We’ve all been asking ourselves a lot of similar questions lately…
How is technology affecting our society, our children and our upbringing? What happened to finding a stick and playing with it for hours along the creek side? What happened to going and knocking on a friend’s door and asking their parents if they can come out and play? What happened to interacting with real people and not a screen?
Many of us had similar experiences during our childhood that are currently causing us to ask these questions. Why? Because we are curious about what is happening to the culture we grew up in and we recognize how important those experiences were in creating the people we are today.
The culture of course is going to change, but that doesn’t mean we have to let go of the experiences that created such wonderful childhood memories as well as allowed us to learn so many valuable life skills. Camp has been around for a long time. Some of us have experienced it and some of us have not. Most of us who’ve experienced it would not trade it for anything, and many of us who have not, wish we had! The thing is, camp hasn’t changed all that much, but how we look at it has.
Maybe 20 years ago, we weren’t asking ourselves the questions we are today. Kids were still getting outside, exploring and having social interactions with others regardless of if they went to camp or not. Camp is emerging as a place were we can preserve those experiences for our children today. We see the need for more face-to-face social interactions, experiences in nature with others, and bringing back a child’s sense of wonder. Camp didn’t plan it this way, to at some point become relevant, camp just wanted kids to get outside more, explore and have fun. Camp has done just that though, camp has become relevant. Camp understands the questions we are asking ourselves today, and knows the camp experience can fulfill the need from which these questions derive.
