A much talked-about activity for kids and teens, summer camp has been a holiday tradition for as long as I can remember. Parents love summer camps and not just because they take the kids off their hands for most of the summer. California summer camps are popular also because they offer a rich learning environment to youthful minds, where qualified and trained professionals impart valuable skills to kids.
Summer camp is a good way to introduce your child to independent and self -sufficient living, albeit in a safe and comfortable environment. Your child learns to be on his own, learns about his strengths and weaknesses, adapts to new situations and learns to handle stress and fear. In fact, summer camp can be your child’s initiation into adulthood – a happy initiation if handled correctly.
Most kids carry back fond memories of summer camp. That’s when you learnt to believe in yourself and in your abilities; made new friends and learnt to respect teammates; meet set challenges in a safe and encouraging atmosphere and learn the value of hard work. Kids tend to become more responsible and confident about their abilities and usually retain these qualities long after summer camp has become a mere memory.
You learn to put others first when you are at camp. Most kids find they are more tolerant of others than they were before they went to camp. This is because you need to get along with all sorts and there’s no way you avoid mingling with your peers. As you work towards a common goal, you learn more about your teammates who probably belong to different religious, socio-economic and maybe even ethnic backgrounds.
While some parents still send their kids to traditional summer camps, many prefer specialty summer camps that cater to a wide range of activities from theatre, art, dance, sports and computers. Specialty summer camps combine fun with learning specific career – building skills in a highly innovative manner. While recreation is not neglected, the primary focus is on imparting basic or advanced skills in your area of choice.
In a highly competitive world where young achievers are the norm rather than the exception, specialty summer camps are seen as rungs in the career ladder instead of the summer pastime that they traditionally were considered to be.
Summer camp is a holistic educational experience because it offers not merely valuable skill sets but also invaluable life experiences and values that are the building blocks of life.