionals.” The Guide is a list of the most common psychotropic medications prescribed to campers along with their generic names, information about what conditions they are intended to treat, common side effects, and (perhaps most importantly) what your health staff should do if a camper on one of these medications misses a dose for some reason. I encourage you and your health staff to visit Dr. Thurber’s excellent website,www.campspirit.com to request a copy of the Guide.
Look it’s Ashley!
Mid October we happened to be driving by Madison Wi. and decided to stop on in and spend some time with Ashley. It was great fun! She showed us around the downtown area and we even had a bite to eat. (nothing like Michelle’s food :) So we got a talkin about one of Ashleys favorite topics- Arts & Crafts. She was wondering if we could do some more cool activities. “like what?” we wondered. She thought, maybe we could do more age appropriate activities so like older kids could do copper enameling and more clay, even some woodburing or something like that. We thought it was a great idea and so Ashley is busy working on how she can make Arts & Crafts better. If you have any ideas or activities that you feel we should do email Ashley at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Our campers have always known that Swift was a great place, thats why 70+ percent return year after year. You have always known Swift was a great camp now it’s official! This summer, as many of you know we had our inspection by the American Camp Association. The ACA sets over 300 standards for camps helping to ensure safety, staffing, programming, health care, food service, and more. Of the nearly 12,000 camps in the USA less than 25% have received the A.C.A. Accreditation. We are proud of the wonderful score we got. Making us one of the best camps around..but you knew that!
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Affirmation: Sometimes one simple word of affirmation can change an entire life. Recognition from outside can turn into recognition from the inside. also known as confidence.
Art: Everyone who wants to create… can. The world just needs more people who want to, and a child who is free from the pressure of competitive achievement is free to be creative.
Challenge: Encourage a child to dream big dreams. In turn, they will accomplish more than they thought possible… and probably even more than you thought possible.
Compassion/Justice: Life isn’t fair. It never will be – there are just too many variables. But when a wrong has been committed or a playing field can be leveled, we want our children to be active in helping to level it.
Contentment: The need for more material things can be contagious. Therefore, one of the greatest gifts we can give children is a genuinely content appreciation for with what they have… leaving them to find out who they are.
Curiosity: Children need a safe place outside the home to ask questions about who, what, where, how, why, and why not. “Stop asking so many questions” are words that need never be heard.
Determination: One of the greatest determining factors of success is the exercise of will. Children flourish when they are given independent opportunities to learn how to find the source of determination within themselves and exercise that determination.
Discipline: Discipline is really a form of concentration learned from the ground up, in arenas that include appropriate behaviors, how to get along with others, how to get results, and how to achieve dreams. Properly encouraged, self discipline can come to be developed into an self sustaining habit.
Encouragement: Words are powerful. They can create or they can destroy. The simple words that a counselor or mentor might choose to speak can offer encouragement and create positive thoughts for a child to build from.
Finding Beauty: Beauty surrounds us. A natural environment can inspire our children find beauty in everything they see and in everyone they meet there.
Generosity: The experience of generosity is a great way for a child to learn it. Generosity is a consistent quality of heart regardless of whether the medium that reflects it is time, energy or material things.
Honesty/Integrity: Children who learn the value and importance of honesty at a young age have a far greater opportunity to become honest adults. And honest adults who deal truthfully with others tend to feel better about themselves, enjoy their lives more, and sleep better at night.
Hope: Hope means knowing that things will get better and improve and believing it. Hope is the source of strength, endurance, and resolve. And in the desperately difficult times of life, it calls us to press onward.
Imagination: If we’ve learned anything in recent years, it’s that life is changing faster and faster with every passing day. The world of tomorrow will look nothing like the world today. And the people with imagination are the ones not just living it, they are creating it.
Intentionality: This word means the habit of pausing to find the intent behind each of the ongoing choices that comprise our lives. It is the moment of reflection toward one’s own source: slow down, consider who you are, your environment, where you are going and how to get there.
Lifelong Learning: A passion for learning is different from just studying to earn a grade or please teachers. It begins in the home and school but can be splendidly expanded at summer camp. A camper has fun being safely exposed, asking questions, analyzing the answers that expose more and having more fun doing it all again. In other words, learn to love learning itself.
Meals Together: Meals together provide an unparalleled opportunity for relationships to grow, the likes of which can not be found anywhere else.
Nature: Children who learn to appreciate the world around them take care of the world around them.
Opportunity: Kids need opportunities to experience new things so they can find out what they enjoy and what they are good at.
Optimism: Pessimists don’t change the world. Optimists do.
Pride: Celebrate the little things in life. After all, it is the little accomplishments in life that become the big accomplishments. Pride in the process is as important as pride in the results.
Room to make mistakes: Kids are kids. That’s what makes them so much fun… and so desperately in need of our patience. We need to give them room to experiment, explore, and make mistakes early, when consequences are so much less severe.
Self-Esteem: People who learn to value themselves are more likely to have self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. As a result, they are more likely to become adults who respect their own values and stick to them… even when no one else does.
Sense of Humor: We need to provoke laughter with children and laugh with them everyday… for our sake and theirs.
Spirituality: Faith elevates our view of the universe, our world, and our lives. We would be wise to instill into our kids that they are more than just flesh and blood taking up space. They are also made of mind, heart, soul, and will. And decisions in their life should be based on more than just what everyone else with flesh and blood is doing.
Stability: A stable environment becomes the foundation on which children build the rest of their lives. Just as they need to know their place in the family, children need an opportunity to learn how to make their place amongst their peers. Children benefit from having a safe place to learn how stability is made and maintained outside the home.
Time: Time is the only real currency.Children can learn to believe to respect the value of time long before they come to realize how quickly it can pass.
Undivided Attention: There is no substitute for undivided attention, whether it comes from a parent, a teacher, a mentor, or a camp counselor.
Uniqueness: What makes us different is what makes us special. Uniqueness should not be hidden. It should be proudly displayed for the world to see, appreciate, and enjoy.
A Welcoming Place: To know that you are always welcome in a place is among the sweetest and most life-giving assurances in the world.
Along with lifelong friendships, the recognition and development of these attributes is the lasting gift of a child’s experience at summer camp. A summer at camp is the most fun possible way a child gets to experience what it is to be human.
Summer camp is usually thought of in terms of all the traditional activities and facilities that come to our mind, and those elements are indeed part of what makes the experience memorable. But the true essence of the experience of summer camp is human connection. The attributes in this article are qualities that are rediscovered and expanded by interaction with counselors, staff and other campers in a natural setting. The best summer camps are carefully staffed and creatively programmed by directors with this concept in mind. As one director put it, “Our hope is to give the world better people one camper at a time.”
Teens claim that 1/5 have been Cyber Bullied. In response, Facebook has launched an anti-bullying campaign and other programs,have been started that that aim to empower kids to promote kindness.
Swift Nature Camp has long promoted fairness and kindness with our children and has lead the way in being non-tollerent towards those children that physically pick on other. Once back home its hard for us as camp directors to know what is going on...so if you find yourself being cyberbullied please reach out to us, your counselor or your parents so we can stop this type of bullying.
A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center and released Wednesday teases out these complex, often painful threads of teen life on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Two-thirds of the teenagers surveyed said people were “mostly kind” to each other on these networks, even as 88 percent said they had witnessed “people being mean or cruel.” One in five admitted to having joined in on the cruelty.
Notably, one in five teens surveyed said they had been “bullied,” but of those, the largest share said they had been bullied in person, not online. Indeed, online and offline sentiments often merge: one in four said an online squabble resulted in a face-to-face argument or worse.
What do they do when they see or feel the brunt of cruelty online?
The vast majority say they ignore it. Girls are more likely to seek advice than boys. And when they do seek advice, teenagers are more likely to turn to their peers than their parents. Parents are not entirely useless. The survey found that 86 percent of teens said parents advised them on “how to use the Internet responsibly and safely.”
Those surveyed expressed a certain savvy in manipulating their online profiles: Close to half lied about their age in order to access a site off limits to children under 13. Most said they tweaked their privacy settings so their posts were not widely visible.
The survey also revealed some of the new anxieties that parents experience. Three out of four parents said they “checked which Web sites their child visited.” Pew researchers said that could have been as simple as checking the browsing history on their computers. And among parents who have a Facebook account, 80 percent were on their children’s list of friends.
The survey was conducted by phone earlier this year on 799 children, aged 12 to 17, and their parents or guardians. The margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points. Nearly all kids in that age group are online, and among them, four out of five use a social network like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. The report aptly calls them “spaces where much of the social activity of teen life is echoed and amplified—in both good and bad ways.”
Summer camp is a place where mindfulness is promoted each and every day. When we live with others it is important that we take the self out of our actions and think more about the group and what we need to accomplish. Today, business’s are doing the same.....
Developing Mindful Leaders
3:32 PM Friday December 30, 2011 by Polly LaBarre
Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as "leadership development," which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks "hi-pos" and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.
What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?
In other words, what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?
At the time, Pierce was benefiting personally from work with a personal coach and had recently woken up to the power of the practice ofmindfulness. He called in a kindred soul, Pamela Weiss, a long-time executive coach and meditation teacher, to help design an experiment that would cast out the traditional approach to leadership development to focus instead on helping people grow.
"If you want to transform an organization it's not about changing systems and processes so much as it's about changing the hearts and minds of people," says Weiss. "Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings."
Pierce and Weiss distilled a set of principles that form the basis of what became the "Personal Excellence Program" (PEP), now heading into its sixth year inside Genentech (Pierce left the company this fall after 11 years to join salesforce.com). Together, these pillars offer up a short course in unleashing human capability, resilience, compassion, and well-being (and they're unpacked in even more detail in Weiss and Pierce's entry).
1. Developing people is a process — not an event.
2. People don't grow from the neck up.
3. Put mindfulness at the center (but don't call it that!).
4. It's hard to grow alone.
5. Everybody deserves to grow.
As PEP heads into its sixth year at Genentech, some 800 people have participated in the program. (Weiss added a graduate curriculum and a student training program to create "PEPtators" as few people want the journey to end.) The impact has been nothing short of transformative for individuals and organization alike. When Pierce took over the IT department in 2002, its employee satisfaction scores were at rock bottom; four years into the program, the department ranked second in the company and is now consistently ranked among the best places to work in IT In the world (even in the wake of Genentech's 2009 merger with Roche Group — always a turbulent and dispiriting experience).
Pierce attributes that to "the emotional intelligence of people and the capacity to change" developed in PEP. But don't take his word for it. The data-obsessed Pierce commissioned a third path impact report on PEP. It came in glowing: 10-20% increase in employee satisfaction, 50% increase in employee collaboration, conflict management, and communication; 12% increase in customer satisfaction; and nearly three times the normal business impact.
"Through PEP we have created a smarter, more agile, and more responsive organization," says Pierce. "The reduction of suffering, the capacity to deal with difficulties, the level of engagement — these things are very powerful and you can't call a meeting to get them or give people stock options and have them. These are skills and qualities you have to cultivate and practice."
So how's this for a new year's resolution for hard-charging leaders: turn every ringing, pinging, tweeting, and blinking thing off — especially your mind — and just breathe.
Summer Camps Make Kids Resilient
After all, summer camps are places where children get the experiences they need to bolster their range of coping strategies. There are the simple challenges of learning how to build a fire, going on a hike, or conquering........
a high ropes course. There are the much more complex challenges of getting along with a new group of peers, learning how to ask for help from others, or taking manageable amount of risks without a parent following after you.
The best camping experiences offer these opportunities for manageable amounts of risk and responsibility, what I term "the risk takers advantage" (see my book Too Safe for Their Own Good for more examples). The worst camps pander to children as if they are entitled little creatures whose parents are paying big sums of money. Children at camp can't be treated like customers if they are going to get anything out of the experience. They need to be treated like students whose caregivers, the counselors, know what the kids need to grow.
Camps that pull this off and make kids, especially teens, put away the makeup, stash the iPods, get a little dirty and even a little frustrated while having fun and making new friends, are the kinds of camps that offer children the best of what they need. Looking at those experiences from the vantage point of my research on resilience, I know that camps help our children develop great coping strategies when they provide seven things all children need:
1) New relationships, not just with peers, but with trusted adults other than their parents. Just think about how useful a skill like that is: being able to negotiate on your own with an adult for what you need.
2) A powerful identity that makes the child feel confident in front of others. Your child may not be the best on the ropes course, the fastest swimmer, or the next teen idol when he sings, but chances are that a good camp counselor is going to help your child find something to be proud of that he can do well.
3) Camps help children feel in control of their lives, and those experiences of self-efficacy can travel home as easily as a special art project or the pine cone they carry in their backpack. Children who experience themselves as competent will be better problem-solvers in new situations long after their laundry is cleaned and the smell of the campfire forgotten.
4) Camps make sure that all children are treated fairly. The wonderful thing about camps is that every child starts without the baggage they carry from school. They may be a geek or the child with dyslexia. At camp they will both find opportunities to just be kids who are valued for who they are. No camps tolerate bullying (and if they do, you should withdraw your child immediately).
5) At camp kids get what they need to develop physically. Ideally, fresh air, exercise, a balance between routine and unstructured time, and all the good food their bodies need. Not that smores (marshmallows, chocolate and graham cracker treats) don't have a place at the campfire, but a good camp is also about helping children find healthy lifestyles.
6) Perhaps best of all, camps offer kids a chance to feel like they belong. All those goofy chants and team songs, the sense of common purpose and attachment to the identity that camps promote go a long way to offering children a sense of being rooted.
7) And finally, camps can offer children a better sense of their culture. It might be skit night, or a special camp program that reflects the values of the community that sponsors the camp, or maybe it's just a chance for children to understand themselves a bit more as they learn about others. Camps give kids both cultural roots and the chance to understand others who have cultures very different than their own.
That's an impressive list of factors that good camping experiences provide our children. Whether it is a subsidized day camp in a city or a luxurious residential facility up in the mountains, camps can give our kids a spicy combination of experiences that prepare them well for life. Add to that experience the chance for a child's parents to reinforce at home what the child nurtures at camp, and maybe, just maybe, we'll find in our communities and schools amazing kids who show the resilience to make good decisions throughout their lives.
This cult we call summer camp has its positive impact soon children forget about the cliques at school, their concerns about grades, and what their friends are doing and wearing.Summer Camp will replace these things with campfires, caring for others, singing in the dining hall, trying new things and increase their growth as a paddler, a rider, a gymnast, and a climber. Even more, they will be replaced by a community of friends
Okay So you don’t buy it! You need to be in touch with your child. You know you are a helicopter parent. No need to fret.? There are a huge variety in the ways different camps help parents and campers stay in touch. Some camps allow campers to carry cell phones, some allow access to email. Many camps have visiting days. Every camp is different so be sure you ask the director how communication happens before you enroll in camp. This may also be a growing time for you ... getting you ready for those not to far off college days.