Our kids will need to find a way to reconnect with our natural environment to become participants in a global effort to restore ecological balance. Environmental awareness begins with a sense of personal connection to nature. 

How do parents bring back balance to a child’s experience? One answer has been around since the 1920’s: summer camp. Modern summer camps can guide kids back into a natural alliance with nature through the pure fun of movement. The challenges of summer camp are fun rather than stressful, but they are no less effective for developing a child’s sense of confidence and independence.

One good example of a modern “green” summer camp is Swift Nature Camp near Minong, Wisconsin. The directors have developed policies that promote camper experience perfectly attuned to the needs of the times, without sacrificing the great fun and memorable friendships that are the classic benefits of summer camp.

Jeff and Lonnie Lorenz, directors of Swift Nature Camp, begin with their policy on electronic devices. “We do not permit cellular phones, BlackBerries, pagers, radios, iPods, cassette or CD players, laser pens, TVs, Game Boys or digital cameras. They simply are not what camp is about.”

Swift Nature Camp combines traditional camp activities with ways to immerse themselves in and learn about nature is likeliest to succeed in inspiring environmental awareness in campers.

overnight campseverywhere in the world. If you and your child know have discussed what you want in a camp, you can make a successful choice.   

Every imaginable kind of camp can be found in the variety of summer camps. Some are traditional and others are limited to certain areas of interest. If you study camp information carefully you can find the right camp for your child. Discussing ideas with your child can be a useful guide to choosing the kind of camp that will give the most to your child’s life.  If you want to choose an overnight camp the information needs to be considered and followed up on even more carefully.

If you compare camp information about all summer camps in the geographic areas you prefer, especially if you are looking at overnight camps, you will find a wide variation of offered facilities and activities. The web sites of specific summer camps will give you a starting place, but it will be up to you to ask questions and study the camp information with a critical eye.

Asking the right questions about summer camps once you have thecamp information in hand will make the difference for a successful search. Basic questions about license, accreditation, quality, camp history, time in existence, philosophy, personnel and facilities are your starting place. But the key to a great choice will be in the details. Can you contact references from campers and parents who have gone to that camp? How is the food? How are the sleeping facilities forovernight camps? What happens when it’s a rainy day? What are the rules about cell phones and computers? How will the camp personnel handle a medical emergency?

When you are just starting out, preparing the right questions before you study camp information can help you find the right camp from all available summer camps. The way you approach information aboutsummer campscan make all the difference to the eventual experience your child will remember all his or her life.

Signing up far ahead of time is important. The first thing to do when selecting a kid summer camp is to look at your child’s needs and wants. Will they thrive in a sports camp or a general camp. What do they want from their summer? Skill building or building friendships?
 
Summer camps should be a complete departure away from teachers and a time for mentors to step in. The essence of the best camps are imaginative, experienced and quick witted people who staff them. These mentors shape up the milieu of the camp so that every camper brings life lessons learned when he or she returns home. The experience which is gained and the knowledge acquired in every case go a long way in shaping up the overall persona of the person a camper becomes.

Kids Summer Camp is a resource with more focus on arts and crafts with special regard to environmental consciousness. Kids go on from camp refreshed, delighted and full of experience when they return to regular classes in the fall.  The exposure that summer camps offer a child will stay with the camper for the rest of a life as the wisdom that can only come from experience. How can parents with a good grasp of what is good for their kids find the right camp? The best place to search for obtaining precise information is of course the World Wide Web.

With a bit of patient research on the internet, you can easily lay your hands on some resourceful data. Parents might assume that if they are paying a higher rate for the kid summer camp that the child will return home with more education. They disregard the fact that the true meaning of summer camps is all about the experience. With the guided presentations of web program directors, the best traditional camps included have woken up to the archetypes involved in the whole process.

Parents ought to seek the best professionalism from persons representing summer camps. There is always a lot of apprehension and questioning for parents in terms of pros and cons their child will face in every social situation life brings. But the right kid summer camp is a good opportunity for every camper to socialize at a level which encompasses every facet of life.

One day we walked out to Picnic Island just to see what was going on. It is a different place in the winter with no low plants so you can see almost across the island. We particularly wanted to go look at the Eagles nest. It seems that the winds from one of the storms destroyed the nest. However, we still saw eagles flying around so they are still nearby but we did not see where their new nest might be.

See Ya next Summer
Lonnie, Jeff & Forrest

Live Long and take care of your Health.... Make good choices

Okay So you don’t buy it! You need to be in touch with your child. You know you are a helicopter parent. No need to fret.? There are a huge variety in the ways different camps help parents and campers stay in touch. Some camps allow campers to carry cell phones, some allow access to email. Many camps have visiting days. Every camp is different so be sure you ask the director how communication happens before you enroll in camp. This may also be a growing time for you ... getting you ready for those not to far off college days

2. Equality.

Camp provides an equal playing field for all. Makes no difference if your dad is the Ambassador to Guatemala or if your parents run a restaurant. At camp all children are equal. This goes for staff as well. Counselors receive their power from the friendships they make not from the authority of a “counselor”.

3. Real Communication.

In this world of texting and highspeed internet summer camp provides an oasis where adverting and pop culture have no impact. Being away from the “outside world.” only brought people closer together. Conversation were more real, more open leading to the development of better friendships, even closer than some friendships back home. Amazingly, each summer I hear children say “It will be hard with out my smart phone”, yet at the end of camp I hear”it was freeing not having to answer every text and be on call 24/7”.

4. Activity.

In a day and age when working out for children is placing 50 text message, summer camp activities of running jumping, swimming and just playing are a wonderful thing. At our camp we mostly compete against ourselves making camp a place where kids stress free about WINNING. It’s kinda old school to think kids can play outside in a safe child friendly place. The interaction between age groups is amazing older helping younger and Gals being the adopted Moms for the youngest boys. It’s like having one big family that get together every summer.

5. Encouragment.

Camp is a place to build each other up. It is a place where children are taught how important their actions are. They learn that one cranky word can bring down the whole cabin. This encouragement takes campers and staff far beyond what they thought they could do. Camp provides the opportunity for people to realize its ok to make a mistake, we all do it. Regroup , apologize wait for forgiveness and move on. When we get encouragement from those around us we are open to reinvent ourselves and better see how we want to be seen in the “real world”.

Camp is not of this world it is like living in a dream where we are each challenged to stretch and grow and be better than when we first arrived camp. Each summer I have staff and campers tell us how they wish the world was more like a camp... Maybe we all just need to try a little more. One last thing, do not assume that all camps are the same. It is important you look for a camp that promotes the values discussed earlier. This can only be done by talking with the director. Read more about this special place Summer Camp. I want to learn more bout How To Find A Summer Camp go Summer Camp Advice and learn more

So you have found the right place, How long should they stay? As a camp Director I believe that longer the better. However, many children have scheduling conflicts and maybe too expensive for many parents. The truth is the shorter the time the less impact a child will have. 

Finally, be sure to investigate your summer enrichment options thoroughly because sending your son or daughter to the right summer enrichment camp will offer long-term benefits for the entire family. As well as making the wrong choice on a sumer camp can have negative impact as well. Remember increased motivation and confidence can translate into better grades, and lead to new academic and personal interests.

• New relationships, not just with peers, but with trusted adults other than children’s parents. These new relationships teach children social skills to cope with new situations. A cabin full of awkward kids can give them each a chance to play both leader and follower, depending on the activity they’re doing. The adults who kids encounter at camp also offer the chance to learn how to deal with people different than their parents. A counselor that a child doesn’t like needn’t mean a failed camp experience. Instead, it can present an opportunity for the child to learn how to advocate for what she needs and get along in a tough situation. Just think about how useful a skill like that is: being able to negotiate with an adult on one’s own to get what one needs.
• A powerful identity that makes children feel confident in front of others provides children with something genuine to like about themselves. A child may not be the best on the ropes course, the fastest swimmer, or the next teen idol when he sings, but chances are that a good camp counselor is going to help a child find something to be proud of that he can do well. The camp experience not only helps the child discover what he can do, it also provides him with an audience that shows appreciation. Identities that fortify a child during times of transition and crisis are those that have been acknowledged by others as positive and powerful.
• Camps help children feel in control of their lives. Those experiences of self-efficacy travel home as easily as a special art project or the pine cone they carry in their backpack. Children who experience themselves as competent will be better problem solvers in new situations long after their laundry is cleaned and the smell of the campfire forgotten. The goal here is to encourage a child’s sense of internality, their perception that they have some say over their world and that the sources of the problems they encounter are properly attributed to either themselves (when they are to blame) or others (when, in truth, the child is an innocent victim of someone else’s mistake). The child who has some say over daily activities at a camp and learns to fix problems when they happen (cleaning up a mess when a group of campers get too rowdy) is the child who will take home with her a view of the world as manageable the next time she encounters trouble.
• Camps make sure that all children are treated fairly. The wonderful thing about camp is that every child starts without the baggage they carry from home or school. He or she may be a geek or the child with dyslexia. At camp, both find opportunities to just be kids who are valued for who they are. Of course, for camps to achieve this, they must actively encourage the engagement of those who are more vulnerable or marginalized. The more inclusive activities are of individual campers’ cultures, and the more activities show, rather than tell, each camper that they have something to contribute, the more children will feel fairly treated. The goal is to strive not only for equality, with every child treated equally, but also to instill a spirit of equity, in which each child receives that which she needs individually to feel valued.
• At camp, children get what they need to develop physically. Ideally, they experience fresh air, exercise, a balance between routine and unstructured time, and all the good food their bodies need. Not that s’mores don’t have a place at the campfire, but a good camp is also about helping children find healthy lifestyles. Counselors that care enough to look after a child’s physical health, bringing out the child’s best by encouraging manageable amounts of challenge, are also conveying to the child a belief in the child’s physical capacity to cope. That’s important for children’s long-term physical development. We now know that early experiences of exposure to risk, and poor health resulting from too little exercise when young, have long-term consequences for the child’s healthy development.
• Perhaps best of all, camps offer children a chance to feel like they belong. All those goofy chants and team songs, the sense of common purpose, and the attachment to the identity that camps promote go a long way to offering children a sense of being rooted. For children from the most risky environments, it’s this sense of belonging to a prosocial set of peers and the institution of the camp itself that is a buffer against future feelings of isolation. It’s this isolation that contributes to substance abuse and other problem behaviors.
• Finally, camps can offer children a better sense of their culture. Camps are places where children can think about their values and share with others the everyday practices that make them feel a part of their families, communities, or ethnic group. It might be skit night or a special camp program that reflects the values of the community that sponsors the camp; or maybe it’s just a chance for children to understand themselves a bit more as they learn about others. Camps give young people both cultural roots and the chance to understand children who have cultures very different than their own.

Today “camp” means more than it did 100 years ago. Today it’s traditional camp and sports organizations, parks, museums, schools and colleges, dance troupes, arts centers, animal shelters, heritage groups and churches and synagogues computers, shopping, makeup and Lego Camps.

According to the American Camp Association is expecting another strong summer season. "It seems many families see value in the summer camp adventure. Although our children are heavily over scheduled summer camp provides that chance for children to just slow down and play and learn outside a class room," said Jeff Lorenz, Director of Swift Nature Camp in Wisconsin.

Parents today are coming to realize that children need to get weaned off their personal electronic devices. " With the growing concern of obesity, America is in the midst to reconnect to nature. At SNC we are electronics-free zone for kids and staff alike. We are truly living in the past,” said Jeff. 

Swift Nature Camp this summer has started a hydroponics garden. “We feel that often children don't understand how food gets to our table. At SNC, we focus in on spirit, mind and body and we feel that this connection helps kids better understand how important nature is to all of us." This is just a natural continuation of our Science Summer Camp program

Today, kids are living in a 'concrete jungle,' always indoors or watching TV, and being online not really getting outside and appreciating nature. At Swift Nature Camp we believe, summer camp is all about being outside and reconnecting with nature, this can happen in many way from just playing in it , to actually taking classes in our Nature Center and learning about nature. However, what the children most enjoy at SNC is going on backpack and canoe trips, it is a way to learn about nature and yourself.

Summer Camps are remarkable at teaching kids life skills. Camp provides aa nurturing and child centered community, filled with human relationships. The outcome from these experiences is independence, responsibility, teamwork, cooperation, communication and leadership.

If you are just starting your search for a Summer Camp please visit Summer Camp Advice a wonderful website that will give a parent loads of information on how to find the best summer camp for your child.