Counselors Pack for Summer Camp

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The sound of kids laughing as they run into the lake.  The wind through the pine trees as you drift off to sleep on your bunk.  Swapping riddles among a group of friends as you paddle a kayak. Whether you are headed to work at a summer camp for your 1^st or 40^th summer, take a moment to consider what is calling you to camp.

Summer camps can be as inspiring and engaging for the counselors as for the campers.  What do you want to get out of your camping experience?  To ensure you offer the campers your best as well as feel personally fulfilled, take a few minutes and jot down your answers to the following questions before you pack your trunk.

1. What will you do to be the best counselor possible?


Do you want to make time every night to ask each camper about his or her great moment for the day?  Or is your strength in recognizing and helping homesick campers having been there yourself?  Or perhaps you’re the high-energy counselor who can introduce five new games this summer. Pack your counselor goals in your trunk along with your shorts and you’ll be more likely to keep those aims top of mind.


2. What do you need to keep your balance this summer?


We all need balance when living with, supervising and instructing campers all summer.  Their young exuberance can be fabulous and refreshing or just downright fresh.  Decide how you are going to find space to keep a calm frame of mind. 
Perhaps you need to find time to take a run every other day, or finally work for your swimming honor or lead an overnight trip.  Think about your goals and keep yourself fulfilled so you can be that best counselor possible for your campers.


3. What can you bring to help you achieve both 1 and 2?

Finally, do you need to bring anything to fulfill your counselor and your personal ambitions?   Would a new pair of running shoes inspire you to stick to your running goal?  Is there a great book you want to pack to read to your campers this summer (Wee Free Men is a humorous read aloud for young teens—your campers may think you’re Scottish even if you’re from California). Do you have the best waders for going frogging?  Make room in your trunk.

When, oh so long from now, the last bugle echo recedes in August, stop again and think about the camp skills you have gained that are relevant for your college or employment career; more thoughts on that here: Counselors Benefit From Camp Too!

What are you packing for you and your campers this summer?

Time for Trunks!

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Baseball opening day coincides with opening trunks to prepare for summer overnight camp.  Now that spring training is well underway it’s time to locate your camp trunk.

Don’t have a trunk yet?  No worries— here are the basics for purchasing and alternatives to purchasing a trunk whether you are headed to Minnesota, Maine or Michigan.

For campers who spend more than 2 weeks at overnight camp, the most common container for packing is a camp trunk.  It’s strong, reasonably good for organization, able to double as a card table for a game of Peon and has provided many campers over the years a way to reach the cabin rafters.  If your child is likely to continue as a camper, then it’s probably worth investing in a trunk.  

Trunk considerations when purchasing

Strength

Look for one that is strong— trunks take all sorts of abuse not the least of which is in shipping.  From the time a trunk is packed until it returns late in the summer, it’s likely to encounter a plethora of immovable objects.  

The strength of the trunk is probably the primary characteristic in the price of a trunk.  Well-made trunks will cost more.  Sadly the converse is not always true, so ask for brand name recommendations from your camp.  Have a brand you recommend?  Add a comment to this blog.

Height

Most camps have standard height bunks and often campers store their trunks under the bunk. Find out the bunk height and trunk height before making your purchase.

Shelf or tray

Nearly all trunks come with a shelf or tray, which allows for great organization at camp whether as a place to keep socks and underwear or writing supplies.

Wheels

Wheels are a nice, but definitely not necessary option.  They are helpful when rolling a trunk in and out of an SUV, but apart from that, rolling a trunk across the ground from a car to a cabin is a very bumpy event— most camp trunks get carried to and from cabins, ideally by campers and counselors.

Handles

Handles seem to be the most often forgotten feature in camp trunks these days.  Having hauled many different trunks from office to cabin, I have lifted only a few where the handle didn’t bite into my hand or cause the trunk to twist uncomfortably.  As stated above, you can hope that your camper or his counselors will be carrying the trunk to the cabin.  If you do find a trunk with comfortable carrying handles pass the word on!

Alternatives to purchasing a trunk

With all of the airline restrictions in luggage, campers who are flying to camp often ship their belongings separately from their own travel.  

Some camps offer options for campers with long journeys. Check with your camp about the following two possibilities:

1. Renting or borrowing a trunk from camp for the summer.  This way a camper can pack in duffles or suitcases and transfer his or her belongings upon arrival.
2. Storing your camper’s trunk at camp over the winter.  Some camp store empty trunks for the winter, so belongings can be taken to and from camp in suitcases or other luggage more suitable to traveling by plane.  In addition, your camper, if organized, can leave summer-only items like flashlights, stationary, bedside photos or even a camp blanket in the trunk for the winter.

A Cabin in the Woods Wakes Up

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Lying half asleep on my cot, I hear the first stirrings of the day as the sunlight peeks into the cabin.  Those first rays of sun are accompanied by the chirping of birds, and soon followed by a cabin waking up.  Yes, truly, it seems as if the cabin themselves wake up each new day at summer camp.

First the rustling begins as campers move about half asleep on their cots.  A blanket slips onto the floor here, a sleeping bag doubling as a comforter swishes over there. Next comes the all out tossing and turning of campers, as one by one sleep drops from their eyes and their eyelids flutter open.  

Soon a book or a flashlight can be heard hitting the cabin floor with a thud as it is knocked from a cubby amid the restlessness. The clunk leads to a quiet giggle, which is accompanied by a whisper across the bunks and soon thereafter the quiet “thump, thump” of stuff animals being tossed from one bed to the next.

The giggles quickly compound and the chirping of the birds fades into the background as whispers and muffled giggles ping off the cabin walls.  A footfall on the wooden floor and the pitter-patter of small feet heading for the cabin door tap past my bedside as I keep my eyes closed, enjoying the sounds of a cabin coming awake.

As the cabin door creaks open, the reveille bell simultaneously rings out and the whispers quickly turn to happy voices and a cascade of laughter.

A cabin has awoken in the woods of Maine.

Top 5 Benefits of Camp

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The snow may be piling up, but the days are lengthening— Think Camp!  Why camp?  Because overnight summer camp provides the foundation for many character elements we want to instill in our children.

Here are my top five benefits of summer camp:

Independence.  When a child needs to take care of the basics from addressing and stamping her own letters home to refilling the cornbread platter or changing out of her bathing suit and even (gasp!) hanging it up to dry, she is shaping her independence.  Independence is a skill that is vital to success throughout life and great preparation for that day in the distant future when she heads off to college.

Self-confidence.  Every day at camp a camper has the opportunity to try myriad pursuits whether holding the tiller of a sailboat for the first time or trying a new dive or leading a camp song by the campfire or feeding a goat.  Trying a new pursuit and working diligently to become proficient are the foundations of how we each build self-confidence.  Summer camp is a playground of new opportunities where every camper can try something new.

Precious present.  In a world of electronics and hustle and bustle we all need time to slow down and be immersed in the precious present.  Summer camp is a place to reconnect with the precious present as you hold a frog gently in your hands and watch it watch you.

Positive role models.  Most summer camps pride themselves on the care their staff bestows upon each and every camper.  Year after year young men and women return to summer camps to make positive connections with their campers.  One may help an eight year old perfect his baseball

swing. Another laughs with her campers heading to morning dip.  A third invites a quiet child to join in a game of spud.  Many sit quietly with campers by the water’s edge to watch the sunset.  We all need mentors and summer camps are filled with positive role models every child should have.  Plus according to this New York Times blog camp counselors can out-parent parents.

Camaraderie. How many times have I heard a former camper reflect nostalgically on camp saying, “I could be myself at camp, no pretenses like at school.”  Campers return summer after summer for the camaraderie they find among friends who accept them for who they are. 

Here are views from a few other folks who know something about camp and kids:

• American Camp Association
• PBS Kids

What are the benefits you see your child receiving at summer camp?

In a word: Relationships

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A word cloud formed from blogs on the value of overnight camp for campers and counselors conveys the essence of camp, and perhaps, of life—relationships. 

Relationships with friends and campers and counselors, and yes with parents too.  

Relationships with counselors who live in the moment and serve as valuable role models for children. 

Relationships among campers who learn and grow to meet their potential, who arrive with trepidation and leave camp with memories and lives changed through the relationships they form each summer.

Relationships between children and parents who give the gift of summer camp knowing a child can gain more self-confidence and responsibility in a few weeks of summer fun than nearly anywhere else in life.

Look into an overnight summer camp experience for your child this year.  

The blogs on which this cloud are based:

• 10 Reasons Why Businesses Should Hire Former Camp Counselors
• 5 Life Lessons Learned from Sleep-Away Camp
• What's Needed to Prepare Your Child for the Future? The Answer May Surprise You...
• Counselors Benefit from Camp Too!

A Smooth Camper Drop-off

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Taking a daughter to camp, especially the very first time, can be as exciting and worrying for the parent as it is for the camper.  The key to a successful drop off on the first day of camp is to ensure both your and your child's needs are met in the transition. For your child, she needs to integrate with her peers and make a connection to camp life so she has a focal point other than the goodbye.  Whether your child is clingy or independent, you need to balance giving her space and support to make that camp connection. Your child can sense if you are distressed about leaving her, so it's also important for you to assure yourself that your child is in good hands.  

A few tips for balancing your needs and your child's needs on the first day of camp:

• Meet her counselors— learn their names

• Meet any cabinmates who are around

• Introduce yourself to other parents—this gives your daughter time to connect with her peers on her own

• Help your daughter arrange a few items—maybe a photo she has brought from home, a jacket or laundry bag hung up. This setting up is truly more for the parent than the child. A parent wants to visualize her daughter’s space. For a camper, setting up is just a transitional pause before merging into camp life.

• Well run camps will have transitional activities for the arriving campers whether they head directly to a meal, an activity or gather for a craft. And a counselor who is well trained will create a transition.  When she does, take your cue and depart with a quick goodbye.

• Leave a card and small gift—a book, card game, activity book—for her on her bunk as a surprise when she returns to her cabin.

• Smile as you depart—you want your daughter to think of you as happy that she’s at camp

Pack These in Your Trunk

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As a camp counselor there are a few items I consistently notice are missing from camper’s trunks when they arrive at camp.  Whether your child is going away for a week or seven weeks, the following essentials will likely be as valuable to you as to your child’s camping experience.

Laundry Bag: Your young child, whether daughter or son, is unlikely to care whether she or he wears the same underwear, socks and shorts every day.  And without a laundry bag, one of two events will likely occur. Either she is neat and every night she will return her clothes to her trunk and pull them out again the next day resulting in returning home with a trunk full of clean, unworn clothes which makes laundry a breeze, but may not be the outcome you desired.  

Alternatively, she is the not too meticulous with her belongings and her clothing will be scattered across the cabin floor and under her cot where she may pick it up to put it back on in the morning or the errant sock or shirt will drift into the cabin trash or another trunk as it gets pushed beneath her neighbors bunk.  Again, you won’t have much laundry to do upon her return home, but then again you won’t have many of her clothes either. 

A laundry bag is indispensible in helping to avoid both of these outcomes.  Hang it up near her cot, and hopefully most of her dirty clothing will find its way into the bag rather than back into her trunk or under her neighbor’s cot.  A laundry bag is certainly no guarantee that she will find clean socks each morning or return with most of her clothing, but it will certainly raise the odds.

No laundry bag on hand?  Threading a shoelace through the hem of an old pillowcase can make a simple one.

Pre-addressed and stamped envelopes: This is a second item that may be more valuable for you than for your child.  Even a child with clear handwriting can run out of time addressing the neatly penned letter he just wrote during rest hour.  Once the bugle blows your camper is more likely to run down to the lake for a dip than to stop and address and stamp a letter.  And even if he does try to quickly address the envelope, it’s pretty easy to leave off the zip code when in a hurry, or forget that postage to Grandma in Alberta is more than Uncle Herb in Arkansas. 

Closed-Toed Water Shoes: Many camps disallow flip-flops as they lead to lots of stub toes and lost toenails when running around camp.  Yet having footwear to quickly throw on when your camper is heading to the pool is essential to maximize her time in the water.  So along with a sturdy pair of sneakers, find some closed-toed water shoes that also have some type of heel strap.  

While you don’t have to spend a great deal to purchase footwear, remember that ill-fitting water shoes—especially plastic shoes—can quickly lead to blisters and cuts as they are worn without socks.  Find a pair that is comfortable and quick to slip on.

Water Bottle: Whether he is heading out on a hike or just likes to have water by his bunk at night, a water bottle is exceedingly convenient.  Most reusable water bottles aren’t the easiest to keep clean, so you might want to take a few minutes showing him how to rinse it out between uses and remind him to pour out old water before refilling it fresh.