Teaching kids how to do laundry, fry an egg or even ride a bike is all relatively simple. Sure, there’s going to be a few hiccups along the way, but by the end of the day (or week) your child will have learned a valuable new skill set. But what about teaching them a valuable life lesson or trait? Not so easy.
Traits like gratitude, generosity, and self-confidence are often much more difficult to teach because there’s no precise way of going about it. Parents and guardians tend to have the most influence on their children so being a good role model, first and foremost, is key, but children will still adhere to the peers around them for guidance in their life. The entire team at AstroCamp knows exactly just how important these core values are in a young child’s life. On the surface, we aim to provide our campers with an amazing one-of-a-kind summer camp experience that they’ll cherish forever, but throughout camp, we also preach the importance of life skills and values. It might come off as cliché but ask anyone who spent time away at summer camp and they’ll all tell you just how influential those summer camp moments were. Here’s a look at two of our favorites; independence and self-confidence.
Teaching Independence
As parents, we would do anything to protect our children. While this protection stems from unconditional love, fostering dependence can actually cause more harm than good. Would you drop everything to drive your child to school if they missed the bus? Or “edit” their homework (i.e. do it for them) if what they wrote was wrong? It might seem harmless, but in reality, you’re teaching your child that if they do something wrong, you’ll be there to clean up their mistakes.
Summer camp is a great way to take that initial first step towards independence. It can be scary at first, as separation anxiety for both the parent and child creeps in, yet within 24 hours your child will have been immersed in new experiences that will make them mentally stronger than they’ve ever been. AstroCamp provides a structure built on guiding our campers to become independent. Whether they’re trying new games and activities, making new friends, or even taking care of their general well-being, campers grow a stronger sense of impedance by a belief in themselves that our counselors promote all throughout camp.
Teaching Self-Confidence
For many, independence and self-confidence can simultaneously go hand and hand with each other. The more independent you become the more your self-confidence grows and vice versa. Parents will notoriously feed their children a multitude of compliments every day – which is great and certainly helps to raise those confidence levels, but after a while, most children can see through the mirage of those rose-colored lenses.
However, when a child receives praise and recognition from another adult mentor, such as a camp counselor, this triggers an even greater impact towards building self-confidence. The staff at AstroCamp aims to instill a greater sense of self-confidence in all of our campers through acts such as positive reinforcement and recognition. In fact, many parents of our campers have said to have noticed their kids having an enormous amount of belief and self-confidence within themselves after their AstroCamp experience.
Join Us for an Amazing Summer at AstroCamp!
While teaching the importance of independence and self-confidence are major pillars for AstroCamp, providing a one-of-a-kind experience that campers will cherish for the rest of their lives is first and foremost our primary objective. Registration for summer is now open! We can’t wait to welcome you all back!
