Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Benefits of Coed Summer Camps

Benefit 1: Coed Summer Camps Teach Kids to Interact with All Genders in a Healthy Way

Many of us have an image of summer camp as an all-boys or all-girls setting. While gender-specific camps do exist, coed summer camps teach kids to interact with all genders in a healthy way. As a parent, you’ll want to work with your child to decide which would provide a better experience.

Benefit 2: Coed Summer Camps Help Improve Communication Skills

One of the benefits of the summer camp experience is getting to work with and learn from people with different backgrounds. Our lives are enriched when we spend time with people who are different from ourselves. Communication between the sexes is often challenging, because boys and girls receive different messages growing up. Coed summer camps help improve communication skills, because they facilitate communication between boys and girls while their communication style is being developed. Learning to speak each other’s language will have a beneficial lasting impact.

Benefit 3: Coed Summer Camps Introduce the “Real World” in a Safe, Supervised Environment

While it may seem that summer camp is all fun and games, kids will learn valuable life lessons from the experience. Girls and boys need to learn to work together, rely on each other, and respect one another. Coed summer camps introduce the “real world” in a safe, supervised environment. Learning how to communicate across gender lines is a lesson that will make their adult lives more enriching

The Benefits of Adventure Camps for Girls and Boys

Leadership. Camaraderie. Responsibility. Exhilaration. Challenge. Education. The benefits of adventure camp stretch as far as the opportunities. Each adventure is unique to the group of campers, the environment and the leaders. You can ski, SCUBA dive, work on archaeological dig sites or with live animals at the zoo or even jet-set to a far corner of the globe. Adventure camp is a chance for kids to gain exposure to the world in a safe and structured setting. On Camppage.com you’ll even find opportunities for kids with unique circumstances, such as ADHD diagnoses, behavioral issues or substance abuse. No matter what kind of camp you’re looking for, Camppage.com is your gateway to adventure (http://www.camppage.com/adventure_camps/adventure_index.htm).

Confront and Overcome Fears at Adventure Camp

Some call it exposure therapy. Others call it a rush. Wake up and take the reins (sometimes literally) as you greet the world with vigor. Adventure camp can be terrifying (who wouldn’t squeal as they careened over their first rapids, left the shoreline behind in a boat marginally larger than a toothbrush, or traversed a gorge on a slack line?). But it is not the world that waits to be conquered – it is the fear itself. The opportunity to overcome one’s fears in group of supportive peers and expert guides is a thrill that will profoundly shape your child’s character.

Learn Safety Training at Adventure Camp

When it comes to summer camp, the number one concern is safety, and this value is magnified exponentially in adventure camps. Whether your child is helping out in the reptile exhibition at Bush Gardens in Tampa or sailing along the shores of New England, adventure camp leaders provide the utmost supervision and educate your children through safety trainings, best practices and controlled applications. Campers will get their hands dirty; they’ll sweat, laugh, sometimes cry and above all, learn to trust themselves. The experience they gain in adventure camp will often contribute to everyday life skills. As the ancient saying goes: There is no greater teacher than a good parent and a great adventure camp.

Adventure Camps Foster Teamwork and Collaboration 

You can’t cross a ropes course alone. You can’t rock climb alone. You can’t windsurf, raft, SCUBA dive, or remove tight cowboy boots alone. Adventure camp, like unyielding footwear, teaches kids how to work together. The social and survival skills that campers foster in adventure camp will help them not only emerge from the program as stronger individuals, but also to navigate the corporate world later in life.  Zappo.com can help if your boots are too small, but camppage.com should be your first stop for adventure camp. 

Encourage Your Child's Independence at Day Camp

The first signs of summertime are approaching – the ground is warming up, league signups are sprouting like the tulips, and you’ve noticed that your youngest child has started messing with the thermostat and wearing his swim trunks around the house. And there are conflicting appeals pulling at your conscience: the desire to keep your kids in your arms forever grates against the side of you that wants to turn the thermostat (and the house’s decibel level) back to a livable degree and give the kids the boot for the summer.  

You can have both of these scenarios by encouraging your child’s independence at summer day camp. This is the perfect balance -providing them the freedom to climb, play, swing, swim, explore, and run exhausted back into your arms at the end of the day.

Day Camp Allows Kids to Explore Different Activities in a Flexible Schedule

Day camp provides a nurturing yet challenging environment, not quite as intensive as an overnight camp, but with all the perks. Some day camps are set up to only last a week or two, so that your child can focus intensely on ribbon dancing, zoo-keeping or robot building, and then bop over to lacrosse for the next circuit. Conversely, certain day camps are set up for longer cycles to parallel the experience of residential campers, which is ideal for those who live close by or want to give camp a test-run before an overnight experience. Day camp schedules vary from school hours to full day adventures so as to accommodate both parents’ schedules as well as kids’ attention and interests.

Tap into All Realms of Creativity at an Arts Day Camp

One of the most beneficial aspects of a day camp is that its programs may specialize in a particular niche. If art is a point of interest, you can find camps that concentrate specifically on ceramics, dance, film and video, drawing and painting, performing arts, culinary arts, the list goes on and on. An arts day camp can provide the opportunity to focus on improvisational theatre, or explore every form of creative expression under the summer sun.

Specialty Day Camps

Specialty day camps offer unique experiences to expand leadership skills or venture into a completely different world. In a structured learning environment, kids can launch into outer space or build their own smart phone apps, track bear scat (at a safe distance) or come home speaking Italian. Truly, the possibilities are endless. Hop on the couch together to scroll through the different worlds at Camppage.com to see what day camps fit with your schedules and tantalize your kids’ imaginations. 

Horseback Riding Camps Build Character and Confidence

Horseback riding offers an exceptional element that no other type of camp can provide. Under the supervision of experienced riding counselors, kids take on the role as caregivers and leaders. Their actions and attitudes now directly impact another being, and the wisdom derived from just a short week or two has time and again created tangible character transformations in campers.

Horseback Riding Camps Teach Kids to Listen

Wandering through the woods on horseback, campers sharpen their senses to the horse’s energy or delicate shifts in their environment. They feel the horse’s power beneath them, watch its ears for changes in mood or attention, and acknowledge how it responds to their surroundings. With the privilege of riding comes a higher responsibility to listen to counselors and trainers more closely. These skills and experiences accompany the adventures of horseback riding camp, but tend to linger in the development of each camper’s character long after the summer has ended.

Horseback Riding Camps Teach Girls and Boys to be Leaders

Leadership often gets classified by those who stand in front of the classroom or speak up first to organize a group. But the fabulous thing about horseback riding camp is that kids can learn a softer definition of leadership that builds the same strength of character. Kids can take charge of certain tasks, lead by example, and most importantly, take the reins. They become one with the horse but are clearly in charge, and it is this sort of relationship that provides the environment for some kids to develop strong and compassionate leadership skills.

Horseback Riding Camps Teach Children to Think about and Care for Others

In camps specifically dedicated to horseback riding (as opposed to one activity incorporated into the curriculum), you’ll notice a good deal of time allotted to care for the horses. For those truly invested in this pastime, some sites will bring campers along the normal day of animal husbandry, introducing them to the duties of feeding, brushing, vet treatments, shoeing and bathing. Campers can grasp the magnitude of what is invested in caring for another creature, and find a joyful balance between learning and then gallivanting around the countryside on horseback.

Of course, if this is not quite the intensity you’re searching for, Camppage.com offers a variety of traditional summer camps that include horseback riding (that is, strictly riding) on the website as well.