Parents Success Corner

Summer camp is a place where children get the experiences they need to bolster their range of coping strategies. There are challenges of getting along with a new group of peers, learning how to ask for help from others, or taking manageable amount of risks without a parent following after you.

Summer camp is a place where children get the experiences they need to bolster their range of coping strategies. There are challenges of getting along with a new group of peers, learning how to ask for help from others, or taking manageable amount of risks without a parent following after you.
Our camping experience allows opportunities for manageable for safe amounts of risk and responsibility. Campers, especially teens, put away the makeup, stash the iPods, get a little dirty and even a little frustrated while having fun and making new friends. Campers develop great coping strategies at camp, such as:
1)    New relationships, not just with peers, but with motivated counselors, other than their parents. Just think about how useful a skill like that is: being able to negotiate on your own with an adult for what you need.
2)    A powerful identity that makes campers feel confident in front of others. Your child may not be the best during rock climbing, the fastest swimmer, or the next teen idol when he/she sings, but chances are that a good camp counselor is going to help your child find something to be proud of that he can do well.
3)    Camp counselors help our campers feel in control of their lives, and those experiences of self-efficacy can travel home as easily as a special art project or the tye dye shirt they carry in their backpack. Campers who experience themselves as competent, will be better problem-solvers in new situations long after their laundry is cleaned and the smell of camp forgotten.
4)    Camp counselors do everything to make sure that all children are treated fairly. The wonderful thing about camp is that every child starts without the baggage they carry from school. They may be a little awkward or the child with a learning disability. At camp they will find opportunities to just be kids who are valued for who they are.
5)    At Blue Dolphin kids get what they need to develop physically. Ideally, fresh air, exercise, a balance between routine and unstructured time, and helping children find healthy lifestyles.
6)    Perhaps best of all, Blue Dolphin gives our campers a chance to feel like they belong. All those goofy chants during color war, the sense of common purpose and attachments to our identity goes a long way to giving our campers a sense of being rooted.
7)    Blue Dolphin gives our campers a better sense of their culture. It might be during our talent show, or camp idol, or maybe it's just a chance for campers to understand themselves a bit more as they learn about others.
Blue Dolphin gives our campers and families experiences that prepare them well for life. In the off-season our parents get to reinforce at home the skills our campers developed at camp. We have found that our campers continue to be amazing in their communities and schools; while showing the resilience to make good decisions in their personal lives.