7 Reasons To Send Your Kids To Summer Camp

7 Reasons To Send Your Child To Summer Camp

Quentin Ochs

Here are 7 reasons why your child should attend camp this summer.  Camps are in abundance on Long Island and your children can benefit greatly by attendance at any number of them. 

1)      Socialization – Summer Camp gives your child the opportunity to continue their social growth throughout the summer.  The typical balance in a school setting is academics first, socialization has a lower priority.  At a summer camp, socialization is given a higher priority than academics and gives your child(ren) a chance to continue social growth in a different setting than school, with role models who, while they must maintain order, can come closer to the friend line than a teacher could ever dream.

2)      Find interests.  Summer camp provides children opportunities to find new interests not available to them.  How often did your child(ren) do archery last year?  Did they get the chance to learn and develop their knot tying skills?  Probably not.  No, they might not be a professional archer, but if they develop an interest and pursue it, having success in something builds confidence and helps individual growth.  Even if they don’t like something, we can all agree, trying something new is usually better than not having tried at all.

3)      The Outdoors – We all know children spend less time than ever outside.  Summer camps spend a large amount of the day outside and some camps even teach basic outdoor skills. The next person who I hear say they want to spend less time outdoors will be the first.

4)      It’s Healthy!  Spending time at summer camp is typically active time providing opportunities for exercise not available to children playing video games.  If you really want to get scientific, vitamin D is provided by the sun, which

5)      Academics – Huh?  They aren’t in school! There is no need for academics in the summer.  Debatable, however that doesn’t mean they won’t gain academically being in a summer camp.  The different activities at camp provide a framework for future learning.  The experiences the children gain give them a context to make connections to when they return to school in the fall.  A large part of learning is making connections to prior knowledge and summer camp provides prior knowledge with its structured activities. 

6)      Affordable.  There are camps on Long Island that are designed to be affordable.  Yaphank Day Camp and YMCA are two camps that I know of that are a lower cost option for day camps.  Not only is it great that camp can be affordable but did you know that..

7)      Day Camps are tax deductible.  Summer day camps (sorry for those who attend sleep away camp) attended by your dependents during working hours are tax deductible as a child care expense on your income taxes.  Tax deductions make everything better.  If you don’t believe it, go to irs.gov and search for summer camp.