Tag: camper stories

An International Camper Experience

December 17th, 2010

In an earlier blog we wrote about how to judge whether or not your child is ready to go to camp and pointed out that it really depends on your unique child and their level of maturity. One mother, Christine, puts it this way, “each kid is different…each mum is different …so I do not feel I can really give blanket advice. . .” However, Christine’s 12 year-old son was ready to go to camp—so ready that last summer he came to Camp Weequahic from Switzerland and arrived without knowing a single other camper!

Nicolas had mostly attended an international school and studied English in Switzerland, so his communication skills were well developed and he felt comfortable with the prospect of adjusting to a new culture. He had also previously visited the United States and after switching to Swiss school last year, his mother wanted him to retain his fluency in English, learn about American culture first hand, and make American friends. Christine says there are a number of American camps that promote their programs in Switzerland but she avoided their outreach since she “did not want to send Nicolas to the United States just to meet other French guys!!!”

Christine decided instead to look for a “really American camp” on the internet and spent a lot of time researching and comparing her options. What guided her final choice was the Camp Weequahic website with its video clips, and she was drawn to the camp’s obviously family atmosphere. After all, she was sending him a long way to try different things and have new experiences! Since Nicolas travelled from Europe, a three-week session seemed the perfect fit—two weeks seemed too short and four weeks seemed too long for a first time camp experience across the Atlantic.

Nicolas travelled to camp with his mother and then later flew back to Europe by himself after the Weequahic staff put him right on the plane at Newark Airport. (It’s also worth mentioning that each airline has its own rules about when and how children can fly alone.)

Christine’s nieces both had a wonderful camp experience in the United States, but Christine felt that Nicolas would be more open to forging friendships and getting to know American kids, if he ventured on his own—and every mother understands that each child is different! Nicolas completely agreed about coming to camp on his own and since he was a little familiar with American culture and speaks English, that’s what worked for him.

In Geneva, Nicolas has developed friendships with students from all over the world and his mother’s commitment to raising a globally-aware child was well under way, but coming to the United States added a whole new level of intercultural awareness. For example, camp gave Nicolas time to develop deeper relationships with Americans his own age and broaden his knowledge about the game and traditions of baseball. He also experienced cultural details that a tourist might miss. Nicolas loved Camp Weequahic so much that he wants to return and is now dreaming of coming back as a CIT (Counselor in Training). His younger brother has also caught camp fever and wants his turn as a camper too!

No matter how many miles a camper literally travels to camp, the adventure stretches them in many ways and contributes to measurable personal development. Campers return changed from both travel and their personal journey–and in Nicolas’ case, even more fluent in American English! Have you sent your child on a long distance to camp? How did the experience help your child develop self-reliance and skills? How did you decide what your child could handle?

Thank you so much for sharing your story, Christine and Nicolas!

Deborah-Eve

Building Friendships at Camp

October 7th, 2010

What do you get when you put nine kids and three young adults into a room for 21 days with no computers, cell phones, or video games? Well, in the best circumstance, something pretty awesome: a whole bunch of new, lasting friendships!

In my experience, the single biggest worry children have in going to camp for the first time is “will people like me?” They are going away from home and mixing it up with children from all over the US and, possibly, even other countries. Let’s face it, it’s a big deal! We’ve found that speed at which campers build friendships is directly related to their feelings of comfort at and enjoyment in camp.

So, how do you go about building a lasting friendship at camp? Here are a couple of ideas campers should follow:

  1. Be Kind. I know it sounds funny and probably too simple but it works! Going into a new situation, the best way to show you are open and interested in building friendships is to treat others as you would want to be treated. For 99.9% of us, that means a smiling face, a kind word, and being included.
  2. Be Yourself. Sure, you can go off to camp make up a new ‘you.’ However, I’ve found it easier and more successful for kids to be simply themselves. You’ll have more than enough time for everyone to get to know and appreciate who you are!
  3. Be Present. The idea is to be truly at camp, engaged in what the bunk or group is doing, and not sitting on the sidelines or with your mind wandering elsewhere. You’ll be surprised at how much fun you’ll have doing the most random, goofy things at camp. Speaking of fun….
  4. Have Fun! The more fun you have with the kids around you, the more likely you are to building lasting friendships. Notice I said “with.” Enjoying a laugh at someone else’s expense is never a good way to make a friend. Remember idea #1!

There are a few other important factors for building friendships at camp that parents should ask about:

  1. The Counselors. How does the camp interview, hire, and train their staff. When you speak to families currently attending the camp (and you should), ask them about their child’s experience with the staff. These young men and women will have a tremendous effect on the campers’ ability to build friendships.
  2. The Program Day. Being together all day, every day can be tough on friendships, even new ones. Through experience, we’ve found a day where campers get to spread out away from their bunk from time to time provides a healthy mix of new and known experiences. This leads to more stories, more excitement, and more interesting interactions.
  3. Atmosphere. Is the camp, well, campy? Do they sing goofy songs, create time for unstructured (but supervised) fun, instill a joie d’ vivre for everyone?

While this list is not exhaustive, it does touch on the more important aspects of building friendships at camp. It’s something we work hard on at Weequahic and can’t wait to do it again next summer!

Cole Kelly, Camp Director

What We Learned from Camp

September 14th, 2010

The shorter season camps have come to an end, and we asked parents and kids to share with us some of the lessons they learned from their first foray into summer camp.

Martha and Jaden

Martha was born and raised in Peru, and had no childhood experience summer camps. Last year, a family friend sent her child to camp for the first time, so Martha decided to try it this year with her 9 year old son, Jaden. Other kids were talking about summer camp and Jaden was full of questions.

“I didn’t push him to go,” she says, “He was ready to go. Jaden is a child who enjoys everything. He’s a very adaptable kid.” Jaden is a self-described Lego-builder, reader (The Warrior series, currently), and he loves to play Wii. When asked to finish the sentence “Camp is like ___” he had just one word in mind: FUN!

When asked about the funniest thing at camp? “When we were playing waffle ball with shaving cream and we all got covered with it. I looked funny!” he says.

This year Martha chose the 3-week option for Jaden. “I think he could have done the six weeks,” she says, “but for me it was too long. Next year he will go for six weeks.” Martha says camp will make Jaden a better person because he is making friends, having fun, learning new skills, and dealing with emotions like homesickness.

“I learned wakeboarding, tubing, gaga ball, and how to be part of a tribe, which I’d never done before,” Jaden says. “I also learned to be away from home by myself for the first time.”

Martha said the camp’s efforts to keep in touch with her were incredibly helpful in dealing with her own apprehensiveness. The camp sent her frequent updates and she would go online everyday to see the latest photos of camp activities.

Martha and Jaden also exchanged many letters throughout the summer. In his first letter, Jaden reported that “camp is awesome!” and that he loved the turkey meatballs. Martha loved the correspondence, saying, “Jaden would remember and tell me what I wrote in my letters, and he would tell me things he had done at camp – doing the climbing wall, making friends in the bunk, and so on.”

The lessons learned from camp go much further though than new sports skills and songs. Martha learned that Jaden is “a strong child and very willing to try new challenges. He has shown me that I underestimate him and I still see him as my baby but I know he can accomplish a lot and can take care of himself and make good choices; and that makes me happy.”

Now that camp is over, Martha says Jaden can’t stop talking about it. “When I went to pick him up he was happy to see me, of course, but he was more excited to show me around camp.” She would ask him if he brushed his teeth and he would answer with a story about something fun at camp. “I wanted to talk about health issues,” she jokes, “he wanted to talk about camp!”

Wendy and Justin

Wendy and Justin live in Florida, so traveling to Pennsylvania for his first year of camp was a big deal for the entire family. Justin had never been away from home for more than two days. “It was scary for me,” Wendy says, “wondering how it was going to be for him.” Not for long though.

“The camp makes it easy on the parents,” she says now. “They post hundreds of pictures every day.” The first picture she saw of Justin was of him getting off the bus with a huge smile on his face. The next day he was at the lake on the water trampoline. “Those photos are the best way to do start conversations,” she says.

Justin is twelve years old, plays clarinet and baseball, and he loves to bowl. “Camp,” he says, “is like a really long sleepover where you get to have fun, make new friends and try new things.” His favorite part? The evening activities, “because they are always fun and creative.”

Since camp has ended, the conversation has moved back to being in person, but the topic is still camp. “For the first five days after he got home it was non-stop random things about camp,” she says. “I have talked with other mothers and both of them said all the kids could talk about were the fun things they did at camp. But the real happiness and laughter comes from the photos and letting them show you what they did at camp and telling you stories about their life there. The web site helps a lot.”

“Make sure you go to visiting day,” Wendy also advises, “so you can live what they did and so you know the people they know.” This way, when Justin talks about camp experiences, Wendy can really share with him. She has been on the tennis courts, seen the music room, walked to the archery targets and swung the same golf clubs Justin learned on.

“When we sat down to tag all the photos we thought were cool, his were totally different than mine. Things I thought were just nice,” she says, “he thought were the coolest things. Justin would describe people in the pictures as well as all of the activities that he participated in. “He grew up,” she says.

For Wendy, the camp experience was more than she could have imagined. “When you see the video you think it can’t be that good, but then after camp you think the video is not half as good as camp. Camp is 10 times better than the video.”

Both Justin and Jaden attended Camp Weequahic this summer. They have both already made plans with their bunk mates to be back next year. For 6 weeks!

Susan