Backpacking Adventures

At the end of one successful camp session, and on the eve of our next, we are both humbled and inspired by the power of summer camp.

Every day of this summer, at camps all across this county and globe, children are discovering a portal into an amazing place: themselves.  This journey can be simultaneously exhilarating and challenging; simple and complicated; fun and hard; crystal clear and confusing; liberating and frightening; but—most of all—it is their own.

For girls, many of the lessons build on the relational skills they have been developing since early childhood.  They learn to live together, compromise and deal appropriately with conflict, connect with the natural world, persevere, develop integrity and independence, respect the feelings and emotions of those around them, challenge themselves physically and safely, gain a sense of empowerment that will last a lifetime…and much more.

For boys, especially boys in the 9-12 year old range, summer camp becomes an essential “outlet” to help define their journey into manhood.  In their 2007 book titled “Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys,” Stephen James and David Thomas encourage parents to “be intentional with summers” by sending boys to camp.  Their reasoning states that:

Summit Day!

A number of great camps across the country are doing excellent work with boys.  Camps provide a rich opportunity for boys to experience appropriate risk—physically, emotionally, and relationally—in a completely different way than they can on their home turf.

Much of that difference, for boys and girls, comes from the daily exposure to and reality of the natural environment.  As participants in a ground-breaking research study conducted by the American Camp Association, we realized that camps scored slightly lower in the “physical safety” category than in many of the other “supports and opportunities” categories.  The ACA followed up with campers and realized that, for many, living in the outdoors (with deer, porcupines, and bear) can be a bit disconcerting for youth and thus, make them feel less physically safe than they feel at home.

Yet that subtle fear has a valuable purpose.  It helps young people understand their “position” in the world.  “There is a humility and seasoned wisdom to be learned in the natural world,” writes John Eldredge.

Turn a canoe sideways and it will tip.  Approach an elk upwind and it will spook.  Run your hand along the grain of wood and you’ll get a splinter.  There is a way things work….In the realm of nature, you can’t just order room service, or change the channel, or write a new program to solve your problems.  Your can’t ignore the way things work.  You must be taught by it.  Humility and wisdom come when you learn those ways, and learn to live your life accordingly.

Hawking the Horses on the 4-day Horse Trip

The natural world is a powerful teacher—and it teaches us experientially.  If you head out on a hike without a rain jacket, and it begins to rain (or hail) it is unlikely you will forget your rain jacket next time.  Similarly, at camp, if a camper loses a glove on a mountain climb and has to wear a sock on his hand instead,or hurts a good friend with a thoughtless remark, or makes some other mistake that involves a natural consequence, there will—over time—be a recognition that develops about “how things work” and “how much effort I have to put forth in order for them to work out the way I would like.”

Call it responsibility.  Call it self-awareness or self-efficacy.  Call it the basis of wisdom.  Whichever name or characteristic you choose, the result is still the same: a more thoughtful and insightful child who understands that he/she is part of the larger world…and not the other way around.

Camp is a great place to learn how people, ideas, life lessons, challenges, opportunities, and the natural world can all intersect and impact you as an individual and vice versa.  Those precious camp moments are ephemeral gifts which can make a positive impact forever.

So to our campsick friends we say, “Don’t cry because it is over; smile because it happened.”  And with each smile or story about camp, another lesson is learned, ingrained and owned by the camper.  It is a little glimpse through the portal into themselves: into the world of confident and thoughtful individuals who can live, work, and play in the outdoors…and love every minute of it.