How is Camp a Brain Changer?

For many children, camp is an incredible experience, rich with relationships and activities which effects linger on almost the whole school year as they wait in anticipation for the following summer to begin. But for other kids, camp is one long miserable experience that is dreaded and avoided.

This article is not about the problems of camp. For example, the problem of how children need to be accepted as staff members even after attending as a camper for a few years. And some are devastated when they are not. Or, the prohibitive amount of money it costs to attend camp that many parents can ill afford. Or the extreme materialism that often exists where girls feel coerced into buying an inordinate amount of outfits and paraphernalia to keep up appearances for bunkmates. Or, the method of assigning jobs that can be hurtful to many girls; or, the boredom girls experience once they become staff because there are too many hours with little to do. Nope. This article is not about the failures of camp, although I am itemizing them here to let you know I am aware of them but it’s not the focus of what I want to say today; but of its successes. Then, we can later return to the subject of those children who dread or hate sleep away camp.

What is the successful stuff of camp?

Much!

What many people, parents, counselors, and campers alike don’t realize is that the experience of camp is a powerful one. And not simply about having a good time, but a truly life-altering experience that is so because believe it or not, the camp experience is brain-altering first!

What do I mean?

There have been a number of studies researching the development outcomes of camp on children. Many have been discussed at the non-profit ACA (American Camp Association) conferences in which camp owners, directors, and others interested in summer camps and other camp programs join to discuss topics of importance related to the camping experience. Tina Wayne Bryson, a keynote speaker at one conference (perhaps better known as the co-author of Dan Siegal’s best-seller, The Whole-Brain Child), discussed the actual brain changes that occurs as a result of the camp experience.

Tina explained that it’s not only that experiences affect us; they actually rewire—or change—the actual structure of the brain. To be successful in our adult life, she says, a person needs to be able to attend to a couple of important tasks. Regulate the body and its emotions, develop awareness into ourselves (how we act and why we act the way we do), learn and deepen communication, empathy and attunement to others, grow in our ability to adapt to new situations, bounce back from setbacks instead of collapsing from them, make mature and reflective choices about our lives, and overcome fears that hold us back from taking risks to succeed.

All of these tasks, Tina says, is part of the job of the middle, prefrontal cortex, the part of our thinking brain that is located behind the forehead and eyes, in the front-most part of our frontal lobe. If our prefrontal cortex develops adequately to do all these duties, then we have the skills to become successful in our adult life. The ability to do all the above rather well indicates that we have achieved good mental and emotional health, good relationships, and good tools to achieve what is important to us in our world; physically, mentally, and spiritually.

What’s this got to do with camp, you want to know? Because in the cutting-edge world of neuroscience, we are learning how the actual brain structure changes with each experience we undergo. And these brain changes further change how we are able to navigate in our world. We know this because fMRI’s are brain scans used in research that show how different parts of our brain change after experiences, both in positive and in negative ways. And the environment of camp shows evidence of these positive brain changes.

In the studies Youth development outcomes of the camp experience: evidence for multidimensional growth and Examining the Role of Summer Camps in Developing Academic and Workplace Readiness, both show that camp has the potential to effect psychological growth in ways that increase children’s social skills and feelings of happiness. Others areas of this psychological impact is in the ability to overcome adversity, learn flexibility, work within groups, and affect regulation. Camp is a place where there are so many activities going on each day, within a social environment, and particularly a fun one, that children are motivated in ways they cannot be otherwise, to get along with others, uncover latent creativity, work hard to figure things out, master skills, and tolerate frustration. Of course all these skills are being challenged in school and at home, but precisely because camp is fun, and appears to be a non-pressuring environment as compared with school or the expectations at home, children find it easier to adapt to the needs of this fun community and push himself harder, effects that spill over into the academic school year, into adult life!

In a discussion of camp in the Harvard newsletter, the concept of social-emotional learning (SEL), the five core areas that indicative of adult success (self-awareness, self-management, relationship building, decision-making, and social awareness) all present with their greatest opportunities in the sleep away camp environment. It’s not hard to understand why. With limited access to parents, children are challenged to figure things out on their own. They are presented with novel activities that are new to everyone, not just them, so it’s easier to join the fun and uncover previously unknown talents and strengths. For children who don’t excel in academics especially, of which academics is considered only one of multiple intelligences, this is an opportunity to discover the other intelligences they may have! The fast pace of camp challenges campers to continuously set goals and achieve them. Often in a fun, silly, social way. The wheelbarrow race among other races is a perfect example of that.

And most importantly, those endless times of singing, of thinking, late night conversations, times of reflection and introspection that camp fosters (especially when the OD is finally asleep but the campers are not) is an important piece of self-awareness, of mindfulness, that is found in such plentiful abundance in camp settings.

Let’s get back to that child who hates camp.

Sometimes, the camp is the problem, how it is structured, the counselors they hire, how they (don’t!) model for the counselors how to be attuned to the campers’ concerns and well-being. Those in charge of camps should be attending conferences in which the camping experience is considered part of creating the whole-brain child and as much as there is training for teachers; anyone involved in camp should be trained as well in areas of child development and camp purpose.

But more often, the issue of a child hating camp has more to do with his or her own issues than the particulars of camp structure. For example, a child who is struggling socially and camp becomes another area to fail. Or a child who is severely homesick. Generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, or eating disorders.

As a therapist, I find that a child who refuses to go to camp, who is miserable in camp, even if they are fabulous in school, is offering you a clear sign that there is something that is not being addressed in this child’s life. There is an underlying anxiety that is more easily masked during the school year than in an environment where they cannot run home, be alone for hours at a time so that the short times in public they can pull themselves together on the surface. Homesickness, for example, is not about a child who is so close to her parents or siblings or loves her home so much she cannot bear to be away. It’s about a child who cannot separate properly in an age-appropriate way. The underlying reasons can be many which is beyond the scope of this article, but definitely worth a visit to a therapist. Even with only the parents, if the child refuses to attend or insists there is no problem—as long as nobody is forcing him/her to go to camp.

Because if the brain is changed by the camp experience, in ways that are far reaching into adulthood, we would be remiss as educators, parents, and camp directors not to take that information seriously to give them that camp experience.

Because brain damage can be irreversible in adult life.