The Birth Of Camping

The camping industry has witnessed a strong calling for shorter sessions in recent years. Gone forever is the fundamental purpose of the birth of the camping industry exactly 150 years ago this coming summer. On the eve of the Civil War, the headmaster of the Gunnery School in Connecticut led a group of students on a hiking and camping trip into the mountains. In due time, both parents and educators came to see summer – all of it – as the prime time for those precious character-building, away-from-home experiences. No longer.

Today, we live in a world of time crunches, over-scheduling, helicopter parenting, and specialty programs – all of which conspire against the traditional camp concept of giving kids a legitimate foray from the nest. Lots of people nowadays don’t comprehend what “camp” really is. For example, they misconstrue a five day lacrosse clinic on a college campus as somehow a camping experience: not even close!

Most camps have altered tenures to accommodate this trend. Noting too that some school districts have stretched the academic calendar well into June while others have commenced autumn classes before Labor Day, most camps have crunched their dates into the safer zones of midsummer. During these precious few days, just about every tenure under the sun now is possible, from one week “rookie camp” to mandatory full season sessions.

Whenever camp people get together, they moan among themselves on how so many parents are unawares when it comes to the question the tenure value of separation experiences for their children. Hear us out:

Hear Us Out: Let Your Kids Stay Longer

TWO WEEK SESSIONS

All kids, regardless of their temperamental stripes, take several days to completely acclimate to being away from home. Most become a tad homesick after the initial excitement wears off. Two week campers, no doubt primed by mom and dad, truly believe fourteen days is a huge gob of time. And, almost assuredly, the first few days of the session accrue to confirm the notion that even two weeks is indeed going to be one long haul. “Dear Mom: Thanks for sending me to Alcatraz,” is my all-time favorite day-number-three interpretation of the camp experience. Naturally, parents receiving such a missive are the first to call the child, often before my strongly suggested seven-day waiting period. Unwittingly, they have likely made an unpleasant issue for their son, as nine of ten boys will self-destruct upon merely hearing mom or dad’s voice.

But, now for the part the parents do not see: The child, upon disintegrating over the phone, hangs up and races back to the dinner table so as not to miss dessert. After the meal, he hustles up the hill to join the after-dinner soccer scrimmage or to the music room for a jam session. Maybe both! A small sparkle in his eye and skip of step creep into his countenance: the process of acceptance has begun. Many camps report that over half of their kids “stretch out” to longer terms that very first year, so illuminated to the progression of adjustment they become.

Although doing the two week session might result in some boys getting plucked from the camp environment just as the prime value of the experience is kicking in, they all depart having witnessed that beautiful human trait of adaptation. Boys know, deep down, that they have had a “near total adjustment” experience with potentially lifetime ramifications. Simply summarized, they have gleaned that homesickness can be overcome. Do they articulate this feeling? No, but many boys comment that the countdown to next summer begins the moment they get home. I have to believe that the two week term, despite being far from an ideal tenure, strikes many as a good start on the road to independence.

THREE WEEK SESSIONS

“The tipping point is three weeks,” argued my son Rob at one morning administrative gathering at our camp. “So and so seemed a bit out of his comfort zone for almost two weeks – then, out of the blue, he was making friends and loving camp.” This paraphrased quote seemed to apply to boy after boy whose tenure extended three weeks and beyond. For most kids, becoming fully connected is the key element in the continuum of happiness. I remember years ago when a chronically homesick camper, on about day number eight, scored the winning goal in the final moments of an intercamp soccer game. He was carried off the field on the shoulders of his teammates and his homesickness evaporated on the spot. Clearly, not every youngster will have such an obvious epiphany. In every case, though, I have become convinced that a kid wakes up one morning and at first consciousness acknowledges to himself that “everybody knows me here.” Furthermore, he knows everybody else, admires his counselors, gets all the inside jokes, and has become comfortable with the camp routine. In short, he no longer finds himself being swept along, but now is charting his own course. Life at camp, from this point forward, is good.

The Longer The Stay The Better The Results

I often tell parents of struggling campers that it is only a matter of time before their child surrenders to the fun of camp. Willful youngsters, and there are plenty of these, can put up a good fight, but they, too, eventually hit the tipping point and go on to have wonderful camp experiences. One of the amusing things about kids is their tendency to bury the past once the present gets good. Try and remind them of those Alcatraz-style commentaries of earlier in the session and the best you can hope for is a grinning, “Aw shucks.” While our study of the camp adjustment process is by no means scientific, years of experience tells us that by the end of week three, most kids are happy.

Thus we feel the three week choice is better than two weeks. There is less risk that a boy will depart camp unfulfilled, not recognized or less well adapted to the camp community. In a later blog, we will speak to the value of longer sessions, but, for now, keep in mind that three weeks is sufficient for the positive attributes of camp to take hold. Yes, twenty-one days is enough time for camp to become a child’s “home away from home” – a place and a people to whom he feels strongly connected. It is our hope the one day soon, everybody foreordained to a two week outlook will come to recognize the dramatic difference one week can make.