Displaying items by tag: parents let kids play
As the camp director of Swift Nature Camp, I'm familiar with homesickness in campers. I often see this as the buses pulled up to take the kids away to overnight camp, I couldn't help but notice the mix of emotions on display. The younger children seemed apprehensive about being separated from their parents, pets, and electronic devices, while the older generation appeared to be experiencing a mixture of love and anxiety. Yet new to me, is the increased feeling of "kidsickness" that many parents experience when their children go away to camp. The pandemic is one of the reasons these feelings have become so intense. We parents got used to our kids being with us 24/7.
Yet, there are parents who managed to keep their emotions in check and do not try to stow away on the bus. Sending kids away to camp can be difficult, but it's worth it when you see the transformation that takes place. Kids grow the most when they're asleep, and the same is true at camp. They are transported to a different realm, and a change in expectations helps them mature quickly. Eventhough, I own Swift Nature Camp, I am also a parent and I have seen the power of camp in 1000 of kids, so much so, that our child went to a different camp, because no kids want their parent to be the camp director.
We parents at home tend to intervene when our kids encounter problems. But at camp, they become more resourceful because no one else is going to make their bed or solve their problems. This independence helps them develop new habits and skills that they can apply in their daily lives. They also become more resilient when they experience low moments and are forced to work through them on their own.
Camp also offers kids a chance to re-invent themselves. Children who were unpopular or bullied at school get a fresh start at camp and can make friends and find new self-esteem. This experience can be life-changing, and some kids even go on to work at camps as adults, eager to give back what they received as campers.
While camp cannot solve all emotional issues, it can be a valuable solution for most. With the prevalence of mental health problems increasing in today's world, camp offers a secure and encouraging space for children to develop self-assurance and acquire essential life skills. As a result, upon their return, both younger and older campers may experience a mix of happiness and nostalgia, or "campsickness."
Parents, I know you are anxious, it will be OK. You can anticipate a reduction in your own "kidsickness" when you witness your camper's joy in their accomplishments and learn to enjoy your newfound free time. You may even look forward to the next summer with eagerness. To learn more about Sleep-away Summer Camp
Sending your child to overnight summer camp can be a daunting experience, especially if it's their first time away from home. It's understandable for parents to have fears and anxieties when it comes to sending their children to overnight summer camp. "The idea of being separated from your child and entrusting their well-being to someone else can be overwhelming. However, it's important to recognize that these fears and anxieties are normal and to take steps to address them" says Lonnie of Swift Nature Camp
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Research the camp: One of the best ways to reduce fears about sending your child to summer camp is to do your research and choose a reputable camp with a strong track record. Look for a camp that has a strong emphasis on safety, with well-trained staff and thorough emergency procedures in place. Always best to call the Directors and talk directly to them.
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Prepare your child: Help your child prepare for camp by talking to them about what to expect and packing all the necessary items. You can also encourage your child to make a list of activities or goals they would like to accomplish at camp.
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Communicate with the camp staff: Establish a line of communication with the camp staff, so you can stay informed about your child's experience and address any concerns that may arise.
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Set up communication with your child: Many camps offer options for parents to stay in touch with their children, such as phone calls or letters. Set up a communication plan with your child before they leave for camp, so you both know how to stay in touch.
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Encourage independence: Summer camp is a great opportunity for your child to develop independence and self-reliance. Encourage your child to try new things and make their own decisions while they are at camp.
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Talk to your child about homesickness: It's common for children to experience homesickness when they are away from home. Talk to your child about homesickness and reassure them that it's a normal feeling. Encourage them to express their feelings and remind them that the camp staff is there to support them.
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Set realistic expectations: It's important to have realistic expectations about your child's experience at camp. While it can be an exciting and enriching experience, it may not be perfect. Remind yourself that your child will be learning and growing, and that challenges are a natural part of this process.
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Trust the camp staff: The camp staff is there to support your child and ensure their well-being. Trust that they are competent and capable of handling any issues that may arise.
Lastly:Find something that you will accomplish while your child is at camp. This is your time to do something you have not done in a while: paint, play music, relax and just have fun. Your child will be OK
Sending your child to overnight summer camp can be a challenging and emotional experience, but it can also be an incredibly rewarding one. By doing your research, preparing your child, and communicating with the camp staff, you can reduce your fears and help your child have a positive and enriching experience.
Want to know more talk to Jeff & Lonnie at Swift Nature Camp
Summer programs for kids can provide a wide range of benefits for parents who choose to enroll their children in these programs. These programs include, summer camps, day care and overnight summer camps. Here are some of the main benefits that parents can experience when they use summer programs for their children:
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Academic enrichment: Many summer programs offer academic or skill-building activities that can help your child stay engaged and learning during the summer break. This can be especially beneficial if your child is struggling in a particular subject or if you want to give them a head start on the next school year.
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Socialization: Summer programs can provide a great opportunity for your child to meet and interact with other children their age. This can help your child develop important social skills and make new friends.
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Physical activity: Many summer programs offer outdoor activities like sports, hiking, and swimming that can help your child stay active and healthy. These activities can also help improve your child's coordination and physical fitness.
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Independence and responsibility: Overnight camps in particular can help your child learn to be more independent and responsible. Your child will have to manage their own time, follow rules, and take care of their personal belongings. These skills can be beneficial in the long run and can help your child develop a sense of self-reliance.
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Resume-building: Participating in a summer program can also look good on a college application or resume. It shows that your child is proactive and willing to take on new challenges and experiences.
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Fun: Summer programs can be a lot of fun for your child! They will have the opportunity to try new activities and make new friends in a supportive and structured environment.
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Parental peace of mind: Enrolling your child in a summer program can also provide peace of mind for parents. You can rest assured that your child is in a safe and supervised environment while you are at work or busy with other responsibilities.
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Time for personal pursuits: Summer programs can also give you, as a parent, some much-needed time to pursue your own interests or to simply relax and recharge. You may have the opportunity to take a vacation, catch up on work projects, or simply enjoy some downtime.
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Quality child care: Summer programs can also provide quality child care while you are at work or busy with other responsibilities. You can trust that your child is in a safe and supportive environment while you are away.
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Reduced stress: Finally, enrolling your child in a summer program can help reduce stress for both you and your child. Your child will have a structured and engaging environment to spend their time in, and you can have peace of mind knowing that they are being well taken care of.
In conclusion, summer youth camps for kids can provide a wide range of benefits for parents. These programs can offer academic enrichment, socialization, physical activity, independence and responsibility, resume-building, and fun for children. For parents, summer programs can provide peace of mind, time for personal pursuits, quality child care, and reduced stress. By enrolling your child in a summer program, you can help ensure that they have a productive and enjoyable summer break while also benefiting yourself.
As parents we all want the best for our child. We have goals and want them to be thier best. Yet, thier is one thing that every parent MUST remember. Do you know what that is? Watch this video to learn this helpful 4 step program.
I recently found this comic and it really brought home the point of how times have changed in my lifetime. The addictive behavior of technology is a powerful force. The most recent impact is the closing of nearly 800 Toys R Us Stores in the USA. Yet this is only the beginning of how Play will change and in turn impact our kids. Below is a article by Esther Entin and published in The Atlantic that is important for all parents. It makes me realize that Overnight Summer Camp may be one of the last few areas that are tech free and dedicated to play.
What are your memories of playing as a child? Some of us will remember hide and seek, house, tag, and red rover red rover. Others may recall arguing about rules in kickball or stick ball or taking turns at jump rope, or creating imaginary worlds with our dolls, building forts, putting on plays, or dressing-up. From long summer days to a few precious after-school hours, kid-organized play may have filled much of your free time. But what about your children? Are their opportunities for play the same as yours were? Most likely not.
Play time is in short supply for children these days and the lifelong consequences for developing children can be more serious than many people realize.
THE DECLINE OF PLAY
An article in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Play details not only how much children's play time has declined, but how this lack of play affects emotional development, leading to the rise of anxiety, depression, and problems of attention and self control.
"Since about 1955 ... children's free play has been continually declining, at least partly because adults have exerted ever-increasing control over children's activities," says the author Peter Gray, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology (emeritus) at Boston College. Gray defines "free play" as play a child undertakes him- or her-self and which is self-directed and an end in itself, rather than part of some organized activity.
Gray describes this kind of unstructured, freely-chosen play as a testing ground for life. It provides critical life experiences without which young children cannot develop into confident and competent adults. Gray's article is meant to serve as a wake-up call regarding the effects of lost play, and he believes that lack of childhood free play time is a huge loss that must be addressed for the sake of our children and society.
WHO AND WHAT IS INTERFERING WITH CHILDREN'S PLAY?
Parents who hover over and intrude on their children's play are a big part of the problem, according to Gray. "It is hard to find groups of children outdoors at all, and, if you do find them, they are likely to be wearing uniforms and following the directions of coaches while their parents dutifully watch and cheer." He cites a study which assessed the way 6- to 8-year-olds spent their time in 1981 and again in 1997.
The researchers found that compared to 1981, children in 1997 spent less time in play and had less free time. They spent 18 percent more time at school, 145 percent more time doing school work, and 168 percent more time shopping with parents. The researchers found that, including computer play, children in 1997 spent only about eleven hours per week at play.
In another study, mothers were asked to compare their own memories of their playtime, to their children's current schedules. Eighty-five percent noted that their children played outdoors less frequently and for shorter periods of time than they had. The mothers noted that they restricted their own children's outdoor play because of safety concerns, a fact echoed in other surveys where parents mentioned child predators, road traffic, and bullies as reasons for restricting their children's outdoor play.
Adding to the problem, Gray notes, is our increasing emphasis on schooling and on adult-directed activities. Preschools and kindergartens have become more academically-oriented and many schools have even eliminated recess. It is not that anyone set out to do away with free play time. But its value has not been recognized. As a result, kids' free play time has not been protected.
FIVE WAYS PLAY BENEFITS KIDS
When children are in charge of their own play, it provides a foundation for their future mental health as older children and adults. Gray mentions five main benefits:
1. Play gives children a chance to find and develop a connection to their own self-identified and self-guided interests.
As they choose the activities that make up free play, kids learn to direct themselves and pursue and elaborate on their interests in a way that can sustain them throughout life. Gray notes that: "...in school, children work for grades and praise and in adult-directed sports, they work for praise and trophies.... In free play, children do what they want to do, and the learning and psychological growth that results are byproducts, not conscious goals of the activity."
2. It is through play that children first learn how to make decisions, solve problems, exert self control, and follow rules.
As children direct their own free play and solve the problems that come up, they must exert control over themselves and must, at times, accept restrictions on their own behavior and follow the rules if they want to be accepted and successful in the game.
As children negotiate both their physical and social environments through play, they can gain a sense of mastery over their world, Gray contends. It is this aspect of play that offers enormous psychological benefits, helping to protect children from anxiety and depression.
"Children who do not have the opportunity to control their own actions, to make and follow through on their own decisions, to solve their own problems, and to learn how to follow rules in the course of play grow up feeling that they are not in control of their own lives and fate. They grow up feeling that they are dependent on luck and on the goodwill and whims of others...."
Anxiety and depression often occur when an individual feels a lack of control over his or her own life. "Those who believe that they master their own fate are much less likely to become anxious or depressed than those who believe that they are victims of circumstances beyond their control." Gray believes that the loss of playtime lessons about one's ability to exert control over some life circumstances set the scene for anxiety and depression.
3. Children learn to handle their emotions, including anger and fear, during play.
In free play, children put themselves into both physically and socially challenging situations and learn to control the emotions that arise from these stressors. They role play, swing, slide, and climb trees ... and "such activities are fun to the degree that they are moderately frightening ... nobody but the child himself or herself knows the right dose."
Gray suggests that the reduced ability to regulate emotions may be a key factor in the development of some anxiety disorders. "Individuals suffering from anxiety disorders describe losing emotional control as one of their greatest fears. They are afraid of their own fear, and therefore small degrees of fear generated by mildly threatening situations lead to high degrees of fear generated by the person's fear of losing control." Adults who did not have the opportunity to experience and cope with moderately challenging emotional situations during play are more at risk for feeling anxious and overwhelmed by emotion-provoking situations in adult life.
4. Play helps children make friends and learn to get along with each other as equals.
Social play is a natural means of making friends and learning to treat one another fairly. Since play is voluntary and playmates may abandon the game at any time if they feel uncomfortable, children learn to be aware of their playmates' needs and attempt to meet them in order to maintain the play.
Gray believes that "learning to get along and cooperate with others as equals may be the most crucial evolutionary function of human social play ... and that social play is nature's means of teaching young humans that they are not special. Even those who are more skilled at the game's actions ... must consider the needs and wishes of the others as equal to their own, or else the others will exclude them." Gray cites increasing social isolation as a potential precursor to psychopathology and notes that the decline in play may be "both a consequence and a cause of the increased social isolation and loneliness in the culture."
5. Most importantly, play is a source of happiness.
When children are asked about the activities that bring them happiness, they say they are happier when playing with friends than in any other situation. Perhaps you felt this way when remembering your own childhood play experiences at the beginning of this article.
Gray sees the loss of play time as a double whammy: we have not only taken away the joys of free play, we have replaced them with emotionally stressful activities. "[A]s a society, we have come to the conclusion that to protect children from danger and to educate them, we must deprive them of the very activity that makes them happiest and place them for ever more hours in settings where they are more or less continually directed and evaluated by adults, setting almost designed to produce anxiety and depression."
THE LOSS OF PLAY AND RISE OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
There has been a significant increase in anxiety and depression from 1950 to present day in teens and young adults and Gray cites several studies documenting this rise. One showed that five to eight times as many children and college students reported clinically significant depression or anxiety than 50 years ago and another documented a similar trend in the fourteen- to sixteen-year-old age group between 1948 and 1989.
Suicide rates quadrupled from 1950 to 2005 for children less than fifteen years and for teens and young adults ages 15-25, they doubled. Gray believes that the loss of unstructured, free play for play's sake is at the core of this alarming observation and that as a society, we should reassess the role of free play and the factors that seem to have all but eliminated it from our children's lives.
When parents realize the major role that free play can take in the development of emotionally healthy children and adults, they may wish to reassess the priorities ruling their children's lives. The competing needs for childcare, academic and athletic success, and children's safety are compelling. But perhaps parents can begin to identify small changes -- such as openings in the schedule, backing off from quite so many supervised activities, and possibly slightly less hovering on the playground that would start the pendulum returning to the direction of free, imaginative, kid-directed play.
