Camp Blessings
There are many benefits to a camp experience, but for well-known
psychologist, Wendy Mogel, some of the top ones for parents to remember
are mud, dirty fingernails and bugs. Canada Camps for Parents sits down with
the author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee to get her thoughts on why
parents should send their kids to camp
CHALLENGES OF TODAY’S PARENTS
The default challenges of loving, de-
voting, intelligent parents are over pro-
tection, over scheduling, over indulgence
and expecting kids to perform at a higher
level in every area except for respect for
adults. Today’s kids that are bubble
wrapped don’t develop physical, social
and spiritual immune systems because
they are too protected.
HAVE CHALLENGES CHANGED
When I was a child, children could go
play outside on a summer night without
adults knowing where they were until
dark. When I was in school, the kinder-
garten curriculum included making an
ashtray and learning a couple of songs
alley Camp
and how to clean up after snack. Today,
schools are preparing kids for stan-
dardized tests. The academic pressure
Kettleby V
is very different and the 24-hour news
cycle and the love of terrifying parents
Photos:
has made parents phobic about giving ROLE MODELING are not ready to do. This is not how you
their kids much freedom in nature. Par- The most important thing for parents to create life-long, enthusiastic learners.
ents have an image in their mind of a remember is role modeling. If the school
pedophile or child abductor spending has a sign saying no left turns out of the EXPERIENCE WITH CAMP MOVEMENT
most of their time trying to figure out parking lot and the parent makes a left I went to camp for 16 years. I went to a
how to target their child — the odds of turn, a six year old recognizes that. Very day camp and was a camper, Counsellor-
that happening are extremely minis- small acts have a big impact on little in-Training, staff member and senior staff
cule. They are also fearful of giving people. The amount of cheating done in member. I grew up in New York City and
them privacy. Parents are so brain- high schools and universities is greater it was tradition to send kids to camp for
washed that they think private means today than 15 years ago. These kids, eight weeks. I loved camp. It was so dif-
danger. Instead, private means time to every minute of every day, believe their ferent than being at home. We would just
daydream, fart around and accomplish whole future is on the line. This is what sit around the pond and gather frogs.
nothing, to rest or for spiritual growth. we have created – an unethical atmos- Camp has so many good things for kids:
phere by our own actions as parents and mosquitoes, mean kids in your bunk,
CHILD DEVELOPMENT & CAMP putting our kids in situations where the times when you feel too hot or too cold
The biggest symptoms psychologists and bible would call it a “stumbling block be- and a lake which is really cold.
school administrators complain about in fore the blind.”
today’s kids are anxiety, entitlement and This is how you create, especially in CAMP EXPECTATIONS
general high maintenance. Camp is the boys, demoralization about school, and What I want parents to expect is that at the
opposite of that. At camp, you are just a rowdy, acting out behaviour. They are so beginning of the summer, their child
bunk member. frustrated at being asked to do work they might petition to go home. Camp is an an-
18 Canada Camps for Parents January 2010 Edition
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