Summer Camp Super Powers- Part I

Here we are. Another summer camp season upon us. Even though I have worked for KIT for the past 7 years, and haven’t been in the thick of summer camp, I am still very attuned to it. Kind of like when you are in your mid-late 20’s, your school days long past, but every August you get the urge to buy some new binders, pencils and a new pair of school shoes.

On June 5th I was honored to give the keynote presentation for the American Camping Association Southern California/Hawaii Chapter’s Staff Training Day. Their theme was “Be a Camp Super Hero” and I tailored my presentation to reflect their theme. It gave me a chance to spend some time thinking about what makes someone instinctively good at including all children. I’ve seen, and I am sure you have too, some people who are just naturals. Their ability doesn’t come from any training or education they’ve had, although learning new skills is absolutely a plus. These super heroes of inclusion bring with them personality traits that serve them well in this business.

So, what are these traits? Here are my Top 4 Super Powers for inclusion in summer camp. I am going to go through them individually in the next four blog posts. I invite you to personally reflect on these. What are your super powers? Could you work on strengthening any of these areas in order to provide better service to children and families this summer?

The first one is….FLEXIBILITY. The ability to bend, stretch and contort to meet the needs of the children and families in the program, while still maintaining consistency and order.

It’s true that structure and boundaries are good for kids, and without policies your program would have a hard time functioning. But, in summer camp you also need to be able to loosen your grip on the structure so that you can see the big picture. Let’s say that after lunch each day your campers have a restful, quiet time. However, this particular day there has been an assembly in the morning where the kids were sitting for an hour or more. By lunch they have a lot of energy they need to burn off. Can you change gears and instead of more restful, quiet time can you throw in some gross motor activities? If you firmly held to the established schedule of quiet time after lunch, you may end up spending the afternoon trying to manage behavior because the kids are not getting what they needed at that moment. Make sense?

Remember to use flexibility this summer. See if you can follow the needs of the children in your care just a little bit more and see what benefits that brings to your campers, their families and to you.