4 Parenting Challenges and How Camp Can Help
In today’s digital, fast-moving, ultra-competitive world, raising kids who grow into happy, independent adults has become more challenging for parents. Quality summer camp programs offer an experience that many parents have found to benefit their child’s development of important life skills. Independence, perseverance, and social skills are just a few of the skills that campers learn…
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2013 in Review
WordPress just let me know that these are my posts that got the most views in 2013. Thank you for reading and sharing your comments with me this year. I look forward to reading books, blog posts, and articles, learning from you, and writing more in 2014! 1 Why Kids Flourish at Camp 2 Book Review: How…
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My SMART Goal: Encouraging Notes to my Kids
I love thinking about and writing down my goals for each year. I used to set unrealistic, vague, way-too-big goals and resolutions – the kind that barely last beyond the start of the New Year. My mom and I laugh about her yearly goal, which has always been to “Learn to speak French.” It’s sounded…
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Catch Them Doing the Right Thing
I’ve often thought it would be great if all parents could go through the kind of training and orientation we provide our counselors before they start working with kids during the summer. I’ve heard many times from past counselors that they learned a lot of their parenting techniques from working at camp! Often, parents and…
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Two Ways to Be a Better Parent
This weekend, I had the pleasure of listening to Madeline Levine, PhD. (author of The Price of Privilege, Teach Your Children Well) speak at my favorite annual camp conference. Dr. Levine has insight as to why so many of our children are suffering from terrible mental health issues (anxiety, depression, eating disorders, sleeping issues, self-mutilation, etc.). …
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Let the Kids Cook Dinner
One of my parenting role models is a fictional animal. She’s the lead character in the children’s book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, which was written by Du Bose Heyward in 1939. I can see why the book was written in 1939. No one today would write a book like this…
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Are We Having Fun Yet?
I have a confession to make. My family, as of late, does not have much fun together. Yes, there are the occasional weekend trips or parties with friends where we have fun. But, on a day-to-day basis, there isn’t a whole lot of fun going on around here. There’s homework. Laundry. Cleaning up the kitchen.…
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Making Family Dinner like a Campfire
An activity we do at campfires at camp has been helpful in our family at getting our kids to communicate about both positive and negative events in their lives. For children who don’t normally share their struggles and keep them bottled up, it helps them open up. And for those who don’t naturally focus…
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Focusing on Kindness
This summer’s theme is “Cool 2B Kind.” We’ll focus on being kind to one another and carrying out acts of kindness (referred to as “GACs of kindness”), both big and small, that help form the strong friendships that GAC is all about. From the moment campers arrive, counselors will encourage them to think more about…
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Finding Flow
“The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task…” -Wikipedia definition of flow While searching for a Minecraft video on YouTube, my nine-year-old stumbled upon a video about making a stove out of a tin can. I’ll save the problem of “stumbling upon” videos on YouTube for another post. …
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Parking Your Helicopter
“The study, released Feb. 12, found that behaviors associated with helicopter parenting have a negative impact on the college-aged adult’s feelings of autonomy, competency, and their relationship with their parents. Conventional wisdom in the field of psychology suggests that these three characteristics are necessary for healthy emergence into adulthood.” -Andrew Averill, The Christian Science Monitor…
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Grit, Goals, and Growth
Gold Arrow Camp has taught me to be brave and reach my goals. If it wasn’t for GAC, I wouldn’t be nearly as courageous as I am now. Remi Grit Grit has become the new buzz word in education and parenting thanks to Paul Tough’s best-selling book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden…
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