How Summer Camp Can Help Your Child Grow

Summer camp is considered one of the things most children should get to enjoy during their youth, but it’s far from just fun. Summer camp can help your children grow as people and be more ready for the adult life you are preparing them for down the road.

Meet New People

Familiar faces are sources of safety and stability in the lives of your children. From family and babysitters to friends and teachers they see on a regular basis, it’s good to know they are surrounded by people who care for them. However, they also need to know how to make new friends or even learn how to deal with people they don’t really get along with. Summer camp inevitably winds up with opportunities for both.

Try New Things

New foods, new songs, fresh lessons, climbing things, and possibly even crossing rope bridges: kids who go to summer camp have to wind up trying all sorts of new things. Whether they succeed at them or not isn’t really the point so much as developing an interest in things and learning how to be a student in all stages of life, because the world will throw new things at them all the time.

See New Places

Your children are used to their routines, and they see the same places over and over again. Summer camp is a chance for them to see new places and locations. You might not want them too far away so you have little trouble picking them up or getting them there, but you can also enjoy the multiple locations of something like STEAM summer camps to find the best balance for them and you.

Learn Independence

Perhaps the biggest thing that children learn from summer camp is just being independent. Yes, they’ll be part of a supervised group, but they’re also going to be away from home and can’t immediately turn to you when they need something. Learning a bit of independence this early on and in a safe environment helps plant the seeds for the true independence they’ll have to practice later on.

You Need a Break Too

Kids don’t really learn it until later, sometimes when they become parents themselves, but their own parents sometimes love sending their kids off to summer camp. As much as you love them, parenting is hard work, and you could use the vacation as much as they can.

By Rachelle Wilber

Rachelle Wilber is a freelance writer living in the San Diego, California area. She graduated from San Diego State University with her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. When she isn’t on her porch writing in the sun, you can find her shopping, at the beach, or at the gym. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @RachelleWilber; https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009221637700