Our Camp Parents Are Not Panicked

Jay Caspian Kang, a staff writer with The New Yorker, just published an interesting perspective on why parents send their kids to summer camp: they are panicked because they don’t know what to do with them during the summer and want to make sure they are enriched.

Obviously, this article made us curious and led us to wonder…is this true?

Not surprisingly, we all said, “Nope.”

In response, Sanborn Western Camps director, Ariella Rogge writes:

Look. I understand. We are always trying to justify what it is that we are doing. When time is money and action equals value, we employ measurable emotional/physical/intellectual calculus to determine what returns we are receiving for any given action. Sending your kids to camp may feel like an imperative or an excessive privilege–but, regardless, you want them to get something out of it.

I am telling you…they will.

Sometimes there is significant ROI…sometimes it is harder to calculate.

Human beings are not numeric or consistent or easy to simplify. We are complex, messy and–even in the most trying of circumstances–often inexorably hopeful. But we aren’t always going to be able to say–especially when our brains are still developing–exactly what it IS that we are getting out of any given experience. We simply do not know when, or how, we will draw upon what we have learned.

The camp experience is like that for me. Every summer is full of hope, possibility and promise while also being full of challenges, obstacles and missteps. We will strive to do great things, inspire new perspectives and cultivate growth–not for the bottom line, but because it is the right thing to do for kids.

If I could, I would make camp free for every family and every individual who realizes the power of our children–not as consumers or reflections of ourselves as parents and “strivers”–but as people who will shape the future.

Among the Masai people, the traditional greeting asks, “And how are the children?” The hoped-for answer is, “The children are well” which speaks to the value placed on childrens’ well-being within the culture. Motherhood has shaped me in profound ways, but I have been shaped more by my opportunity–as both an educator and as a camp professional–to work with thousands of children and emerging adult staff who have each learned something about themselves and others from living, working, playing and being at camp.

A quality camp experience is not a place holder or a time-occupier for children, it is a values and character definer. We do the work we can do as parents: coaching, supporting, encouraging, inspiring, cajoling, redirecting, shaping and defining–and then our kids need places outside of the “known” of home to practice becoming.

Camp is one of those places. It can be a microcosm of the world and a safe, supportive, connected place where children can, without full awareness and often without the distraction of technology, be their true, authentic, developing selves.

Not every kid is the right fit for every camp–but there is a camp for every kid. We would love it if kids could spend their summers “bored” and have the freedom to explore their neighborhoods and communities on foot, bikes, skateboards and other conveyances without the distraction of technology–yet that “bucolic” world is (once again) seemingly in the past.

So send your kids to camp, not because you should or have to, but because it will be valuable to them.

Like you, we agree.