We just sent our 8-year-old daugther to a summer camp in Northern Wisconsin. It was a rookie camp and we could send her for four days or a touch under two weeks. We opted for the four-day trial and the first words out of her mouth when we picked her up were "Mommy and Daddy, I want to come back for the entire summer next year!"
Our kiddo is an only-child, and really close to us. So it is impossible to understate the tremendous value of sending her to a camp experience like this. As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, I never got to experience the traditional camp of the Northern Wisconsin woods. I went to a choir and strings camp and although that was wonderful, it was not the same thing. I feel like I am giving my daugther a piece of the childhood I wished I had but more importantly, she is getting the ability to experience life without the two dominant gravitating forces in her life that set expectations, rules, and her way of life. Most importantly, the camp has a strict no-tech rule: No phones, no watches, no tablets, no computers.
It is pretty sad that we've reached a point with kids where we have to send them to a place like a summer camp to experience a world in which no devices or technology exists. I wish that some of these rules would be more pervasive in schools and learning environments. I know it's a hard line - the access to technology is vital to many of our ways of life, but clearly the benefits of not having access to them will greatly improve many of our greatest challenges around mental well-being.
My brother and I went to an 8-week sleepaway camp in Pennsylvania every summer from 1969 - 1976. It's difficult to articulate the impact that experience had on us, but it was profound. I still have monthly zoom calls with 5-10 of the guys from that time and we all have the same feeling about the magnitude of the experience on our lives. The bonds built are unshakeable, the memories as clear today as if they just happened and not 50 years ago.
My one regret as a parent was not sending our kids to a similar camp, although thankfully they still managed to turn out ok.
I was a camper and then a counselor at my all-girls sleep away camp for 10 years. It was my favorite place in the world as a kid for many of the reason highlighted here. But, as my years as a counselor progressed, I grew frustrated with the encroachment of technology and the culture of safetyism.
As a counselor, I taught an intensive campcraft program that culminated with a state-run certificate program. You either passed my course or you failed. Often I only had about three weeks to teach 14-15 year old girls 22 separate subjects including orienteering, axemanship, and canoeing. I taught them for two hours each morning and various other hours throughout the days when needed. It was a major commitment for the campers. I discovered that—despite implementing baseline requirements and entry tests—I was spending hours teaching teenagers how to strike matches. Part of this was because they’d never done that home—but the secondary part was because they had no been exposed to it at camp in earlier years. We had limitations on when we could let girls light fires, when we could start teaching them knife skills, etc. But our brother camp down the lake? Those boys were swinging axes at 8 years old.
My camp had a philosophy of safety. It’s written on their website: “The most important responsibility for a cabin counselor is the awareness of each camper’s needs and to help them feel physically and emotionally safe away from home.” “Non-competitive” was practically our camp motto. Safety, of course, has its place at camp. On the waterfront, at the ropes course, at the riflery range. But when you are restricting running games because someone might trip on a tree root? When teenage girls can’t strike a match? It’s too much. I was jealous of our brother camp’s philosophy of “managed risk”. I know firsthand how important risk was to my growth as a camper—how much learning to swing an ax, singeing my eyelashes getting too close to a budding fire, climbing along the knife’s edge of Katahdin has helped shape who I am now.
I haven’t been at camp since 2019 (they were closed in 2020, at which point I ended up getting a full time job) and, unless they let go of the aggressive safetyism taking over, I probably will never go back nor send a daughter of my own.
From ages 9-12, I spent 2 months each summer at a camp in northern Maine. It was a great experience that I recall fondly.
A few caveats about the camp "prescription" (using medical metaphors):
1. Like any "medication," it doesn't work for everyone. Many kids would do better with an alternative summer set-up
2. In dealing with any addiction (phones, substances), the first weeks of detox are painful and rarely result in a "cure". So sending kids to a phone free and free play enviro and then plunging them back into the old normal would be cruel. Aftercare matters.
3. Before we over-romanticize the "play without adult supervision., let's pay serious attention to the "bullying" (violence) problem during childhood/adolescence. Idyllic summer camp can be a "Lord of the Flies" experience and create life-long trauma for some. Schools still fail to deal with this problem effectively, and they have more resources than your modal summer camp.
Other than that, summer camp can be great for kid's health and happiness! 🚣🏻🤸🏻♂️🏊♀️
Thanks for this wonderful addition to the four new norms for addressing the mental health crisis. The fact that camps are set in nature, include continuous real-life interactions, and extend over several weeks, renders them akin to a "reset" button for healthy childhood. A group of teen boys in our church has managed to extend this type of experience throughout the year via long weekend retreats where they make fires, swim, compete, cook together, and continue to build strong bonds.
Those of us who grew up before the internet and mobile technology were really lucky. We had permanent summer camp in those days; it was called playing outside!
I went to an all-boys camp from ages 11 to 16, and it was such a a great escape from the relatively high pressure environment where I grew up. Are single-sex camps a thing anymore? I know mine merged with a all-girls camp and is now co-ed. There was something really cool about being able to spend time outside building things, hiking, and playing games without having to worry about any potential middle school relationship drama ruining my summer 😂
You’re usually spot on but miss the mark here. Summer camp is primarily born of a need for supplemental care during the summer months while mom and dad are at work. Camps are not the free-for-all playathon you envisage here. They are often require routines more tightly structured that a child would encounter in the home. Perhaps 50 years ago camp was what you imagine, but the bureaucracy of safety has so totally corrupted all childcare institutions that a child’s daily camp life runs by a strict timetable of activities. There is no free play.
Add to this the fact that sending your children to camp is to surrender them fully to the influence of peer culture. Sleep away camps are often the site of many unwanted firsts. As is often the case, we wrongly equate a lax attitude to the influence of peers to giving children freedom. My children spend their summers in true free exploration of our community, facilitated by an engaged stay at home mother who balances that freedom with a need to protect them from corrupting social and cultural influences.
All kids should have access to the summer camping experience, disconnected from what is drowning them and connected to what can heal them - nature, friendship, discovery, and confidence-building experiences. I was fortunate to have those experiences in Culver, Indiana during the summers of 1979 to 1981.
Jonathan’s Four Norms are outstanding, as is this Fifth Norm of summer camp. Outstanding but still missing what every child wants more than anything else: the underlying and essential need to be loved unconditionally, which means to be loved without disappointment or irritation. If a child has this kind of love, the five norms are powerful and effective. Without this love, however, the five norms alone are like simply removing cocaine from an addict and giving him three weeks of broccoli, while ignoring all the emotional support that makes genuine sobriety possible. Kids really do need strong limitations on phone use, along with independent and creative play, but that’s not enough. The success of these norms depends on the foundation of the unconditional love that we parents give our children. Learn how to find and give this love at the free websites RealLove.com and RealLoveParents.com.
Great article! It takes me back to my own adolescence, when my parents sent me to a church camp for four to six weeks each summer. From ages 9-16, I learned a lot about myself and other kids that has served me well in the ensuing years. More summer camps should be available to all kids!
Loved every moment of summer camp when I was a kid. Started at 8 years and went every year through high school. And the a CIT. I still have cherished memories of those good good times! Thanks for this article. My teenagers do not have phones. Obviously, they'll be fine without a device but to interact with others who are not permitted devices would be so wonderful! Camp will be life changing for my kids to be able to build bonds and connections without phones interfering. They are so pervasive in my neighborhood and local middle and high schools. Checking out your links now.
I spent several summers at Camp Caribou in Waterville, Maine and I became more self-reliant during these summers than at any time during my childhood. The skills and confidence I picked up doing outdoor activities from sports to hiking to sailing etc were invaluable over the long term. I may never sail a boat again but I know how to and knowing how to learn things is just important as the knowledge itself. I would argue this should be funded with tax payer dollars but I fear that would ruin it somehow. Summer Camps need to allow kids to take dangerous risks and too much Government involvement could ruin that easily.
We just sent our 8-year-old daugther to a summer camp in Northern Wisconsin. It was a rookie camp and we could send her for four days or a touch under two weeks. We opted for the four-day trial and the first words out of her mouth when we picked her up were "Mommy and Daddy, I want to come back for the entire summer next year!"
Our kiddo is an only-child, and really close to us. So it is impossible to understate the tremendous value of sending her to a camp experience like this. As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, I never got to experience the traditional camp of the Northern Wisconsin woods. I went to a choir and strings camp and although that was wonderful, it was not the same thing. I feel like I am giving my daugther a piece of the childhood I wished I had but more importantly, she is getting the ability to experience life without the two dominant gravitating forces in her life that set expectations, rules, and her way of life. Most importantly, the camp has a strict no-tech rule: No phones, no watches, no tablets, no computers.
It is pretty sad that we've reached a point with kids where we have to send them to a place like a summer camp to experience a world in which no devices or technology exists. I wish that some of these rules would be more pervasive in schools and learning environments. I know it's a hard line - the access to technology is vital to many of our ways of life, but clearly the benefits of not having access to them will greatly improve many of our greatest challenges around mental well-being.
My brother and I went to an 8-week sleepaway camp in Pennsylvania every summer from 1969 - 1976. It's difficult to articulate the impact that experience had on us, but it was profound. I still have monthly zoom calls with 5-10 of the guys from that time and we all have the same feeling about the magnitude of the experience on our lives. The bonds built are unshakeable, the memories as clear today as if they just happened and not 50 years ago.
My one regret as a parent was not sending our kids to a similar camp, although thankfully they still managed to turn out ok.
I was a camper and then a counselor at my all-girls sleep away camp for 10 years. It was my favorite place in the world as a kid for many of the reason highlighted here. But, as my years as a counselor progressed, I grew frustrated with the encroachment of technology and the culture of safetyism.
As a counselor, I taught an intensive campcraft program that culminated with a state-run certificate program. You either passed my course or you failed. Often I only had about three weeks to teach 14-15 year old girls 22 separate subjects including orienteering, axemanship, and canoeing. I taught them for two hours each morning and various other hours throughout the days when needed. It was a major commitment for the campers. I discovered that—despite implementing baseline requirements and entry tests—I was spending hours teaching teenagers how to strike matches. Part of this was because they’d never done that home—but the secondary part was because they had no been exposed to it at camp in earlier years. We had limitations on when we could let girls light fires, when we could start teaching them knife skills, etc. But our brother camp down the lake? Those boys were swinging axes at 8 years old.
My camp had a philosophy of safety. It’s written on their website: “The most important responsibility for a cabin counselor is the awareness of each camper’s needs and to help them feel physically and emotionally safe away from home.” “Non-competitive” was practically our camp motto. Safety, of course, has its place at camp. On the waterfront, at the ropes course, at the riflery range. But when you are restricting running games because someone might trip on a tree root? When teenage girls can’t strike a match? It’s too much. I was jealous of our brother camp’s philosophy of “managed risk”. I know firsthand how important risk was to my growth as a camper—how much learning to swing an ax, singeing my eyelashes getting too close to a budding fire, climbing along the knife’s edge of Katahdin has helped shape who I am now.
I haven’t been at camp since 2019 (they were closed in 2020, at which point I ended up getting a full time job) and, unless they let go of the aggressive safetyism taking over, I probably will never go back nor send a daughter of my own.
Lenore Skenazy was kind enough to post my thoughts on phones at summer camp on LetGrow last August: https://letgrow.org/phones-at-camp/
From ages 9-12, I spent 2 months each summer at a camp in northern Maine. It was a great experience that I recall fondly.
A few caveats about the camp "prescription" (using medical metaphors):
1. Like any "medication," it doesn't work for everyone. Many kids would do better with an alternative summer set-up
2. In dealing with any addiction (phones, substances), the first weeks of detox are painful and rarely result in a "cure". So sending kids to a phone free and free play enviro and then plunging them back into the old normal would be cruel. Aftercare matters.
3. Before we over-romanticize the "play without adult supervision., let's pay serious attention to the "bullying" (violence) problem during childhood/adolescence. Idyllic summer camp can be a "Lord of the Flies" experience and create life-long trauma for some. Schools still fail to deal with this problem effectively, and they have more resources than your modal summer camp.
Other than that, summer camp can be great for kid's health and happiness! 🚣🏻🤸🏻♂️🏊♀️
Thanks for this wonderful addition to the four new norms for addressing the mental health crisis. The fact that camps are set in nature, include continuous real-life interactions, and extend over several weeks, renders them akin to a "reset" button for healthy childhood. A group of teen boys in our church has managed to extend this type of experience throughout the year via long weekend retreats where they make fires, swim, compete, cook together, and continue to build strong bonds.
And for the same reason, as I stare at a screen and type this out, parents need summer camps too
Those of us who grew up before the internet and mobile technology were really lucky. We had permanent summer camp in those days; it was called playing outside!
I went to an all-boys camp from ages 11 to 16, and it was such a a great escape from the relatively high pressure environment where I grew up. Are single-sex camps a thing anymore? I know mine merged with a all-girls camp and is now co-ed. There was something really cool about being able to spend time outside building things, hiking, and playing games without having to worry about any potential middle school relationship drama ruining my summer 😂
You’re usually spot on but miss the mark here. Summer camp is primarily born of a need for supplemental care during the summer months while mom and dad are at work. Camps are not the free-for-all playathon you envisage here. They are often require routines more tightly structured that a child would encounter in the home. Perhaps 50 years ago camp was what you imagine, but the bureaucracy of safety has so totally corrupted all childcare institutions that a child’s daily camp life runs by a strict timetable of activities. There is no free play.
Add to this the fact that sending your children to camp is to surrender them fully to the influence of peer culture. Sleep away camps are often the site of many unwanted firsts. As is often the case, we wrongly equate a lax attitude to the influence of peers to giving children freedom. My children spend their summers in true free exploration of our community, facilitated by an engaged stay at home mother who balances that freedom with a need to protect them from corrupting social and cultural influences.
All kids should have access to the summer camping experience, disconnected from what is drowning them and connected to what can heal them - nature, friendship, discovery, and confidence-building experiences. I was fortunate to have those experiences in Culver, Indiana during the summers of 1979 to 1981.
Great article. We send our 7/10yo to 2/4w summer camp, and it's 100% the highlight of their year, and they beg to be able to stay longer every year.
If you're in the NE Ohio/Pittsburgh area, I can't recommend https://www.falconcamp.com/ enough.
Jonathan’s Four Norms are outstanding, as is this Fifth Norm of summer camp. Outstanding but still missing what every child wants more than anything else: the underlying and essential need to be loved unconditionally, which means to be loved without disappointment or irritation. If a child has this kind of love, the five norms are powerful and effective. Without this love, however, the five norms alone are like simply removing cocaine from an addict and giving him three weeks of broccoli, while ignoring all the emotional support that makes genuine sobriety possible. Kids really do need strong limitations on phone use, along with independent and creative play, but that’s not enough. The success of these norms depends on the foundation of the unconditional love that we parents give our children. Learn how to find and give this love at the free websites RealLove.com and RealLoveParents.com.
Great article! It takes me back to my own adolescence, when my parents sent me to a church camp for four to six weeks each summer. From ages 9-16, I learned a lot about myself and other kids that has served me well in the ensuing years. More summer camps should be available to all kids!
Loved every moment of summer camp when I was a kid. Started at 8 years and went every year through high school. And the a CIT. I still have cherished memories of those good good times! Thanks for this article. My teenagers do not have phones. Obviously, they'll be fine without a device but to interact with others who are not permitted devices would be so wonderful! Camp will be life changing for my kids to be able to build bonds and connections without phones interfering. They are so pervasive in my neighborhood and local middle and high schools. Checking out your links now.
A terrific piece. Thank you.
I spent several summers at Camp Caribou in Waterville, Maine and I became more self-reliant during these summers than at any time during my childhood. The skills and confidence I picked up doing outdoor activities from sports to hiking to sailing etc were invaluable over the long term. I may never sail a boat again but I know how to and knowing how to learn things is just important as the knowledge itself. I would argue this should be funded with tax payer dollars but I fear that would ruin it somehow. Summer Camps need to allow kids to take dangerous risks and too much Government involvement could ruin that easily.