Neighbor News
Summer Camp Gets your Child Ready For College
As parents summer is a challenge "what will our kids do?" Often we only select things that are fun or educational. Camp provides both.
As a Owner of Swift Nature Camp, I want to share with you that Overnight Summer Camp is more than fun, friends and activities. Children who will soon be going off to college need the skills that summer camp provides.
One of the biggest things is that camp allows kids to grow more independent. At camp, kids get a chance to practice making choices without the direct and immediate guidance of their parents. The number of different activities allow the kids to really choose and develop what they love to do, and what they are good at. Camp helps kids to develop into what they are.
At camp, kids are physically active, every day of the week. Kids spend so much time indoors, sitting around and participating in more passive activity. Camp is action packed! Kids get a chance to unplug from technology, reconnect with nature, and just run around. At camp, there is so much opportunity for movement - swimming, hiking, running, jumping, and just playing games!
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Children learn social skills at camp in a way that they do not learn them at school. While there is definitely a social aspect to school, when a child comes to camp, they are joining a community and learning what it means to be a part of that community. Living with people that they have just met, they have to learn to cooperate, resolve disagreements and differences, and how to communicate respectfully. Camp builds teamwork. And all of this community building means that at camp, kids make real friends. At camp, they are free from the social pressures at school or home and can make friends more naturally and easily. Camp creates friendships by drawing kids together through fun and activity. At camp, children have a community of friends and mentors that feel like a second home.
Summer camp may only be a few weeks each year in your child’s life, but it is an important time for their development. It gives them a chance to practice the social and personal skills that you teach them at home, and a safe environment to try them on their own. It keeps them active and gives them the opportunity to try, and excel at new activities. And it makes them a part of a community that they will look forward to returning to, with friends and memories that will last.
