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Hailey Eisen, Our Kids Go to Camp 2012
Camp Life Skills :
1. How to Make More Friends 2. How to Overcome Challenges 3. How to Get Fit 4. How to Love the Earth 5. How to Lead
Talk to any camp alumni and you’ll likely hear how some of their most meaningful friendships and lessons on how to get along with others came from camp. That’s because camp nurtures social interactions and provides a neutral playing field where youth can put their differences aside and become friends, Glover explains.
“One of the major benefits of camp is the social skills that develop, especially around interacting with other people in a positive way,” he says.
MWS Student Camps, for example, give campers with different native tongues and cultures a chance to connect with each other while learning English or French. “Through sports, arts, music and the like, kids can communicate without being fluent in the same language,” says Patrik Simunec, the camp’s director. “Often we have close friendships developing between campers from countries that don’t necessarily get along in the outside world.”
One of the Canadian Summer Camp Research Project’s most significant findings was in the area of emotional intelligence, often referred to as EQ (emotional quotient).
With EQ, which involves recognizing, understanding and managing emotions, children learn how to work, play, relate, get along, empathize and connect with others.
“It’s not just about IQ in children,” Glover says. “Research supports how EQ is more important in terms of future success. . . . This is an essential component of the maturation process and a skill that camp is successfully developing.”
Using real-life simulations, the Me to We Take Action Academy helps foster empathy and teaches youth social advocacy and team-building skills. “The best way to teach people to get along with one another is to have them be in someone else’s shoes,” says camp director Hannah Feldberg.
At a staged “hunger dinner,” for instance, campers are divided into groups representing the world’s various populations. During this meal, campers are fed according to how their sample population would eat, meaning the majority of them only get rice.
“The campers rally together, team up to try and share food, and come together through songs and cheers as they experience life from a different perspective,” Feldberg says.
No matter who they are or where they come from, the empathy campers feel unites them for a common cause, forming bonds of understanding, respect and friendship.
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