As the camp directors of Swift Nature Camp, every day, we evaluate to make sure that we are teaching the children in our care more than just skills like swimming, making pottery at arts and crafts, how to steer a canoe or how to identify edible plants in the woods.  These are all summer camp activities in Wi, but we want to make sure that we are teaching them and encouraging them to develop the lifelong skills and behaviors they will need to be successful in life - things like showing compassion, being responsible, and building good relationships.  And life as a parent is the same - every day is about helping your children to learn how to fry an egg for breakfast, math and reading at school and perhaps helping to take care of a family pet or younger sibling as well as developing proficiency in communicating with others, self motivation, and independence.

One of the skills that we try to emphasize with children at our Wisc Summer Camp is generosity and learning to find happiness in giving to others.  One great thing about these skills is that research tells us that children as young as toddlers have an intrinsic drive to share and help others.  In fact, one study found that children prefer or enjoy equally the opportunity to share a treat with others as much as having one for themselves.  That isn’t a feeling that goes away in adulthood either - I know that I am super excited about seeing my child’s reaction to a few of the gifts of the holiday season.

And speaking of the season, this time of year is a great time to try to do a little extra to develop those intrinsic qualities of giving and generosity in your children.  Many organizations have drives for donated goods (winter wear, food, toys, gift cards), and along with that, they often have needs for extra volunteers to sort, organize and distribute those goods.  Organizations that aren’t looking for hard goods are often participating in end of the year funding pitches to round out their financial donations. Students have a bit more free time during their winter breaks, and if you have any extra holiday vacation from work or can find some spare time around the house, you may be able to find the perfect opportunity to fit in a few volunteer hours with your children.

Since this season seems so perfectly suited to teaching giving, we’d like to share a few science and research based strategies for building your children’s love of giving and altruistic nature:

To start, as always, be a role model, but also explain why you are doing what you are doing.  Kids are more likely to reflect behavior that they see from one or both parents consistently .  But we also know that with giving, kids are even more likely to be generous themselves if their parents not only model giving behavoir, but also explain why they are doing so.  If you make a donation to a charitable organization, talk to your children about why.  If you are giving time by volunteering, then explain to your kids what you are doing and how and who it helps.

Next, make sure that you are tapping into your children’s empathy - help them to understand the need for giving and generosity.  Encourage your children to consider the background and history of people who are in need of some type of assistance.  If there are opportunities for your children to directly interact with people in need, that can help them to solidify the connection and activate their drive help others.  Even after doing something like collecting donations for the homeless, the needs of that group of people can be a pretty abstract concept to understand.  If children are given the opportunity to visit a homeless shelter or similar organization and share donations, it helps them to build understanding of the needs of others.

Thirdly, help them to see the difference that they are making in the world by being generous.  For younger kids, this may mean participating in things like donation drives for goods - it is easier for children to make a connection when picking out a few things at the grocery store or toy store to donate then that abstract concept of giving monetary donations.  For children that are older, a good way is to involve them in donating time when they can directly see the results of their work - something like participating in a clean up of a public area or serving food at a soup kitchen.

Continuing on, play to their strengths and make giving a way that they can share their personal strengths and interests.  Studies show us that when children participate in volunteer or donation efforts that have a special significance to them they are more likely to continue being generous to those types of causes.  If your child loves nature, see if you can find a place where they can volunteer to help clean up at a wildlife rehabilitation center or help with removal of invasive plants in natural area.  If your child is artistic or crafty, perhaps you can encourage them to be a part of making holiday cards or knitting or crocheting lap blankets for residents of an elder care community.  If their love is sports, they could find a place to donate sporting goods or try to teach younger children their skills through a sports clinic.

Finally, make sure that you are giving them choice.  Though mandatory community service programs are not uncommon throughout different areas of the country, researched is mixed on whether or not they actually encourage children and teens to continue giving beyond what they are required to do.  Help them to see the different ways in their area that they could help out - donating time, money, goods or skills to various organizations.  If you give your child an allowance, you may want to have them set aside a certain amount for donating, but let them then choose how and where to donate those funds.

Of course, we want to make sure that we are nurturing these skills in our young people year round.  But hopefully, with these suggestions, you can use the end of the year holiday season as a jump start for a 2017 of building giving and generosity with your children. So next summer be sur eto have your child join us at this amazing Wisconsin Summer Camp

Gratitude often naturally happens and develops at camp. For many children camp provides a place to move from ME to WE. This is a normal part of child development. Yet, it is camp that nurtures and pushes children further along this path. Some of this is because we live with others from different places and cultures. Sometimes friction is the result and this friction requires us to refocus on the good stuff. It can be the staff that grab a cabin and take them to the lake front to watch a setting sun and the brilliant colors. Or it maybe our daily Gratitude Journal, where we ask campers to write the good of the day, helping them focus on the good times and thier personal success.

Back at home families can continue to help their children be grateful. Here are a few helpful hints:

1- Stay Positive. Ones attitude directs what we will see. Help your child see the good, the positive. At camp we often ask a camper to say 3 good things about a person or situation that might be causing strife at the time. Keep your mindset positive by focusing on things you enjoy, not how tough things are going to be.

2- Journal. At SNC campers do a gratitude journal. Not only does it highlight the good of the day, but on those days when things are a little off, go back and take a read to chear yourself up.

3- Find Joy in a Ritual.  Daily have a ritual you know brings joy. A song in the morning, a cup of tea, bath, a walk with the dog, a phone  call to a friend. Have your child find their one thing that brings joy and schedule it into their day.

4- Servitude.It doesn’t have to be huge, and at SNC daily we set a tone for helping others, from holding the door or grabbing a broom to help. Yet, our favorite is "HOW CAN I HELP?",

5- Smile & Greet Everyone. Your inner grouch leaves when you smile and feel noticed. Swift Nature Camp believes in a community built on Kindness. So it only makes sence that you smile and say HI to everyone while walking on the path.

6- Show appreciation. Rolemodel to your kids appreciation for everything. This will help them see the good things in life plus it tells them what you want to see from them. Not to mention you will be happier because your mission is to raise up those doing good things...even if you expect them.

At camp one of the greatest natural benefits from your child being away from you for 3 or 6 weeks is the Gratitude towards you the family as they are reunited at the end of camp.

Speaking of gratitude, for us, Lonnie and Jeff, here at SNC we are grateful for you and your family. We appreciate your trust and support of camp that we so strongly believe in. It is a wonderful feeling to see your child every summer, to watch them grow, and to be a part of your family.

So what are you thankful for right now ? The above tools are intentional things we do to make our overnight summer camp so special. They are things you can bring home,  put your mind to it. Have a wonderful Holiday Season. Make it your best ever!

For years we have seen obesity increase in America. This is especially true with kids. Society has had many scape goats for this. But the truth is, that what we eat and our activity are the two easiest ways to affect obesity in our kids. Schools, feeling partially responsible have taken this issue on and have seen progress at reducing obesity. The latest information shows that schools are reasonably effective, and that most children gain weight during the summer months.  Yes, thats right, kids put on weight during the summer. When I was a kid, summers were a time of running, swimming, loads of physical activity, sadly, that is not the case any more.

Paul T von Hippel, PhD, associate professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, in Austin says "look beyond the school year, we need to  think about trying to change children's behavior when they are not in school," he urged. "We need to educate parents about nutrition, reduce child screen time, and regulate food marketing and advertising aimed at children".

Armed with this information, it is important that we analyze what our children are doing during the non school time, and how we can have a positive impact on reducing obesity. For many of us, working parents, it is difficult to make the time to keep our children off the screen and outside moving around. Paul Hippel said "My own experience with childhood obesity ended when I went to camp at age 8. Sending more children to summer camps or learning programs, for example, could potentially help lower rates of childhood obesity,"

As camp directors, we see this every summer, kids loose weight. How? It's simple. First, our cook, Michelle, makes meals that are home cooked, starting with raw ingredients and creating child friendly foods they will like. Next, at the table Counselors serve children, so they ensure that campers get a healthy mix of veggies along with their chicken for instance. A never ending salad bar is always available. As we all know, snacks are often the culprit. We only have apples as snacks and the campers love them. 2nd and probably most important is we have no screens at camp. Children's brains want to be engaged, so without a screen they have to get up and run, swim, play & socialize. Camp days are long - from 7:30 a.m.- 9 p.m. kids are busy all day longand this takes energy. Campers are not alone in this, everyone at camp looses weight during camp. For some it's a few pounds, for myself it's a healthy 10 lbs or so. So camp is part of my healthy lifestyle, maybe it could be part of your child's too.

Read more about summer obesity 

Lice are those pesky little creature that thrive in places where people are in close contact. This could be schools, churches and summer camps. Recently, these pesky little creatures seem to be more determined than ever to ruin a childs fun. Although it's kinda gross to think about lice living on your head, they are not dangerous and fairly easy to get rid. In communal settings like camp, where people live close to each other, it's important that Lice checks are in place. At Swift Nature Camp our nurse inspects each camper on the first day of camp. This is usally successful at stoping an outbreak because when we do find lice we start a treatment program of killing the lice with shampoo and then combing out any Eggs or Nits that might be left. Then a bout a week later we reshampoo and comb. At camp we do this in privacy with out letting the other campers know that lice have been detected. We know of many other camps that have had huge infestations where nearly all camp was effected. Our policy has kept lice outbreaks to a handfull of campers each year. Below is a recent report outlining the limited summer camps lice policy.

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite AAP recommendations for head lice management, 30% of summer camps were either unaware of guidelines or had no formal lice policy, according to survey results presented at the 2016 AAP National Conference and Exhibition.“Head lice often becomes a problem when people are concentrated together in one place, so naturally we think about children in the classroom, yet even more so at summer camps; whenever people are head-to-head, that is when there is the greatest risk of exposure,” Ashley DeHudy, MD, MPH, from the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital told Infectious Diseases in Children. “Considering the AAP’s current lice management recommendations for the school setting, I was interested in examining lice infestations in the camp setting to determine how the recommendations were being translated.”

To evaluate current summer camp policies regarding head lice management, DeHudy and colleagues partnered with a national Web-based health records system to send summer camp leadership (n=500) an online survey on lice policy, management and training. The researchers received a total of 255 responses, predominantly from camp directors (36%) and camp nurses (36%). 

Survey results demonstrated that while 30% of summer camps lacked formal head lice policies, another 34% of camps instead adhered to a “No-Nit” policy – excluding campers with the presence of nits only – despite AAP statements that these policies are ineffective. 

“We know that the AAP does not support ‘No-Nit’ policies in the school setting, because the presence of nits does not equal active infestation,” DeHudy said in an interview. “Similarly, summer camps should not exclude children based simply on the presence of nits.”

Among surveyed camp leadership, only 20% noted that a camper would be allowed to remain at camp and receive treatment if nits and live lice were found; 58% of survey responses reported that their camps would provide lice treatment, however only 40% of those said that their facility would repeat a second application, if needed, 7 days afterward. Furthermore, most surveyed summer camp personnel (63%) responded that manual removal of nits following treatment was required to prevent head lice infestation.

“In some instances, camp policies for managing head lice varied greatly from either American Camp Association recommendations or from the AAP’s recommendations for the school setting,” DeHudy said. “Also, when camp leadership was surveyed about their ability to detect lice infestations, only 50% felt confident their staff would be able to detect the lice, while 30% believed their staff would be confident in actually treating the lice infestation.”

According to the survey, 35% of camp leadership noted that they had little formal head lice education, yet most those responders said that they would favor hands-on or Web-based training in recognizing or treating lice. 

“It is important for pediatricians to reinforce to parents that they should familiarize themselves with whether their child’s summer camp has a head lice policy, and if so, what it is, because otherwise children might be coming home from camp a little earlier than expected,” DeHudy said.– by Bob Stott

Reference:
DeHudy A, et al. Abstract # 318305. Presented at: AAP National Conference and Exhibition; Oct. 22-25, 2016; San Francisco, California.

As a parent and a camp director, I often speak with parents that have their child on the fast track. Life has become all about building their child's resume, one filled with Accomplishment and Direction. When I mention I run a summer camp they are often unwilling to hear why camp is an important part of what today's children need. At Swift Nature Camp we are about people building not about building resumes. The  better the kids,  the better the people. We believe it is people that will change the world not resumes.
Recently the below article was in the Washington Post,  maybe this is what I need to print and hand out to those parents... Tell us what you think.

 

“Do you even like your children?” the woman I had just met asked me.

The audacity of the question took my breath away. I had been chatting with her, explaining that my kids go to sleep-away camp for two months every year.

I quickly realized two things at once: She was obnoxious, and she actually didn’t care if I missed my kids during the summer. She was talking about something else.I didn’t have to tell her the reason I “send them away” for most of the summer is because I like them. They adore camp, and it’s actually harder on me than it is on them. I often tell people that the first year they were both gone, it felt like I had lost an arm. I wandered around the house from room to room experiencing phantom limb pain.

Now, instead of being offended, I got excited.

I was going to be able to tell her something that my husband and I rarely get to explain: We do it because we truly think it will help our kids be successful in life. With under-employment and a stagnating labor market looming in their future, an all-around, sleep-away summer camp is one of the best competitive advantages we can give our children.

Huh?

Surely, college admissions officers aren’t going to be impressed with killer friendship bracelets or knowing all the words to the never-ending camp song “Charlie on the M.T.A.” Who cares if they can pitch a tent or build a fire?

Indeed, every summer my kids “miss out” on the specialized, résumé-building summers that their peers have. Their friends go to one-sport summer camps and take summer school to skip ahead in math. Older peers go to SAT/ACT prep classes. One kid worked in his dad’s business as an intern, while another enrolled in a summer program that helped him write all his college essays.

Many (this woman included) would say that I’m doing my children a serious disservice by choosing a quaint and out-of-date ideal instead. There are online “Ivy League Coaches” that might say we are making a terrible mistake.

We don’t think this is a mistake at all. It might not be something to put on the college application (unless my child eventually becomes a counselor), but that isn’t the goal for us.

Our goal is bigger.

We are consciously opting out of the things-to-put-on-the-college-application arms race, and instead betting on three huge benefits of summer camp, which we believe will give them a true competitive advantage — in life:

1. Building creativity.

2. Developing broadly as a human being.

3. Not-living-in-my-basement-as-an-adult independence.

MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson says, in his book “The Second Machine Age,” that we have reached a pivotal moment where technology is replacing skills and people at an accelerated pace. He argues that creativity and innovation are becoming competitive advantages in the race against artificial intelligence, because creativity is something a machine has a hard time replicating.

The problem is that creativity seems so intangible.

Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.” He believed that people invent when they connect the dots between the experiences they’ve had. To do this, he argued that we need to have more experiences and spend more time thinking about those experiences.

Indeed. According to Adam Grant’s book “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World,” researchers at Michigan State University found that to receive the Nobel Prize, you need deep study in your field and those broad experiences Jobs was talking about. They studied the winning scientists from 1901 through 2005 and compared them with typical scientists living at the same time. Grant writes that the Nobel Prize winners were:

* Two times more likely to  play an instrument, compose or conduct.

* Seven times more likely to draw, paint or sculpt.

* Seven-and-a-half times more likely to do woodwork or be a mechanic, electrician or glassblower.

* Twelve times more likely to write poetry, plays, novels or short stories.

* And 22 times more likely to be an amateur actor, dancer or magician.

You read that right. Magician.

It’s not just that this kind of original thinker actively seeks out creative pursuits. These original experiences provide a new way of looking at the world, which helped the prize-winners think differently in their day jobs.

The beauty of summer camp is that not only do kids get to do all sorts of crazy new things, they also get to do it in nature, which lends its own creative boost.

Most importantly, my kids have such intensely packed schedules full of sports, music, art classes, community service and technological stimulation throughout the school year that it makes finding these all-important quiet mental spaces more difficult.

Summers provide a much-needed opportunity for my children to unplug, achieve focus and develop those creative thought processes and connections.

Okay, okay. Creativity might be a compelling tool to beat out that neighbor girl applying to the same college, but what about this “developing broadly as a human being” stuff?

I didn’t come up with that phrase. Harvard did.

William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard, has penned a compelling letter to parents. It practically begs and pleads with them to reevaluate the summer extracurriculars race and to “bring summer back,” with an “old-fashioned summer job” perhaps, or simply time to “gather strength for the school year ahead.”

Fitzsimmons writes, “What can be negative is when people lose sight of the fact that it’s important to develop broadly as a human being, as opposed to being an achievement machine. In the end, people will do much better reflecting, perhaps through some down time, in the summer.”

In terms of “developing broadly as a human being,” summer camp can provide an impressive list of life skills.

Studies over the past decade have shown outdoor programs stimulate the development of interpersonal competencies, enhance leadership skills and have positive effects on adolescents’ sense of empowerment, self-control, independence, self-understanding, assertiveness, decision-making skills, self-esteem, leadership, academics, personality and interpersonal relations.

Now for the cherry on top: Independence.

Michael Thompson, the author of “Homesick and Happy,” has written, “… there are things that, as a parent, you cannot do for your children, as much as you might wish to. You cannot make them happy (if you try too hard they become whiners); you cannot give them self-esteem and confidence (those come from their own accomplishments); you cannot pick friends for them and micro-manage their social lives, and finally you cannot give them independence. The only way children can grow into independence is to have their parents open the door and let them walk out. That’s what makes camp such a life-changing experience for children.”

So, yes, Ms. Tiger Mom, I am letting my children walk out the door and make useless lanyards for two months.

They might not have anything “constructive” to place on their college application, but they will reflect, unwind, think and laugh. They will explore, perform skits they wrote themselves and make those endless friendship bracelets to tie onto the wrists of lifelong friends.

The result will be that when they come back through our door, we’re pretty sure that, in addition to having gobs of creativity and independence, they’ll be more comfortable with who they are as people.

And just maybe they’ll even bring back a few magic tricks.

Laura Clydesdale lives in Berkeley, Calif., with her husband and children.

We want the best for our children. Yet, for myself, as a parent of a 14 year old son,  I often look back and think of a simpler, less connected time. A time when the Andy Griffith show roll modeled how life should be. I want my son to know what these times were like and connect with them. But, as I nostagically look back to these simpler days am I limiting the skills he will need for the 21st Century? To make this even more complicated our son is Homeschooled. So where can I turn to give my child an advantage in years and decades to come?
 Most parents tend to rely on our own pareting skills and schools to raise our children. Summer Camp is as often missed oppertunity. Children tend to learn when they are away from us and away from school. This is when they are actually most able and willing to learn. This is where the summer camp experience comes into play and the American Camp Association realizes the impact it has on todays youth is more than playing outside.

The American Camp Association is jumping with both feet into measuring camp’s impact on kids.

In the process, the national organization representing 2800 summer and after-school camps has found a new marketing tool: 21st century skills.

“There’s a common perception that the American Camp Association is about canoes in a lake and tents,” said Tom Holland, chief executive of the camp association.

“But where we have transitioned in the last ten years is being about youth development, specifically the out-of-school-time space.” He spoke at the group’s annual conference in February in Atlanta, where various workshop leaders spoke excitedly about the new direction of camp.

Summer camps still have traditional activities such as archery and swimming, Holland said. They may be located in beautiful wilderness areas,”

“It’s not about that location. It’s about the growth and development of a child,” he said, “the outcomes that they have through our programs.”

For years, camp has fostered leadership, grit, tenacity and resilience in kids in the course of fun activities, he said, referring to qualities that researchers are pointing to as valuable.

“That’s the core of who we’ve always been,” he said.

But camps need to demonstrate their impact.

“Let’s track those outcomes,” he said.

About 20 percent of camp association member track outcomes. “It’s a number we hope to grow,” Holland said.

The association is urging its members, which include nonprofit and for-profit camp operators, to begin using the new Youth Outcomes Battery. It’s a survey kids take to measure whether camp has increased their independence, friendship, confidence, interest in exploration, perceived competence, problem-solving ability, responsibility, spiritual well-being, family citizenship, teamwork affinity with nature and sense of connectedness.

• Camps pick the qualities they wish to measure, some of which line up with the “21st century skills,” a buzzword for abilities thought to be needed in a changing economy, particularly critical thinking, communication, creativity and collaboration.

• Camps may still have traditional activities such as swimming and archery and they may be located in beautiful wilderness areas, but the new focus is youth development, according to the American Camp Association.
• Camps may still have traditional activities such as swimming and archery and they may be located in beautiful wilderness areas, but the new focus is youth development, according to the American Camp Association.
Efforts to push these skills in school and out of school are hailed by organizations such as the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, a business- and educator led group.

Critics, however, say the skills are presented in such a generalized way as to be meaningless and they are not new.

What’s to prove?

But in a world of data and evidence, the camp association wants to show its impact. The survey data is helpful for camp leaders to see what’s working well in their programs and what could be improved, Holland said.

The camp association is positioning itself as a partner in education in order to convince today’s parents of camp’s value.

“More and more parents are asking the question: ‘What is my child going to get out of this?’” Holland said.

“This is giving our camps the tools,” he said.

It’s about intentionality, he said. “Are you intentional about what outcomes the children will walk away with?” And then are you translating and sharing that information with parents?”

Scott Brody is a former national vice president of the American Camp Association and owner of Camps Kenwood and Evergreen in Wilmot, N.H.

He recently expanded his camp business into China, where affluent parents are looking to give their children an edge in a competitive economy.

He envisions a partnership between camps and schools to strengthen 21st century skills in kids.

Every activity in camp could be matched with one of the learning outcomes, he said.

Last year, Brody was quoted in an article in the Yale Globalist about the expansion of American-style camps in China.

“When you look at the entrepreneurial and innovation skill set, a lot of what you need are the qualities that people get to practice at camp—creativity, communication, collaboration, and building your own sense of resilience,” Brody said. “All of these themes are interwoven with the American dream. And the opportunity to practice these skills is the critical novelty of the camp environment.”

At the camp association conference Brody spoke about the value of the Youth Outcome Battery.

“We’re talking about outcomes and measures that are valued in the business world and in schools,” he said.

“It’s a huge marketing advantage,” Brody said. Parents are looking for experiences that give the child an advantage, that add value.”

“We are in the college and career readiness business,” he said. “We are in the education business.”

reprinted from Youth Today

By Stell Simonton | February 23, 2016

 As we all know connections are so important with our children. As a parent I have to say their are times that I think back to those younger years and think about how easy it was. You pick up a Dr. Suess book or play Hands Down and life is good. However, as kids get older and enter teendom they want to be independant and break away from us Parental Units, this is natural. But here are a few things we can do to bring back those connections. that we know we need to keep.

Talk (and Listen) to Them

The most basic way to connect with your children is to talk to them. Tell them about your day and ask about theirs. Try to remember everything they tell you. Children have a memory that just won’t quit sometimes, and they expect you to have the same. Ask them questions. It’s important for people to feel like the person they are talking to cares about what they have to say. Asking questions about what they told you it proves you were listening and want to know more. Don’t expect your kids to tell you everything about themselves in one sitting. It takes time to build the kind of connection you are looking for, especially with teens and older children who are still feeling rebellious.

Take an Interest in their Interests

Sometimes just talking doesn’t work for all kids. They may have built their guard up too high to realize that you just want to help them. In this case it may be a good idea to consider doing something else together. If your child likes to play video games, ask for the second controller and play too. Maybe help them with an art project they’re working on. You can try to get involved in anything they like to do. They may still try to shut you out sometimes, but eventually you will find something to do together.
Just try not to seem judgmental about their hobbies. If they aren’t hurting anyone, then you shouldn’t be concerned. If they start to feel that you don’t appreciate what they love, they will start to push you further away.

Invite Them Into Your World

If you can’t find common ground in the things they like to do, maybe you should look for some in the things you enjoy. It’s not uncommon for children to forget that parents or guardians are people too. If you’re willing to show them who you are, then perhaps they will open up and do the same. You can invite them to one of your favorite shows or sporting events. Let them meet some of your coworkers. If your children are old enough, then you can take them with you to the gym or your yoga class. Anything can work as long as you can get them interested.

Find a New Hobby

You may find that you simply have no current interests in common with your child. That’s OK. In this case, you can talk to them about finding something new for the two of you to do together. Try to find something that neither of you have done and you both find at least mildly interesting, and start together. Neither of you will be the leader in this activity because no one has more experience. Even if you find out that you both hated the activity, you at least have a mutual experience to work with.

Guilt is Not a Weapon

Never send your children on a guilt trip. It’s a cheap trick that will only cause them to resent you in the long run. Make it clear that you want to spend time with them and get to know them, but don’t try to make them feel bad if it doesn’t work out right away. It may take a few tries but you’ll wear them down eventually and they’ll give you a chance.
There’s a Time For Friendship and a Time For Parenting
It’s great to be your child’s friend. The feeling is unmatched. But it can be easy to take it too far. You should never forget that you are a guardian first. You are there primarily to see to it that the child in your care is safe and grows up well. A balance must be found between parenting and friendship. You need your child to trust you enough to tell you about the things going on around you but also to feel safe enough to seek true guidance from you.

Don’t Get Discouraged

Kids can be difficult. It may seem that no matter what you try, you’re still feeling just as distant from them as when you started. Don’t give up. They know what you’re trying to do, and on some level, they appreciate it, even if they don’t make it obvious right now. If nothing else, they will at least think of you when they face any struggles and remember that at least one person cares for them. Sometimes that’s enough.

Reprinted from Child Development Insitute

As a parent I often wonder when conflict happens at home, What should I do to be a good role model for my child. We recently found this article and think it is a great read for every parent.

What Happens to Kids When Parents Fight

By Diana Divecha | January 26, 2016 |
Conflict between parents is inevitable—but it doesn’t have to hurt kids. Here’s how to turn a disagreement into a positive lesson.

When I was a child, my parents’ fights could suck the oxygen out of a room. My mother verbally lashed my father, smashed jam jars, and made outlandish threats. Her outbursts froze me in my tracks. When my father fled to work, the garage, or the woods, I felt unprotected.

“Children are like emotional Geiger counters,” says E. Mark Cummings, psychologist at Notre Dame University, who, along with colleagues, has published hundreds of papers over twenty years on the subject. Kids pay close attention to their parents’ emotions for information about how safe they are in the family, Cummings says. When parents are destructive, the collateral damage to kids can last a lifetime.
My experience led me to approach marriage and parenthood with more than a little caution. As a developmental psychologist I knew that marital quarrelling was inevitable. According to family therapist Sheri Glucoft Wong, of Berkeley, California, just having children creates more conflicts, even for couples who were doing well before they became parents. “When kids show up, there’s less time to get more done,” she says. “All of a sudden you’re not as patient, not as flexible, and it feels like there’s more at stake.”
But I also knew that there had to be a better way to handle conflict than the one I grew up with. When my husband and I decided to have children, I resolved never to fight in front of them. “Conflict is a normal part of everyday experience, so it’s not whether parents fight that is important,” says Cummings. “It’s how the conflict is expressed and resolved, and especially how it makes children feel, that has important consequences for children.”
Watching some kinds of conflicts can even be good for kids—when children see their parents resolve difficult problems, Cummings says, they can grow up better off.

What is destructive conflict?

In their book Marital Conflict and Children: An Emotional Security Perspective, Cummings and colleague Patrick Davies at the University of Rochester identify the kinds of destructive tactics that parents use with each other that harm children:

• 1. Verbal aggression like name-calling, insults, and threats of abandonment;

2. Physical aggression like hitting and pushing;

3. Silent tactics like avoidance, walking out, sulking, or withdrawing;

Capitulation—giving in that might look like a solution but isn’t a true one.

When parents repeatedly use hostile strategies with each other, some children can become distraught, worried, anxious, and hopeless. Others may react outwardly with anger, becoming aggressive and developing behavior problems at home and at school. Children can develop sleep disturbances and health problems like headaches and stomachaches, or they may get sick frequently. Their stress can interfere with their ability to pay attention, which creates learning and academic problems at school. Most children raised in environments of destructive conflict have problems forming healthy, balanced relationships with their peers. Even sibling relationships are adversely affected—they tend to go to extremes, becoming over-involved and overprotective of each other, or distant and disengaged.
Some research suggests that children as young as six months register their parents’ distress. Studies that follow children over a long period of time show that children who were insecure in kindergarten because of their parents’ conflicts were more likely to have adjustment problems in the seventh grade. A recent study showed that even 19-year-olds remained sensitive to parental conflict. Contrary to what one might hope, “Kids don’t get used to it,” says Cummings.
In a remarkable 20-year-old study of parental conflict and children’s stress, anthropologists Mark Flinn and Barry England analyzed samples of the stress hormone cortisol, taken from children in an entire village on the east coast of the island of Dominica in the Caribbean. Children who lived with parents who constantly quarreled had higher average cortisol levels than children who lived in more peaceful families. As a result, they frequently became tired and ill, they played less, and slept poorly. Overall, children did not ever habituate, or “get used to,” the family stress. In contrast, when children experienced particularly calm or affectionate contact, their cortisol decreased.
More recent studies show that while some children’s cortisol spikes, other children’s cortisol remains abnormally low and blunted, and these different cortisol patterns seem to be associated with different kinds of behavioral problems in middle childhood. Other physiological regulatory systems can become damaged as well, such as the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system—these help us respond to a perceived threat but are also the “brakes” that rebalance and calm us.
In 2002, researchers Rena Repetti, Shelley Taylor, and Teresa Seeman at UCLA looked at 47 studies that linked children’s experiences in risky family environments to later issues in adulthood. They found that those who grew up in homes with high levels of conflict had more physical health problems, emotional problems, and social problems later in life compared to control groups. As adults, they were more likely to report vascular and immune problems, depression and emotional reactivity, substance dependency, loneliness, and problems with intimacy.

Avoiding conflict is not a solution

Some parents, knowing how destructive conflict can be, may think that they can avoid affecting their children by giving in, or capitulating, in order to end an argument. But that’s not an effective tactic. “We did a study on that,” Cummings said. According to parents’ records of their fights at home and their children’s reactions, kids’ emotional responses to capitulation are “not positive.” Nonverbal anger and “stonewalling”—refusing to communicate or cooperate—are especially problematic.
“Our studies have shown that the long-term effects of parental withdrawal are actually more disturbing to kids’ adjustment [than open conflict],” says Cummings. Why? “Kids understand hostility,” he explains. “It tells them what’s going on and they can work with that. But when parents withdraw and become emotionally unavailable, kids don’t know what’s going on. They just know things are wrong. We’re seeing over time, that parental withdrawal is actually a worse trajectory for kids. And it’s harder on marital relationships too.”
Kids are sophisticated conflict analysts; the degree to which they detect emotion is much more refined than parents might guess. “When parents go behind closed doors and come out acting like they worked it out, the kids can detect that,” says Cummings. They’ll see you’re pretending. And pretending is actually worse in some ways. As a couple, you can’t resolve a fight you’re not acknowledging you’re having. Kids will know it, you’ll know it, but nothing will be made in terms of progress.”
On the other hand, he says, “When parents go behind closed doors and are not angry when they come out, the kids infer that things are worked out. Kids can tell the difference between a resolution that’s been forced versus one that’s resolved with positive emotion, and it matters.”

How to make conflict work

“Some types of conflicts are not disturbing to kids, and kids actually benefit from it,” says Cummings. When parents have mild to moderate conflict that involves support and compromise and positive emotions, children develop better social skills and self-esteem, enjoy increased emotional security, develop better relationships with parents, do better in school and have fewer psychological problems.
“When kids witness a fight and see the parents resolving it, they’re actually happier than they were before they saw it,” says Cummings. “It reassures kids that parents can work things through. We know this by the feelings they show, what they say, and their behavior—they run off and play. Constructive conflict is associated with better outcomes over time.” Children feel more emotionally secure, their internal resources are freed up for positive developmental growth, and their own pro-social behavior toward others is enhanced. In fact, many child behavior problems can be solved not by focusing on the child, or even the parent-child relationship, but simply by improving the quality of the parents’ relationship alone, which strengthens children’s emotional security.
Even if parents don’t completely resolve the problem but find a partial solution, kids will do fine. In fact, their distress seems to go down in proportion to their parents’ ability to resolve things constructively.  “Compromise is best, but we have a whole lot of studies that show that kids benefit from any progress toward resolution,” says Cummings.
Both Cummings and Glucoft Wong agree that children can actually benefit from conflict—if parents manage it well. “Parents should model real life…at its best,” says Glucoft Wong. “Let them overhear how people work things out and negotiate and compromise.”

However, both also agree that some content is best kept private. Discussions about sex or other tender issues are more respectfully conducted without an audience. Glucoft Wong encourages parents to get the help they need to learn to communicate better—from parenting programs, from books, or from a therapist.
My own parents’ conflict no longer has the hold on me that it once did, thanks to careful work and a loving marriage of my own of thirty years. Our two daughters are now in their twenties and secure in their own loving partnerships, and I hope that the lessons of their childhood hold. When they were preschoolers and interrupted our disagreements with concern, my husband and I would smile and reassure them with our special code: I held my fingers an inch apart and reminded them that the fight was this big, but that the love was this big—and I held my arms wide open.

Conflict Tips

Courtesy of Sheri Glucoft Wong.
1. Lead with empathy: Open the dialog by first letting the other person know that you see them, you get them, and you can put yourself in their shoes.
2. Give your partner the benefit of the doubt: Assume the best intentions and help yourself remember that you love each other by adding an endearment.
3. Remember that you’re on the same team. Deal with issues by laying all the cards on the table and looking at them together to solve a dilemma rather than digging in on opposing sides. Then problem-solve with one another.
4. Constructive criticism only works when your partner can do something about what happened. If the deadline for soccer signup was already missed, remedy the current situation as best as possible and talk about how to do it better next time. Blaming won’t fix anything that’s already happened.
5. Anything that needs to be said can be said with kindness. Disapproval, disappointment, exasperation—all can be handled better with kindness.

At Swift Nature Camp we understand conflict is a part of life not only at home but at camp. Our goal is to use the above conflict tips when addressing those disagreements that are bound to arise when you have 8 children living together.

At Swift Nature Camp we believe the camp community can teach our children valuable lessons that stay with them long after their days at camp. Dr. Cris Thurber agrees, here are his thoughts on how children can be challenged to think and live differently.

Conflict, Camp, and World Peace

As summer camp owners, educators and parents, For the past 20 plus years we have dedicated ourselves to continuing our education in parenting and child development. What we have found is often the research we do to help counselors and camp kids becomes amazingly valuable in raising our own child. We gain our knowledge not only from reading but we attend conferences and workshops and constantly look online. Our goal is to be a part of your child's personal development not only during times of camp but all year round. This parent resource center is designed to be a place to share information about different ideas in raising children. So please feel free to read the articles and post comments or let us know of resources you may have found to share with others that have been extremely helpful in raising your children.

Websites 

• The Happy Family Movement- a place to think happy with your family

• Greater Good- learning to have a happy life 

• Family Life - presenting many helpful hints in family life. 

• Raising Smart Kids- We like this site cause it is for all ages 

• Child Development Institute - Many good articles

• Good Enough Mothering- For moms who just can never attain the best status

• Start With Why- For older kids and parents a great place to start a conversation 

• Me to We- Empowering children for social change.

Books

We always have a book on our night stand that is dedicated to helping us live a better life and be better at raising our children.  Often one of these becomes the focus of our staff training at camp. We have added a simple link to Amazon so you can read more about each book. 

• Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder

• How to Bury a Goldfish: And 113 Other Family Rituals for Everyday Life

• Whale Done!: The Power of Positive Relationships

• Who Moved My Cheese? for Teens

• Parenting Puzzel, A PBS special we use this every summer.

• Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

• Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood

• The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love, children & Teens

• Giving The Love That Heals

• Boundaries with Kids: When to Say Yes

• Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters

• Too Small to Ignore: Why the Least of These Matters Most

• The Fred Factor: Passion in Your Work and Life

• The Moral Intelligence of Children: How to Raise a Moral Child

• Just a Minute: In the Heart of a Child

• The Romance Of Risk: Why Teenagers Do The Things They Do

• Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys

• The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee

• Homesick & Happy - How Time Away from Parents Can Help

• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families