Categories Good SOIL Jim Vitale October 23, 2024

Why overnight camp | Pt 3: Camp cultivates independence

By Jim Vitale

This article is part of our “Why you should send your child to overnight camp” series. The series introduction explored the current research on outcomes for overnight campers and offered a list of the most important outcomes. Here, we go more in depth with one of those outcomes.

Independence.

It’s one of the cornerstones of our nation and no one would argue that it is an important life-skill. Everyone needs to cultivate a certain level of self-reliance in order to be successful in life. And yet when it comes to parenting, independence can be a tricky thing. On the one hand we want our children to learn how to take care of themselves; on the other hand, we are fiercely protective of our children and want to help them with whatever we can.

In the introduction to this series, I talked a little about the anxieties some parents feel about sending their children off to camp. Many parents want to keep their kids close so that they can help them when they need it and know that they are okay. Most parents can acquiesce to a day away at school or day camp, but there’s something about the overnight that propels anxiety to another level.

As one of those anxious parents, I get it. I want my children to be able to take care of themselves; but I worry. I know that they are not yet at a place where they can fully take care of themselves and so I want to keep them close until the day that the can. The conundrum, however, is that they will never learn how to care from themselves if I never give them the chance to try.

As any psychologist or developmental specialist will affirm, children need time away from their parents. On the one hand, it is healthy for us to take breaks from being around other people, even people we love dearly. We need time alone or away. I can say without shame that sometimes I just need a break from my kids; it stands to reason that they need time away from me as well.

More importantly, however, children need free space to explore, grow, learn, mature, and experiment away from ever-watchful parental eyes. It’s part of their natural development and one of the best gifts we as parents can give them.

Our age of helicopter parents is giving way to an age of so-called lawnmower parents (also called bulldozer or tiger parents). So-called helicopter parents are always around, hovering, protecting, creating a perimeter wherein their child will (hopefully) never get hurt. While that kind of protection can provide feelings of safety in children, it can also hamper the healthy experimentation and failure that lead to maturity and growth.

Lawnmower parents, on the other hand, are even more involved than helicopter parents. This is a kind of parenting where the parents not only hover around their children, they do everything for them.

WebMD actually has an article about lawnmower parents, and describes them like this: “While helicopter parenting involves ‘hovering,’ or keeping a close eye on a child’s every move, lawnmower parenting typically involves more intervention.”

According to the article, some signs of lawnmower parenting include: completing school projects for their child, emailing teachers to argue about grades, removing their child from difficult activities, intervening in conflicts with friends, teachers, coaches, and others on behalf of their child, contact professors about grades or extensions, and reaching out to potential employers about interviews.

Dr. Dan Brennan, the author of the article, warns that, “in the long-term, a child of lawnmower parents may start to interpret challenges as personal failures, blaming themselves for setbacks. This can lead to increased anxiety, low tolerance for distress, and feelings of helplessness.”

While it is every parent’s natural inclination to protect their child from danger, pain, and suffering, sometimes parents can get overinvolved. In seeking to protect their children to such a great extent, lawnmower parents (and helicopter parents) actually end up complicating things in the long run.

The solution is to cultivate independence, situations where kids can make their own decisions and manage the consequences with guidance. Camp is an ideal setting for fostering independence because it provides plenty of opportunities for kids to make their own choices in the company of mentors who are not their parents. Campers are supervised so that their physical safety is not compromised, but they are also free to do and act how they please. If a camper struggles with the consequences of his or her own actions, a camp counselor is nearby to help them process and make decisions.

In their National Camp Impact Study, the ACA marks independence as a key outcome of overnight camps. Likewise, Sacred Playgrounds found that 81% of summer camp participants felt a greater sense of independence after the camp experience. Sacred Playgrounds writes that many campers “exhibited lasting change in measurements of self-confidence.”

In her Washington Post article, Laura Clydesdale quotes Michael Thompson, the author of “Homesick and Happy.”  He writes: “… there are things that, as a parent, you cannot do for your children, as much as you might wish to. You cannot make them happy (if you try too hard, they become whiners); you cannot give them self-esteem and confidence (those come from their own accomplishments); you cannot pick friends for them and micro-manage their social lives, and finally you cannot give them independence. The only way children can grow into independence is to have their parents open the door and let them walk out. That’s what makes camp such a life-changing experience for children.”

An overnight experience at Camp Mount Luther might just be one of the best places to send your kids when you let them walk out the door.

 

Read more entries in this series