Sending your kid to summer camp can be one of the most difficult and rewarding choices you’ll make this year. Whether it is an all summer long day camp, or a week long overnight camp, the benefits are infinite! But for the sake of brevity, we’ve narrowed it down to ten:
Top 10 Reasons to Send Your Kid to Summer Camp
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Fun – Let’s start with the most obvious reason. At any summer camp that you choose to send your child to, fun will be the number one priority (apart from safety of course). The days are full activities, barely allowing a moment’s rest. Children leave camp brimming with excitement over the day’s events, often ready for a quiet evening after having exerted themselves all day.
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Time away – On top of having quieter evenings, the days are entirely quiet! Whether you are a stay at home parent or working during the day, camp days are often longer than school days and allow for a little bit of extra rest.
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Socialization – While you are enjoying a bit of rest (or productivity), your child is participating in a variety of activities that all encourage different aspects of socialization. They may be learning to share through arts and crafts, the value of teamwork in sports and trust exercises, or even simply how to get along with people that are different than they are.
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Structure – Throughout all of this, there is always a strong sense of structure. Children thrive off of a solid structure. They know the boundaries and are free to operate within them, they also know that there are consequences to breaking the structure; further preparing them for life after childhood.
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Increased Creativity – Though camps are certainly structured, there is often designated free time. It is especially during this free time that kids will develop their creativity. The kids will be without direction from their mom, dad, or counselor. This freedom spawns their creativity and the camp environment is the perfect place to let them explore!
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New Skills – Along with increasing their creativity in free time, the skills that they learn at camp will broaden their mental and physical capabilities overall. New skills learned at camp will certainly vary among camps, but a few of the most common are: arts and crafts, yoga, swimming, horseback riding, ect. And if your camp specializes like at Sifu Och Wing Chun, they could even learn martial arts or dance.
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Active – Many of these new skills will get your kid moving, instilling a sense of how important frequent physical activity is. Summertime was once a time of outdoor exploring and activity, summer camps keep this tradition alive with plenty of activity.
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Nature – Recent years seem to have pushed summer activities indoors, limiting a child’s exposure to sunlight and nature. Summer camp ensures outdoor activities in nature, often way more than any of us see in a week.
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Unplugged – Going along with exposure to nature is the huge benefit of unplugging at camp. This is personally my favorite reason to go to camp. Cell phones have taken over our world in a huge way, and this generation’s children will be the first to grow up surrounded by this phenomenon.
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Immersion – Being unplugged allows for your kid to be completely immersed in their surroundings at camp. They are able to focus their whole attention to the task at hand and grow as an individual on a higher level than they would be able to with the distractions of daily life. This has the opportunity to start combating ADHD tendencies and possibly reduce the need for medication.
I like to consider summer camp to be education without the rigidity and monotony of school. Children are able to learn so much at camp without ever getting bored! A feat schools have been trying to pull off for decades. So this year consider sending your kid to summer camp. Watch as these ten reasons come to life in the little person in front of you.
