Summer Camps Shape Character

If your kids have been looking for a way to spend their summer this year, something that doesn’t involve camping out in front of the television, playing video games, or watching brainless reality shows, then summer camp is just the thing for them. Summer camp isn’t just a rite of passage; it helps kids build their confidence, creates lasting friendships, and helps shape their character - something they’ll carry with them as they grow into emotionally healthy and fulfilled adults.

At camp, there is no shortage of fun activities that will both test and build important skills and values that will be essential in your child’s mental and emotional growth.

Here are a few more ways summer camps help shape character:

1. Gain self-confidence - At summer camp kids are encouraged to become more self-reliant. Mom and Dad won’t be there to nag them to brush their teeth, make their bed, or finish their chores - they’ll be expected to do all of that themselves. In turn, their self-esteem and confidence grows with each task they complete by themselves.

Through a series of games and confidence-building activities, kids will learn to trust themselves and to not rely too much on others, especially when they have all the tools to achieve so much on their own.

2. Build leadership skills - Kids get some of their first taste of leadership at summer camp. Whether it’s guiding a group through a particularly thick patch of forest, or leading their team to victory in a game of dodgeball; it’s through these simple tasks and activities that the foundation for leadership is cultivated and honed.

3. Become more adventurous - It’s no secret that, these days, because of modern conveniences, parents go out of their way to keep their children away from any kind of danger; whether it’s by sterilizing their environment of germs or by safe-guarding every nook and cranny of their home so that it’s one hundred percent kid-proof.

At summer camp, kids are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones and to take calculated and adult-supervised risks, even if it’s just by hiking a mountain trail, swimming in a lake, or participating in a sport they’ve never tried.

4. Increases social skills - Perhaps the reason summer camp is most memorable is because of the friendships forged during the camp’s duration. At summer camp, kids can be themselves with other like-minded kids, and the friendships that come out of nights sitting in front of a campfire are ones that can last a lifetime.