https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/grab-teenage-window-opportunity

The camp experience provides an outstanding opportunity for personal growth. The adolescent brain, which is undergoing tremendous physical and neurological development, can benefit greatly from the...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/talking-about-youth-development-helping-campers-grow-successful-adults

"The resilient child is one who works well, plays well, loves well, and expects well." —Norman Garmezy When we talk about youth, we too often use negative terms: what we would like...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/pranks-or-projects-how-make-last-weeks-camp-your-best

In late July 2014, I sat on my bed, alone for the first time all day, reeking of garbage and motor oil, and listening to rain pummel the tin roof. Satisfied I’d done my duties for the night, I had...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/staying-out-point-struggle

Scene 1: Tabatha, one of your five-year-old day campers, is going through her fussy-eating routine with you at lunchtime again. What happens is now so familiar to you that you’re...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/boys-camp-developing-skills-life-success

I spent a few months earlier this year visiting camps throughout New England. One of my stops was Camp Watitoh, a sleepaway camp in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts, where a college classmate...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/impact-camp-experiences-social-skills-happiness

With depression, anxiety, and addiction rates high among adolescents (Keyes, 2006), and many youth engaged in relational aggression and other damaging social practices like bullying, there is clearly...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/noticing-deficit-disorder-how-camp-can-restore-art-seeing-world

We are in the midst of an epidemic of visual impairment no medical doctor can fix — but which camps might cure. Back in the `60s, artist, researcher, and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim (1969) lamented...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/kids-are-all-right

Most kids, most of the time, are totally doing the right thing. They are listening to you, being respectful to each other, playing and having fun in activities (they may not have chosen for...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/meet-staff-where-they-are-not-where-you-wish-them-be

Unanswered emails. Requests (demands) for time off. Over-involved parents. What's the matter with young people today? Most likely nothing! We have more in common with this cohort of staff than one...

https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/yes-only-means-yes-until-something-better-comes-along-making-camp-best-offer-gen-z-staff

Staff sign a contract, then inform you the week before camp begins that they won’t be coming after all. Or staff commit to working the entire season only to tell (not ask!) you they are leaving for...