5 Reasons to UNPLUG
Oh, how I love my nightly Pinterest sessions. I look forward to that mindless scrolling and pinning of recipes I’ll never make and quotes that inspire. And I love seeing pictures friends have posted and what everybody’s doing on Facebook. And, of course, I love the great articles I link to from Twitter. The downside…
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Hug Your Teen Today
“The most important assignment a mom has is to nurture her children.” Tim Sanford, M.A. (Losing Control & Liking It) Significant research has shown that babies need a lot of nurturing in order to thrive. But I think that nurturing is just as vital for our older kids and teenagers as it is was when…
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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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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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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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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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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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Way Too Much of a Good Thing
Anyone who’s been reading my blog knows that I’m a big proponent of getting kids “unplugged.” I love that they get two weeks of tech free time to focus on face-to-face relationships while they’re at camp. Unfortunately, I think many of them fall back into their same tech habits, and those of their parents,…
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“Kidsickness”: Help for First Time Camp Parents
Who’s REALLY not ready for camp? Usually, parents say it’s their kid who’s not ready, but in my experience, the kids are raring to go, and it’s the parents who aren’t ready. After spending the last three decades at camp having fun with the campers, and talking to their anxious parents at home, I’m certain…
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Teens Take Time
I wrote this in 2008, but it is still as relevant today as we think about having appropriate expectations about how quickly kids, teens, and young adults respond to our requests. My oldest daughter is 14, so I was especially interested in the conversation some of our older girl campers were having when I drove…
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Get Unplugged
The January/February, 2011, issue of Stanford Magazine reported on research being done about the impact of time spent online (link to the article provided below). It gave me even more reasons to celebrate that Gold Arrow Camp gives kids an extended period of “unplugged” time. Researchers at Stanford (and I’m sure elsewhere) are investigating what…
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