A few random thoughts this week has me thinking about the experience our campers enjoy each summer in a slightly different way. Bear with me a bit here – I promise I’ll get to the point!

Youth and Tours

I spent some time reading over my notes from a summer book yesterday at the home office. One of the dog-eared passages was the speech from Gen. Douglas MacArthur I mentioned this summer. A refresher:

“Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort.”

Not long after reading this quote, I gathered and studied information about our tours from Summer 2018. Just over 75 children and their families got to experience Weequahic this summer, even if just for a moment. Strikingly, this number has remained incredible consistent over the past five years.

Of those that visited with us this summer, about 35 will enroll for Summer 2019. The majority of those new campers will come from our Camper for a Day kids.  A handful will come from the families who walked camp with Scrappy, Nuge or me for just sixty minutes.

Questions and Answers

A couple of questions come to mind: Why the difference? And, when you compare the number of new campers enrolling after a tour or Camper for a Day experience to the number of siblings enrolling for the first time, siblings beat the new kids handily.

As I pondered the conundrum, something one of mentors told me popped into my head. Camp is one of the few places on earth that runs at the rhythm of children.

When parents tour Weequahic with their children, they look at experience through the eyes rhythm of the adult-world. Their past makes them focus on safety, the movement of the day, the supervision. (Explain how the daily program works again?) They do their best to pick apart what separates Weequahic from the other (very good) camps they’ll see.

Their child sees Weequahic through a different lens: how much adventure does this place offer? Will I fit in? What would it be like to do this or that or….  In essence, the child is seeing camp through the lens Gen. MacArthur introduces: imagination, adventure, courage, ideal.

Because their parents are more intimately involved, these ‘tour campers’ are swayed a bit more from the parent lens (or rhythm) than their own.

The Camper for a Day kids see Weequahic in a very different light. They are separated from their parents and enjoy a lot of what our community has to offer during their five hour stay. When they are met by Mom and Dad at the end, enormous smiles and immediate stories tell their parents all they need to know.

Rhythm of Children

Siblings, though? Their older brother or sister has come back home and explained everything in the rhythm of children. The fun, the laughter, the relationships, the wacky events, the shaving cream battles, breakfast in your pajamas, the EA’s, special events, Color War…. Parents get to see this viewpoint as well.

Being in place that runs at the rhythm of children allows our campers to be completely and utterly who they are. They aren’t comparing to anyone else, thinking about grades, or planning their pre-homework activities. Our campers simply get time to be their best selves in the present moment.

As a parent of three boys, I’m excited about this revelation, especially as we have our oldest just starting high school, a major sign post on the way to the adult world. School, after-school activities, and the schedules we keep are certainly move along the rhythm of adults.

Going Forward

Kate and I have to be creative to find times when the boys can mosey along to their own rhythm rather than try to keep up with us. (Ok, who am I kidding… they’ve got to try to keep up with Kate, just like me!)

By creating this time, we give them moments of reprieve to be themselves and enter the adult world a bit more at their own pace. Doing so, I believe, will allow them the best chance of becoming the adult the world around them needs.

I am truly grateful that our boys get six weeks to move at their own rhythm with friends from around the US and larger world. It’s an island of joy in a sometimes stormy adult world. I know they are all happy to see their friends back home. I also know all three wouldn’t hesitate to head back to camp right now.

For the week ahead, I’ll be thinking about ways to give our boys more moments of a child’s rhythm. If you have an idea on how to make that work in our busy world, I’m all ears. Have a great week!

It’s been only five days since our campers headed home after a glorious summer. Many are now on the slow march towards school while some have already started. School is supposed the spot for learning and camp for fun, right? Well….

There are certainly differences between camp and school. The one that is most striking to me rests in the fact that camp reminds us – how to live as a community, stay in the present, be grateful, kind, and courageous. On the other side, school teaches us that which we do not already know – geometry, history, foreign language, biology, etc.

We built a lot of wonderful memories at camp this summer. Amazing Tribals and Olympics, new friends from lots of different places, great daily activities and hilarious evening events. We laughed and played and learned together.

So, if we think of Camp Weequahic as a place that reminds us, then what memories will be important to take into school? I’ve got a few ideas.

There are LOTS of people who accept you for who you are.

You’ve also remembered life is a lot easier, more fun, more interesting when you can live as… well, you! That’s an easy lesson to forget when you are plugged back into school and into your phone. Watch out for the comparison trap. It’s not worth your time or attention. Just be yourself… everyone is taken anyway!

Practicing gratitude, choosing your attitude, building courage, and acting with kindness really does make the world around you better.

Easier at camp, yes, because we are all doing it together every day. But that didn’t just happen. We made a conscious effort to act that way. Those actions influenced everyone else at camp. You can have that effect in your home and school, too!

You can do a lot more than you often think you can.

We call it ‘independence’ in the grown-up world but the message is the same – you can act and think more on your own than you often think you can. You just spent three or six weeks away from your parents where you made a whole bunch of friends, decided on which activities to try, made your bed, chose your food, handled your laundry (and lost and found….) You can do so much – take pride in that!

Being afraid isn’t that scary.

All of our new and many of our returning campers had moments of fear: will I make new friends? Will my old friends still like me? I’m away from home for this long for the first time…. And you still had a blast! You’ve remembered that having those moments of trepidation just prepares you to do something brave – reaching out, trying something new, letting your guard down and just being you.

Camp has certainly reminded us about more than this small list. To me, though, these memories will help us in lots of ways as we head into the school year. So, for the week ahead, whether you are going to be hitting the books or hitting the road for a fun last few moments of summer, take some time to remember so that you can learn all the better.

Have a great week!