Bullying
has received a lot of recent press, especially as more and more schools
adopt anti-bullying programs in their curriculum. Witnessing school
shootings that were, in part, retaliation for relentless bullying may
have increased our empathy toward both bullies and their targets, as
well as our motivation to change. But tragic events, additions to
curricula, and press coverage have all made it seem as if bullying is
new. It might surprise you to learn that camping professionals have
been taking a systematic, proactive role in preventing bullying since
1929. That year marked the publication of Camping and Character: A Camp Experiment in Character Education.
In Camping and Character,
authors Hedley Dimock and Charles Hendry reported on the results of a
multiyear study conducted at Camp Ahmek in Ontario. The study sought to
uncover the changes evidenced in campers' behavior during six weeks at
camp, and to understand the mechanisms behind those changes. Among the
more than 50 behaviors the authors tracked was bullying. Dimock and
Hendry recognized that even small increases in bullying behavior needed
to be addressed by the camp leadership. They were also encouraged by
huge increases in many prosocial behaviors, such as "Making a friendly
approach to [an] unlikable boy."
Nearly
80 years later, what are the most important things we've learned about
bullying? The answer has three parts. First, bullying itself is only
half the picture. For every bully, there is at least one target.
Second, bullying is cyclic. A recent study by the Center for Disease
Control confirmed that about three quarters of bullies are also targets
and about three quarters of targets turn around to bully another child.
Third, bullying is social. Antisocial, to be sure, but it represents a
dynamic, complex, interaction whose origins lie in unhealthy
relationships. Therefore, the solutions lie not in simple punishment,
but in the formation of healthy relationships.
Camps
are uniquely suited to deal with bullying because they are such healthy
social environments. At camp, leaders supervise children and have
opportunities to educate bullies and targets. Leaders can teach the
kinds of prosocial behaviors Dimock, Hendry, and their pioneering
predecessors saw so often at camps. This is easier to do than most
people think, partly because bullying is so often a misguided attempt
to make a social connection. If you can teach a bully how to make a
social connection without using coercion, threats, or violence, you
have actually met that child's needs instead of simply punishing his or
her misbehavior.
Specifically, camps help children in the following ways:
- By having the camp staff set a sterling interpersonal example for all children to follow.
- By seeing beyond the bully alone and including his or her target in an intervention.
- By
strengthening bullies' fragile sense of themselves by providing
opportunities for authentic achievement and human connection in various
athletic or artistic domains.
- By teaching bullies to make social connections through healthy interaction.
- By teaching targets to stand up to bullies in ways that makes bullying unrewarding.
- By
setting, early and often in the camp session, strict guidelines for
kindness and generosity...and then heaping on the praise when staff
witness prosocial behaviors.
- By
providing the kind of close supervision that allows both bullies and
targets to replay unacceptable or unassertive interactions under the
guidance of experienced adult staff.
- By
deliberately creating a culture of caring that is perhaps different
from school or the neighborhood at home...and then immersing children in
that culture.
- By
allowing positive peer pressure to exert itself such that children feel
appreciated and rewarded for gentleness, honesty, kindness, and
unselfishness.
Camps
are not a bullying panacea. Outside of camp, there are powerful forces,
such as violent media, that infuse children with the notion that
violent, even lethal solutions to vexing social problems are both
effective and glorious. Nevertheless, camp is a powerful, positive
force for change. Educating bullies and their targets is just one of
the many ways camp enriches lives and changes the world.
So
next time you're talking with your child's camp director, don't ask
whether they have a bullying prevention program. If all your camp is
doing is trying to prevent bullying, that's not enough. Instead, ask,
"When instances of bullying occur, what are the ways your camp's
leaders teach bullies and their targets alternative, prosocial
behaviors?" and "How does your camp create a culture that exerts
positive peer pressure?"
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My
parents love to recount the story of my first overnight camp
experience. Well, at least they tell about the parts they witnessed:
the drop-off, the pick-up, and the one letter I sent. Naturally,
opening day was replete with the usual stressors: last-minute packing,
fouled-up driving directions (these were the days before the Internet,
Mapquest, and GPS), and a teary goodbye. Closing day was not quite what
my parents anticipated. When they drove up to my cabin and leapt out of
the car, I famously declared, "Next year, I want to stay all summer!"
My mom and dad were expecting another tearful embrace-something out of Gone With the Wind probably-but all I could think of was returning to camp. (It's taken about 25 years to convince my mom that I was glad to see her...it's just that I had fallen in love with camp.)
My
parents fell in love with camp, too, when their son started making his
own bed, keeping his elbows off the table, exuding confidence on the
sports field, and, yes, dare I say it...getting along with his little
brother! Gulp. My parents were dumbfounded. Dad would chide, "This is
not my kid!" and my mother would add, "Who are you and what have you
done with Chris?" You can understand their surprise as well as their
joy. What kind of experience had the power to trump more than a decade
of exemplary parenting? (You know my parents had tried
relentlessly to get me to make my bed and treat my brother with
respect.) How did camp accomplish the impossible?
Here's
the deal: Camp (especially overnight camp) has a triad of factors that
set it apart from any other experience. It is: (1) community living;
(2) away from home; (3) without academic stress. No other experience
comes close. Boarding school offers the first two factors, but is
academically stressful. Family vacations offer the latter two factors,
but lack the benefit of a large community of other children. The local
neighborhood may offer a great sense of community and lots of
opportunities for recreation, but it's not an experience away from home.
Now
that I've convinced you that overnight camp is unique, how exactly does
it use its special triad of factors to effect such remarkable change in
young people? Well, first of all, not all camps do affect
remarkable change. Most often, positive growth occurs at the camps with
high levels of intentionality. Intentionality is the deliberate process
of putting the camp's mission into action. In other words, high quality
camps not only say, "Our camp's mission is to help kids grow in this
way or that way," they also say, "And here are the ways we do it." They
have a goal and a method. Research supports the notion that
intentionality is especially important when it comes to increasing
children's self-esteem and spirituality, two particularly intentional
parts of a high quality camp's mission.
Intentionality
and the uniqueness of camp come together in some extraordinary ways.
Consider the child who gets up on waterskis for the first time, the
child whose counselor coaches him through a particularly difficult bout
of homesickness, the child who is given the responsibility of being a
"big sister" or "big brother" to a younger camper, or the child who
sneaks contraband into camp, admits to it within hours, and is praised
for his honesty. These are but a few examples among thousands of the
ways in which real accomplishments, real perseverance, real responsibility, and real integrity
are cultivated. In the supportive context of community living away from
home, without academic stress, such experiences are possible. At the
highest quality camps, these experiences are a way of life.
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As
a psychologist who works with summer camps across the country, I am
often asked whether competition is good or bad. Proponents of
competition speak fondly of their athletic victories and about wanting
the same thing for their campers. Competition, they say, builds
character. It's a competitive world out there, so we had better prepare
our children. Critics of competition want every child to feel like a
winner always. They don't want to pit one child or one group against
another, nor do they want external rewards, such as grades or trophies,
to motivate participation.
No
camp director, teacher, coach, or parent I know wants the kind of
competition that makes children unduly anxious, that interferes with
their performance and creativity, or that makes them uninterested.
However, to eliminate competition simultaneously eliminates
opportunities to learn humility and grace. Research on the negative
aspects of unhealthy competition is mostly solid, but using it as a
rationale for eliminating competition altogether may throw the baby out
with the bathwater.
Although
some believe that "healthy competition" is actually a contradiction in
terms, I have a different perspective. The unhealthy competition I've
witnessed is: ubiquitous, focused exclusively on rewards or
punishments, belligerent, rude, critical, and unfair. A classic example
is the child who, after a day at school where grades are the only
object, is forced to play in a youth soccer league where parents
emphasize trophies, coaches berate kids, spectators scold every
mistake, one team has vastly greater talent than the others, and not
every child gets to play.
Life
doesn't have to be that way. What I've seen that is healthy is what I'd
call "cooperative competition." This may also seem like a contradiction
in terms, but when competition creates just a little anxiety, demands
fair play, and emphasizes fun, children's performance can be enhanced
and they learn to make moral decisions independent of adult caregivers.
Cooperative competition emphasizes the following:
- Praising effort, not outcomes.
Although vapid praise is useless, pointing out incremental
accomplishments builds self-esteem. The baseball coach that tells her
player, "You swung hard and made contact" is doing a better job than
the coach who simply says, "Nice swing," and a far better job than the
coach who screams, "Come on! Park that thing! You swing like a baby!"
- Focusing on strengths.
Instead of comparing a player to his teammates, such as "Why can't you
kick the ball like Robbie?" focus on strengths. The coach who tells his
player, "You're passing well. Let's try that corner kick again." is
capitalizing on what's intrinsically rewarding to a child by focusing
on her strengths.
- Having fun, but not at the expense of others.
The joy of any game should not be in the winning or losing, and
certainly not in the harming of others, but in the playing of the game
and the cultivation of relationships. To that end, cooperative
competition emphasizes cheers, not jeers, and handshakes, not prizes.
- Engaging children in discussions about their own behavior.
Instead of criticizing or praising a particular action, teammates and
adult supervisors can ask questions like, "Tell me about your decision
to pass the ball to Jessie" or "What's the boo-ing about for you?"
- Emphasizing teamwork. Every individual behavior affects others. Pointing that out to children as it's happening builds strong teams and communities.
The
cornerstone of cooperative competition is how the adults in charge
frame the game or activity. Just about any game can be set up in a
friendly or unfriendly way, just as any activity can be explained in a
way that promotes anxiety and hurts performance and self-esteem.
Consider
this example from an expert on games who suggested an interesting
variation on musical chairs. Instead of having the last player standing
sit out on each successive round, have the entire group try to sit on
fewer and fewer chairs. That way, no one is ever out and, some would
argue, there is no risk that anyone would feel like a loser.
I've
played this game at camp with kids and discovered several things. First
of all, it results in more injuries than regular musical chairs. Trying
to get eight or nine kids to sit or somehow balance on a single chair
has the potential to be an excellent cooperative game. However, there
tend to be lots of stubbed toes and pinched fingers. Second, there
tends to be more peer criticism than regular musical chairs. I heard
kids say, "You're too fat to hang on" and "My sister's more coordinated
than you."
What
I learned was that no game or activity is inherently healthy. The wacky
version of musical chairs cannot guarantee that some kids won't feel
like losers when it's all over. It is entirely possible that the more
coordinated children will feel good about how they were able to
scramble together and balance on the chair, and the less coordinated
will feel as if they've let the group down, or worse. Of course, it's
also possible that if someone ran that activity better than I did on my
first try, the entire group would have fun and leave feeling good about
themselves.
That
is precisely my point. Skilled teachers, coaches, camp staff, and
parents can supervise baseball, musical chairs, or painting and make it
either a constructive or destructive experience for children. There are
rules to follow, skills to learn, and strengths to capitalize on. There
are friendships to be cultivated, ethical decisions to be made, and
successes to be experienced.
What
builds character is not keeping a stiff upper lip when your team loses
or when your painting of a horse looks like a cow. What builds
character is having others like you for who you are, not how you
perform. What builds character is having adults who provide success
experiences and set good examples for children. What builds character
is being supported in achieving a challenging goal.
One
of the best examples of this kind of leadership I ever witnessed was,
coincidentally, in a game of musical chairs at camp. The first person
out was actually one of the cabin leaders. He threw his arms up in the
air and shouted, "Now here's how you leave the game!" He then boogied
out of the circle by combining some break-dancing moves with a little
song he made up on the spot. You can imagine what followed. Each
successive child who got out make up his own hip-hop song-and-dance
routine. There was no arguing, of course, because the campers saw that
it was as much fun to stay in as it was to get out. No one felt like a
loser. Everyone just laughed and asked to play again.
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how adults frame the game.
Reprinted from CAMP by permission of the American Camp Association;
copyright 2005 American Camping Association, Inc.
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That’s right…there’s great news about homesickness! For starters, you should know that:
- Homesickness
(or “missing home”) is normal. In study after study, researchers found
that 95% of boys and girls who were spending at least two weeks at
overnight camp felt some degree of homesickness. Children at day camp
may also feel pangs of homesickness, but less frequently.
- Homesickness
is typically mild. Nearly everyone misses something about home when
they’re away. Some campers most miss their parents; others most miss
home cooking, a sibling, or the family pet. Whatever they miss, the
vast majority of children have a great time at camp and are not
bothered by mild homesickness.
- Homesickness
is something everyone can learn to cope with. In fact, research has
uncovered multiple strategies that work for kids. (More on that below.)
Most kids use more than one strategy to help them deal with
homesickness.
- Homesickness
builds confidence. Overcoming a bout of homesickness and enjoying time
away from home nurtures children’s independence and prepares them for
the future. The fact that second-year campers are usually less homesick
than first-year campers is evidence of this powerful growth.
- Homesickness
has a silver lining. If there’s something about home children miss,
that means there’s something about home they love, and that’s a
wonderful thing. Sometimes just knowing that what they feel is a
reflection of love makes campers feel better.
So
if nearly everyone feels some homesickness, what can be done to prevent
a really strong case of homesickness? Here’s a recipe for positive camp
preparation:
- Make
camp decisions together. Where to go, what type of camp to attend, and
how long to stay are all decisions your child can make with you. Also,
shop and pack for camp together. Involving children gives them a sense
of ownership.
- Arrange
lots of practice time away from home. Overnights at friends’ houses,
weekends with grandparents, and other time away from home teach
children to cope effectively with separation. It also gives them a
chance to practice the primary way they’ll stay in touch with you at
camp: letter writing.
- Speaking
of letter writing…If you want to get any mail yourself, be sure to pack
pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes in your child’s trunk.
- Share
your optimism, not your anxiety. Talk about all the positive aspects of
camp and share your concerns only with another adult, such as your
spouse or the camp director. Avoid giving your son or daughter a mixed
message by saying something like, “Have a great time at camp. I hope I
remember to feed your dog.” Giving your child something to worry about
while she’s away will only increase homesickness.
- Never
ever make a pick-up deal. Saying, “If you feel homesick, we’ll come to
get you” undermines children’s confidence and ensures they’ll be
preoccupied with home from the moment they arrive at camp. Instead of
making a pick-up deal, say, “I’m sure that if you miss home, you and
your cabin leader will be able to work together to help you feel
better. Camp will be a blast!”
OK,
then, what are the most effective ways of coping with homesickness at
camp? What advice can you write in a letter or e-mail to your son or
daughter if you get a homesick letter?
- Stay busy. Doing a fun, physical activity nearly always reduces homesickness intensity.
- Stay positive. Remembering all the cool stuff you can do at camp keeps the focus on fun, not on home.
- Stay in touch. Writing letters, looking at a photo from home, or holding a memento from home can be very comforting.
- Stay
social. Making new friends is a perfect antidote to bothersome
homesickness. Talking to the staff at camp is also reassuring.
- Stay
focused. Remember that you’re not at camp forever, just a few weeks.
Bringing a calendar to camp helps you be clear about the length of your
stay.
- Stay
confident. Anti-homesickness strategies take some time to work. Kids
who stick with their strategies for five or six days almost always feel
better.
Mom
and Dad, your help preparing your child for this amazing growth
experience will pay huge dividends. After a session of camp, you’ll see
an increase in your child’s confidence, social skills, and leadership.
And while your son or daughter is at camp, you can enjoy a
well-deserved break from full-time parenthood. Remember: Homesickness
is part of normal development. Our job should be to coach children
through the experience, not to avoid the topic altogether.
Reprinted from CAMP by permission of the American Camp Association;
copyright 2005 American Camping Association, Inc.
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Chris has posted many articles online at MySummerCamps.com. View articles that deal with homesickness, the importance of arts and crafts at camp, the place or religion, etc.
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Treating Homesickness at Camps 
