Yoyojoe - Born To Camp

I was reading through some articles this morning online and came across this link to an article titled - Materialism linked to self-esteem and this article as well.

What an interesting find to land upon two days before Christmas.  The thought that we can reduce children’s materialism by increasing their self-esteem is amazing.  It leads me to think that camp has a bigger role to play in helping our cameprs become less materialistic, another positive for the camp experience. 

We want children to leave with and improved level of self-esteem, how do we accomplish that?  Do our programs allow our campers to increase their self-esteem?   Do we give our counsellors conrete tools that will help them understand how to increase a child’s self-esteem?

In my experience at numerous summer camps - our training falls short with our staff - we focus on the program and not the development of the child.  Sure, we might move them up a level, increase a skill, but do our staff know what changes to look for in a camper to help them increase self-esteem?

This article is a start.

The role that camp has to play in the development of children is bigger than we communicate to the world.