It might not seem like it now, but just ask your kid — the countdown is already on for the end of the school year. And you know how it goes as soon as summer hits: messy rooms, questionable bathing practices, and complaints of boredom won’t be far behind.
All this is a great reason to start thinking about summer camp options, especially considering how fast spots fill up. From athletics to STEM to computer coding and more, the variety of camps offered in Memphis and the surrounding areas should include something that sparks your child’s interest.
Even better than filling hours of inevitable boredom, summer camps benefit kids’ socioemotional development and understanding of team dynamics. These are the types of lessons that will remain with them for the rest of their lives, while making memories that they’ll treasure forever.
If you’re still unconvinced, here are eight great reasons to send your kid to summer camp.
1. It gets them off screens
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, children in the U.S. between the ages of 8 and 12 spend an average of four to six hours a day watching or using screens. It’s even worse for adolescents, who can spend up to nine hours a day on a device when they don’t have school or other activities to keep them engaged.
The variety of summer camp options obviously includes technology-related themes. However, these offer real-world applications and an active learning environment that help prepare students for tomorrow’s tech advances. They’re a far better way for your child to interact with screens and can help shape their future career paths.
2. It helps them form positive peer relationships
No amount of face-timing friends over the long summer vacation could equal the enormous benefits of the peer interaction and self-discovery that occur at summer camp. With communal campfires, shared meals, and team-building activities, camps offer kids the education they really need to succeed in a world where community (and one’s place in it) matters.
These kinds of interactions form the foundation of your child’s future ones in college. Summer camp experiences like these can give your child confidence in their ability to meet strangers, find a common bond with others, work together for a greater purpose, and finalize a goal that can be celebrated by everyone involved in reaching it.
3. It gets them out of their comfort zone
If you have a teenager, you already know how comfortable they like to get in the summer. They’re comfortable in bed until 11 a.m., then comfortable on the couch for several rounds of video games, and finally comfortable during their multiple trips to the kitchen to eat up the rest of the snacks.
And who can fault them? We all like to take advantage of a little comfort and don’t like to be pulled away from it. The beautiful thing about the summer camp experience is that it will move your teens out of their comfort zone and into a safe space to try new things and meet new people they just might like. Even if they don’t like it, it beats most of the activities they’d find otherwise.
4. It’s good for their mental health
Research into happiness and well-being consistently shows that humans, young and old alike, are happiest when they are a part of a community. We all like to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s during moments when we are working with others toward a common good that we understand our place in the world and the legacy we hope to leave.
As rates of childhood anxiety and depression continue to increase, we as parents should feel a wake-up call to make sure our kids have positive, healthy experiences that will build their self-esteem and mental health. Getting them away from their everyday routine and into an environment where they can learn and grow as individuals is its own type of therapy, and worth every penny if your child is struggling with mental health.
5. It brings them back to nature
The “nature deficit disorder” experienced by the TikTok generation is staggering. The more high-tech their lives become, the more exposure to nature kids need to help balance their minds and bodies in a world where everything is filtered and digital.
Spending time in nature has been proven to reduce stress and depression, while decreasing rates of obesity and obsessive compulsive behaviors. If there is one remedy that is at our disposal and can have an enormous effect in balancing our kids’ health and well-being, it’s a summer camp that puts them right in the heart of Mother Nature. Activities such as hiking, swimming, planting, boating, and camping are great resets to get your kid off his phone or tablet screen and into a wider world full of amazing creatures.
6. It helps repair pandemic damage
Researchers are only beginning to uncover some of the devastating effects of the pandemic lockdowns and the toll they took on the mental health of children and adolescents. Not only were kids separated from their peers during important developmental phases, they were forced to learn online and stay socially distant during a collectively scary time.
Going to summer camp can’t erase the way Covid-19 changed our lives, but it can start to fill in the gaps our youth experienced in social interaction and learning as we all struggled to find equilibrium during the height of the pandemic. The social distancing that occurred then can be recalibrated now through campfire songs and a lot of dorm room laughter.
7. It helps promote college readiness
College readiness requires an understanding of how to participate in a wider community of people from diverse backgrounds. Positive experiences like summer camps provide kids with a safe space to practice this, while building their confidence and teaching them how to interact with others with respect and curiosity
Just like the first day of college, summer camps pull kids away from their parents and into a new world where they can explore what it means to be a part of a global community and learn from others in the process. Many camp activities also build critical thinking and problem-solving skills — both of which are vital to a successful college experience
8. It gives girls needed confidence
There’s been an ongoing debate about the best ways to get girls more confident in areas like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Changing the status quo is a process that happens through consistently exposing young girls to exciting activities and educational opportunities in these fields, and summer camps are just how to do it.
There’s also research showing that camp participation may be particularly important for influencing college readiness for women. Camps help girls build their confidence and leadership skills in a safe environment that supports the girl experience, and teaches them how to navigate women’s unique experience in the world.
An experience they won’t forget
Although they’d be the first to argue otherwise, today’s youth aren’t really so different from the generations before them who learned about themselves and the world around them through summer camp experiences. Getting them off screens and out of classrooms, and into adventures and campground pathways will strengthen everything from their mental health to their college readiness. So let’s get camping!