Resilience is the ability to be able to over come challenges, stress and difficult or unpleasant situations. It is something that can be taught and nurtured in all children. Summer camps are the perfect place to grow and experience situations which test your resilience and teach you skills to bounce back from adversity.
Summer camps are very diverse places. Our campers come from all around the world. New friendships will be built and we will learn about each other’s cultures. At times these friendships will be tested and we will prove how resilient we really are. Your best friend might become friends with another group of campers making you feel left out, your might have a little disagreement about who sleeps on the top bunk... whatever it is, overcome the challenge and bounce back, even if that is with the help of our staff team.
Camps are a place where you will find something you are good at giving you a powerful identify and confidence in front of others – so many activities and opportunities on offer. At times you may also find yourself doing an activity where your skills and experience might be lacking. Give it a go, even if you are out of your comfort zone, you never know you might discover a new talent!
Our staff team are incredibly talented and nurturing but in a busy camp environment, they do not have the time to do everything for everyone. They can assist and advise; however we want campers to embrace this opportunity to learn how to be independent, how can I make everything fit in my suitcase? What do I need to do with my wet swimming kit when I get back to my room?
Every camper is different and that is why we offer choice sessions at all of our residential camps. They give campers the chance to choose what they want to do every afternoon. Many of our activities have a cap on the number of campers who can participate whether that is due to safety constraints, the equipment available or quality of the activity. It means we might not always get our first choice. There are then two options, firstly, having a bit of a sulk because 'life is not fair' and going into the next best thing with a negative attitude or we can learn from this that in life, things might not always go our way. By being resilient, we can be happy for our friends who did get their first choice, select the next best option and realise that by trying something new we might find a new skills or hobby. And at the end of the day it is just over an hour of our life, let's not get knocked down by it!
Every summer we love seeing campers bounce back from challenging situations. Have you noticed how much more resilient your child is since attending our camps? We would love to hear your stories of how they have overcome situations where they may not have had the skills to before!
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