This article was originally published in the January/February 2015 issue of Camp Business magazine.

As a psychologist who works with schools and camps around the world, I am often asked whether competition is good or bad. Proponents of competition speak fondly of their athletic victories and about wanting the same experiences for the young people they serve. Competition, they say, builds character. It’s a competitive world out there, so we had better prepare our children.

Some critics of competition want every child to feel like a winner—always. Or, they want no child to feel like a loser—ever. As the Dodo Bird in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland remarked, “Everyone has won and all must have prizes!” Other critics don’t want to pit one child or one group against another because they feel it breeds aggression. Still other critics object to external rewards, such as grades or trophies or money, to motivate participation.

There is, in fact, some fascinating research pointing to the dangers of linking a desired behavior to an extrinsic reward. When the reward is removed, the behavior often disappears. It is true that intrinsic motivation is more durable and authentic. Fortunately, not all competition occurs in a radically behaviorist framework, where rewards or punishments shape all behaviors. In fact, research on happiness suggests that a focus on effort, the journey toward achievement, and sharing one’s expertise with others brings more lasting joy than winning a particular competition.

No camp director, teacher, coach, youth leader, or parent wants the type of competition that makes young people unduly anxious, that interferes with their performance and creativity, that treats them like trained puppies, or that makes them inherently uninterested. However, to eliminate competition altogether—as some critics argue—simultaneously eliminates opportunities to learn humility and grace.

Research on the negative aspects of unhealthy competition is mostly solid, but using it as a rationale for eliminating competition altogether may throw the baby out with the bathwater. Although some believe that “healthy competition” is a self-contradictory phrase, here is a different perspective.

An Emphasis On Community

The unhealthy competition I’ve witnessed is ubiquitous, focused exclusively on rewards or punishments that are belligerent, rude, critical, and unfair. A classic example is the child who, after a day at school where grades are the only object, is forced to play in a youth soccer league match where parents emphasize trophies, coaches berate kids, spectators scold the referees, one team has vastly greater talent than the other, and not every child gets to play. Life doesn’t have to be that way.

A healthy alternative to cutthroat competition is cooperative competition. This may also seem like a contradiction in terms, but when competition creates only a little anxiety, demands fair play, emphasizes fun, and adopts a growth mindset, then young people’s performance can be enhanced and they learn to make moral decisions independent of adult caregivers.

Cooperative competition emphasizes the following:

Praising effort, not outcomes. Whereas vapid praise is useless, pointing out specific, incremental accomplishments builds self-esteem. The baseball coach who tells her player, “You stepped into it, swung level, and made contact” is doing a better job than the coach who simply says, “Nice cut,” and is a far better approach than the coach who screams, “Come on! Park that thing! You swing like a baby!”
Focusing on strengths. Instead of comparing a player to his teammates, such as, “Why can’t you kick the ball with the side of your foot like Robbie?” focus on strengths. The coach who tells his player, “You’re passing well. Let’s try that corner kick again” is capitalizing on what’s intrinsically rewarding to a child by focusing on her strengths.
Having fun, but not at the expense of others. The joy of any game should not be in the winning or losing, and certainly not in the harming of others, but in the playing of the game and the cultivation of connections. To that end, cooperative competition emphasizes cheers, not jeers, and handshakes, not prizes. The coach who insists on giving the opposing team a cheer and a handshake, regardless of the outcome, understands cooperative competition.
Engaging children in discussions about their own behavior. Instead of criticizing or praising a particular action, teammates and adult supervisors can ask questions, such as, “Tell me about your decision to pass the ball to Jessie” or “What’s the booing about for you?” or “I see you sitting on the bench texting while your teammates are out there.” Simple questions and process comments prompt sportsmanship and collaboration.
Emphasizing teamwork. Every individual behavior affects others. Pointing that out to children as the behavior is happening builds strong teams and communities. Rather than say, “Stop hogging the ball,” you could say, “Look to see who is open. Work together.” Win or lose, the post-game debrief is another opportunity to emphasize teamwork. To wit: “Our performance was best when players stayed in their zone” or “I liked how the bench encouraged the players on the field” or “We fought hard. What do we need to work on, as a team, during the next practice?”
The cornerstone of cooperative competition is how the adults in charge frame the game or activity. Just about any game can be set up in a friendly or unfriendly way, just as any activity can be explained in a way that promotes anxiety and hurts performance and self-esteem.

Is Winnerless Worthless?

Inadvertently inane—both physically and psychologically—are competitions without any winner at all. Naturally, not every activity should be or can be competitive. When I mow my lawn while listening to 1980s tunes on my noise-cancelling headphones, nobody wins. I enjoy it, especially if it’s a sunny day. Mowing is a decent exercise, and I get a Zen-like pleasure looking at the finished pattern. My stepfather, on the other hand, refers to all yard work as “pure psychic pain.” He’d rather be fly-fishing. According to him, standing thigh-deep in rushing water swinging a hand-tied bundle of bird feathers at a spot where you think there might be a fish is fun. Together we prove that noncompetitive activities have an inherent fun quotient, and that that value varies markedly from one person to the next.

The controversy lies not with our varying experiences of inherently noncompetitive activities, however. It lies more with eliminating competition altogether, or amplifying it to absurd levels. On the latter point, much has been written. Rabid soccer moms and hockey dads be warned. On the former point, let’s pause to assess the outcome and our motives. Sometimes, in a misguided attempt to protect youngsters from a type of moderate competition that is healthy and fun, we dial the knob down so low that we create new dangers.

Consider this example from a games “expert” who suggested an interesting variation on musical chairs. Instead of having the last player standing sit out on each successive round, all of the players will try to sit on fewer and fewer chairs. In that way, no one is ever out, and some would argue there is no risk that anyone would feel like a loser. (Is anyone ever traumatized by being out in musical chairs? Alas.)

I’ve played this game at camp with kids and made several discoveries. First, the game results in more injuries than in regular musical chairs. Trying to get eight or nine kids to sit or somehow balance on a single chair has the potential to be an excellent cooperative game. However, there also tend to be lots of stubbed toes and pinched fingers. Second, there is often more peer criticism than with regular musical chairs. I heard kids say, “You’re too fat to hang on” and “My sister’s more coordinated than you.”

What I learned was that no game or activity is inherently healthy. The wacky version of musical chairs cannot guarantee that some kids won’t feel like losers when the game is over. It is entirely possible that the more-coordinated children will feel good about how they were able to scramble together and balance on the chair, and the less-coordinated ones will feel as if they’ve let the group down, or worse.

Of course, it’s also possible that if someone ran that activity better than I did on my first try, the entire group would have fun and leave feeling good about themselves. That is precisely my point. Skilled teachers, coaches, camp staff, and parents can supervise baseball, musical chairs, or basket-weaving and make it either a constructive or destructive experience for children. There are rules to follow, skills to learn, and strengths to capitalize on. There are friendships to be cultivated, ethical decisions to be made, and successes to be experienced.

Winning With Humility, Losing With Grace

What builds character is not keeping a stiff upper lip when your team loses, or when your painting of a horse looks like that of a cow. What builds character is having others like you for who you are, not how you perform. What builds character is having adults who provide success experiences and set good examples for children. What builds character is being supported in achieving a challenging goal. And what builds character is the self-discipline to persevere—to reattempt—after failure.

One of the best examples of this type of leadership I ever witnessed was, coincidentally, in a game of traditional musical chairs at camp. The first person out was actually one of the cabin leaders. He threw his arms up in the air and shouted, “Now, here’s how you get out in style!” He then boogied out of the circle by combining some break-dancing moves with a beat-boxing he made up on the spot.

You can imagine what followed. Each successive child who was out made up his own hip-hop or song-and-dance routine. There was no arguing, of course, because the campers saw that it was as much fun to get out as it was to stay in. No one felt like a loser, at least not for long. Everyone just laughed and asked to play again.

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how adults frame the game.

Dr. Christopher Thurber is a psychologist, author, and father. He serves on the faculty of PhillipsExeterAcademy in Exeter, N.H., and is the director of content for Expert Online Training.

This story by EOT co-founder Dr. Chris Thurber was originally published in the January/February issue of CampBusiness.

“Did I ever tell you my President Obama story?” asked my cab driver out of the blue. Ever, I thought. I’ve been riding in your cab for 10 minutes, in total silence. Did you ever tell me? I looked up from my iPhone and contemplated accepting the invitation to talk. In the rearview mirror, I could see the side of the driver’s face. His response to my reflection was to show his completely. He caught my eye and winked.

I always enjoy my June travel, even though it pulls me away from my family and the camp where I spend July and August. The workshops I deliver to other camps help them provide a better experience for the young people they serve. If something I teach helps a staff member at some distant camp treat a child more kindly, resolve a conflict more skillfully, provide feedback more honestly, or set a good example more consistently, then I have done my job. And if, in some measure, I’ve been able to spread a bit of the Belknap Spirit, then I guess I’ve really succeeded. Surely, the camp’s founders never intended for us to keep all the good things on these particular acres.

Listen

In addition to teaching, I also learn a lot myself during my travels to different camps and summer schools just by listening. I listen to staff members praise and critique directors; to directors who praise and critique staff members. I hear about mundane matters, such as how the price of lettuce has gone up ten cents a head. And I hear about exciting projects, such as the construction of a new climbing tower. I hear about hires and fires, scandals and injustices, new rules being implemented and old rules being broken … again and again. I hear about staff members who interviewed like champs but then performed like chumps. I hear how impossible it is to create an entirely homegrown leadership. And when a full day of teaching and listening is over, I’m ready to unwind and begin my trip to the next camp.

That evening in the cab heading from LaMontagne Sailing Club to LaGuardia Airport was my time to relax. So as much as I wanted to hear the driver’s “President Obama story,” I didn’t have the energy to listen to some political rant. But something about the driver’s wink pulled me in. Most people don’t wink before they harangue you. A wink says, “I’ve got the dish; it’s yours for the taking.”

I suppose I also felt bad for my cab driver. I say “my,” but he really was only going to be mine for another 20 minutes. Being someone’s cabbie is a supremely temporary gig. So random and brief are most taxi-fare connections that we should probably say “the driver” not “my driver.” Either way, my sympathy for the driver’s bid overcame my desire to retreat into my BBC app or another game of Boggle.

Serious Stories

I smiled. “No, you never told me your President Obama story. He didn’t puke back here on the seat or something, did he?” The driver laughed. Then I laughed. Then he got serious all of a sudden and concentrated on the road. “Don’t laugh, man,” he said. “Those are the worst fares ever. I hate picking up drunk kids from parties. Make a mess of my cab. Forget to tip. Then who the heck do you think cleans it up? It ain’t the kids … and it sure as shootin’ ain’t their mommy or daddy. It’s yours truly.” Now he studied me in the rearview mirror, as if to test my comprehension, to gauge my appreciation.

I also reflected, thinking of the dozens of times I’d sat next to a student in my office at Phillips Exeter Academy while the parents were called to describe a disciplinary infraction involving alcohol. “Well,” I said, “anyone who has been drinking is lucky to have had you. You know, kinda like a designated driver. Better they call a cab than get behind the wheel inebriated, right? Who knows how many lives you’ve saved … even if it has meant cleaning up some … uh … disgusting messes.”

The driver’s face softened. “Seems practically heroic when you put it that way.” I leaned in and smiled. The driver stroked his three-day beard.

“Well?” I prodded. “What’s your President Obama story?”

“Funny you should ask,” he joked. “Well, it’s interesting. My sister’s college roommate was his girlfriend at Columbia. You know, before he met Michelle.”

“Wow,” I said. “What did the roommate tell your sister about Obama?”

“Not much, man. Not much. He was a gentleman. That’s all.”

I thought about a reply. That’s all? That’s your whole President Obama story? But I thought better of saying that out loud. The driver was obviously proud of this friend-of-a-friend-of-my-sister connection and that was that. I sat quietly, thinking maybe if there was more to tell, he’d fill the silence. He didn’t.

Destination Inspiration

I launched the Maps app on my phone to calculate the time left in our route to the airport. The driver broke the silence after a quick glance in his mirror. “I bet that thing’s showing you 25 minutes.”

I looked down. “How did you know?” He looked at me blankly and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, Buddy, I don’t need no stinkin’ GPS. I do this for a living. “If it says 25,” he continued,” “I can get you there in 21. Google hasn’t been driving a cab for 30 years, my friend. Not by a long shot.”

“OK,” I said. “Impress me.” The driver smiled and spent the next 19 minutes zipping along the south shore of Westchester County, sidestepping traffic and coming to a gentle stop in front of Marine Terminal at LaGuardia. “Wow,” I said for the second time in half an hour. “You know, you’re good at what you do.”

He took my wheelie out of the trunk. “So,” he said, standing there in the sun. “You got a story?”

“I don’t have a Barack Obama story, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, man. I mean, what do you do?”

“I’m a psychologist,” I said. “And a teacher. I work at a boarding school and a summer camp.”

“So what’s with the fancy-pants yacht club, Jackson?”

“What?”

“In LaMontagne, where I just picked you up, genius.”

“Oh, that. I was helping to train their sailing instructors.”

“That’s your job?”

“That’s part of it.”

“Like it?”

“I love it.”

“Good kids?”

“Mostly.”

“Ever wanna quit?”

“Only once.”

The driver paused, waiting. Knowing that we had arrived early—thanks to him—I chose to continue.

“Well, like you, I dislike cleaning up, um, vomit. So, in the middle of the first night of my first year as a full-fledged cabin leader, a boy named Chris Mountain woke me up because he felt sick. He was just standing next to my bunk, silhouetted in the moonlight, shaking my shoulder. Before I could walk him outside and down to the Health Center, he threw up all over me.”

“Ugh. And I thought the back seat was bad,” the driver said, wincing. “You got tagged, man.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, um, you didn’t quit?”

“I thought about it, for a day or two. But that was 29 summers ago,” I said, smiling. “Enough said, right? Every job has its moments, but you keep going because you know that what you’re doing means something to somebody.”

I looked at my watch, a signal that I wanted to get going. I resisted the urge to preach about the benefits of summer camp while he patiently took an impression of my credit card with the side of a pencil. I added a tip and then grabbed my bag to head inside.

“You know something?” he asked. “In all my years driving a cab, you’re the first person who’s told me that I’m good at what I do.”

“That’s hard to believe,” I said.

“Believe it. Anyway, if you ever need a cab in the city, I’m your driver.”

I smiled. My driver. In a half hour, he’d gone from the driver to my driver. That was kind of cool. I looked at his ID tag, “Thanks, Ross,” I said, smiling. “That’s good to know.”

My Leader, My Counselor

I’m fairly sure that most campers transition from calling the leader in their cabin or the counselor for the group to my leader and my counselor. And that’s cool, too. If we’re doing our jobs well, then our campers will realize how dedicated their leader or their counselor is. We get them ready in the morning, care for them throughout the day, clean up their messes, show them a sporting time on land, guard their lives in the water, teach them new games, listen to what’s on their mind, put them to bed or pack them safely in busses each evening. And then we stay up late planning how to do it all again the next day, even better. Caring staff members show kids how to be parents, CEOs, teachers, coaches, and mentors.

Here’s hoping that a few of your campers will find the time this season to tell you that you’re good at what you do. Nothing nourishes your spirit more than heartfelt thanks for a job well done.

Dr. Christopher Thurber is a psychologist, author, and father. He serves on the faculty of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and is the director of content for Expert Online Training. To book a workshop, purchase DVDs, or access leadership resources, visit CampSpirit.com.

This article was originally posted in Camp Business http://www.northstarpubs.com/articles/cb/a-healthy-lead on September 4, 2013.

Staff members are usually on top of their game until they start treating their job like one. Once young people lose sight of the importance of caring for other people’s children, taking unhealthy risks increases. By contrast, if they rest playful leadership on the three-legged stool of sleep, exercise, and nutritional food, their resilience and stamina also increase.

Ask Not What Your Camp Can Do for You

Does this sound idealistic? Do you wonder where on earth you might find such wholesome young adults to staff your camp? Whether you staff the camp with an apprentice-style, internal leadership-development program, with external hires, or with some combination of the two, the quest for quality should always include the appropriate interview questions.

Asking hypothetical questions with “right” answers is a waste of time. “What would you do if some of your friends had been drinking and were about to drive themselves home?” is an example of just such a vacuous query. The question lacks what psychologists call discriminative validity, meaning that it cannot validly discriminate between two groups—in this case between responsible and irresponsible people. A person’s answer to this question tells only whether the interviewee knows what a person should do in such a circumstance. (If you’re done having candidates tell you what they know you want to hear, read on.)

A better alternative is to say, “Tell me about a time when you had to make a tough decision to keep a friend out of trouble.” Listen carefully to the person’s answer, and then ask open-ended follow-up questions such as, “What did you struggle with when you chose that course of action?” and “Who in your life influenced you to behave that way?” and “When have you ever had a friend get you out of a jam?” and “What did you learn from that experience or from some other poor choice?” and “How might you instill a sense of social responsibility in your fellow staff members this summer?”

The strategy of asking a job candidate to choose a specific, personal behavior and then answer a string of open-ended questions about that situation is called behavior-based interviewing or sometimes performance-based interviewing.

Religious Taboos

Anti-discrimination laws justifiably prohibit employers from asking prospective employees, “What religion are you?” The answer is worthless anyway, not because it is meaningless to the person, but because it has no discriminative validity. There are great leaders from different faith traditions and many who do not identify with a particular faith. What does have some value is asking about one’s coping style.

How do you bounce back from adversity?
What do you think or do to help make things better when you’re feeling down?
How have you overcome challenges that seem doable at first but then seem much more difficult?
What or who supports you when you feel down, drained, or discouraged?
These open-ended questions are all fair game. Best of all, the answers will teach you a lot about a person’s resilience and stress-management strategies. Some prospective leaders might even expound on their faith-based ways of coping, such as prayer, meditation, or participation in religious services. Religious or not, that person will provide an accurate sense of a coping style—data which can predict the person’s stability, stamina, and ability to weather in healthy ways the sometimes stressful storm of youth leadership.

Four Legs And Two Arms

Apparently, then, the three-legged stool of wellness turns out to have four legs: sleep, exercise, nutrition, and coping style. Naturally, candidates who deal with stress by drinking, drugging, or anything else that hurts their bodies or others should be summarily dropped from your list. But most interviewees are savvy enough to discuss only healthy strategies in your presence. This means that the discriminative validity of these resilience questions might take a hit—unless you listen for the “two arms” of the wellness picture.

The “arms” you should be paying attention to are the outstretched arms of social connection. Prospective staff members who recognize their own limitations and have the foresight and courage to reach out to others for support are staff members who will last the longest and demonstrate the most equanimity at camp. They also end up supporting their co-counselors and fellow staff through the summer’s toughest challenges. Realize that when interviewees mention social support in their coping repertoire, it’s an asset.

Reticence Predicts Weakness

Prospective hires who cannot articulate projects of which they are proud, decisions they wrestled with, and challenges they overcame are not ready to care for other people’s children. The interviewees may have athletic, artistic, or academic strengths, but they are unlikely to have the necessary combination of fortitude, gratitude, insight, judgment, and resilience. A perfect tennis serve won’t mitigate homesickness, promote good sportsmanship, or blend two cliques into a unified group of friends.

I’ve never known a staff member to be fired mid-season because of a lack of talent in basketball or finger painting, but I’ve known many to be fired for boundary-crossing, rule-breaking, and unhealthy interpersonal forays. My advice to directors is always to hire the person, not the resume. Of course, that requires thoroughly checking three references and solid behavior-based interviewing—time well spent if the quality of the staff-camper relationship is a top priority.

Fortified, Not Anesthetized

A journalist recently asked me what factors diminish the intensity of homesickness in college freshmen. She was a college student herself, so when I began talking about the foundations of wellness, she slowly realized that sleep deprivation, a diet of potato chips and beer, and a routine of sitting in class followed by sitting in front of a screen was a recipe for poor health. She ended the interview with her own insightful conclusion: “So, a healthy lifestyle can diminish the intensity of homesickness by shielding you from stress.”

“Yes and no,” I replied. “Wellness is more like a sponge than a shield. It absorbs some of the stress, but you’ll always feel something.” She thought for a moment. “Well, you’d want that, I suppose. No one wants to feel numb.” Not if they’re going to work with children, I mused.

Dr. Christopher Thurber enjoys learning from his own two children and from the students at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he serves as the psychologist. He is the co-founder of ExpertOnlineTraining.com, a web-based training platform for youth-development professionals. Visit his website at CampSpirit.com.

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 22, 2013.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I know that I was nervous about camp when you dropped me off, but now I don’t want to leave. I’ve had the most amazing time here! I love this place! Could you please pay for me to stay a little longer, and pick me up at the end of the summer? That would be awesome!

The thing I love most about camp is that I get to be myself here. At school and in our neighborhood, kids try to be…I don’t know…all the same. Everyone at school wants to wear “cool” clothes and hang out with the “popular” kids. I guess I did too, but I was never part of the “in” crowd. At camp, it’s different. The brand of clothes doesn’t matter here. And people don’t care whether you’re a terrific athlete or not. The staff here keep telling us, “It’s how you treat other people that matters.” I think they’re right. It’s what I’m trying to do.

Speaking of how people treat others, I should mention that I’ve made a ton of friends at camp. My counselor says that we don’t all have to be best friends, we just have to respect each other. Would you be surprised if I told you that I do have best friends here at camp? That’s one of the reasons I want to stay! We hang out all the time and do really fun stuff. It’s way better than school. I do miss my phone, though. And I miss you guys, too, but not as much as I thought I would. I hope you forgive me for only writing once. I’ve just been so busy!

When you bring me home, I’ll be different. I’ll be sad to leave my camp friends, so I might be quiet or grumpy for a while. There will be times when I feel like talking about camp non-stop. I’ll tell you all about the thunder storm during our camp-out, the camp-wide hide-and-seek game and the song we made up about chicken patties. Other times, I won’t want to talk much at all. But don’t worry…most of my camp stories will trickle out before next summer. You have signed me up for next summer, haven’t you?

My cabin leader says that one of things parents love about camp is that their children are so well behaved when they get home. I guess they make their beds and set the table and stuff without being asked. I know I have to do all that at camp…just don’t expect that to last for too long after I get home. I mean…don’t get me wrong: You’ve been great parents and all. But something about camp makes it easier to be helpful and kind to others.

What it is about fresh air, beautiful nature, and cool counselors that makes me feel so good? I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but also sad to leave. Anyway, you guys rock for sending me to camp. That sounds weird, right? Like: “Thanks for being great parents by sending me away for a while.” Some parents wouldn’t understand, but I think you do. If you don’t get it now, you will when you see how much I’ve grown. And I don’t mean taller…I mean better.

Love,

Your child

Dr. Christopher Thurber, a frequent contributor to camping publications and health blogs, works as a clinical psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He is the co-author of The Summer Camp Handbook and the host of the homesickness prevention DVD entitled The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. Learn more on Chris’s website: CampSpirit.com.

As part of our educational mission, ExpertOnlineTraining.com hosted a live webinar (Google Hangout) in which Dr. Chris Thurber answered questions on the topic of homesickness and adjustment to separation. The webinar aired on May 16th, 2013. We hope you enjoy this outstanding educational material.

Dr. Chris Thurber serves as a teacher and psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy. He is co-founder of ExpertOnlineTraining.com, the leading provider of Internet-based educational content for youth leaders. Chris also hosts ACA’s homesickness prevention DVD for new campers, called The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. To book Chris for an event, visit CampSpirit.com.

This article was originally published inCamping Magazine’s 2013 May/June issue

 

 

Last Night

Phil Bader did everything wrong on his last night off except give his keys to a sober colleague. He’d left camp 10 minutes early, bought alcohol with a fake ID, indulged in binge drinking, stumbled back into his cabin 30 minutes late and urinated in a child’s footlocker before collapsing in his own bed.

 

Had a camper needed his assistance later that night—for an asthma attack, a nightmare or an upset stomach—Phil would have been useless. But Phil would not have been alone. Many other camp counselors, at all different kinds of day and resident camps, spent their time in a similar fashion that night.

 

In the morning, when a certain hapless child attempted to get dressed and discovered Phil’s incontinent indiscretion, the child complained to the unit leader. The unit leader did the right thing by confronting Phil, listening to the parts of the story that Phil remembered and then escorting Phil to the camp director. In turn, the camp director did the right thing by terminating Phil’s employment and contacting the child’s parents after laundering his clothes and having a new footlocker Fed-Ex’ed to the camp at Phil’s expense.

 

It was, as noted above, Phil’s last night off. But Phil was an outlier. Not in a behavior sense, but in a statistical sense. He was one of the few camp staff to be fired for spending his time off poorly. Most of the young men and women who had engaged in similarly unwise recreation simply got up the next morning, splashed their faces with cold water and got back to taking care of other people’s children. Which is a sobering thought.

 

Partying is Fun

Lest you fear that I’m about to lapse into a condescending lecture, let me state two undeniable truths: (1) Many unhealthy ways of spending time off are fun, just as many kinds of junk food are delicious; (2) Many unhealthy ways of spending time off are bonding experiences, just as hazing rituals and fighting together on a battlefield are. But who would say that junk food and war are healthy choices?

 

I do understand that getting drunk and doing crazy things can be a blast. I also understand that an activity’s fun quotient and bonding power are not the best ways to judge that activity’s appropriateness for the camp setting. Youth development professionals must use another litmus test: How does this activity affect my ability to lead and care for campers? If an activity helps you lead and care, please continue; if it hurts, please stop. And if you’re not sure, please talk with a more experienced staff member who can bring clarity to your judgment.

 

The Time Off Test

For any staff member who is unsure about whether a time-off activity enhances or diminishes his or her ability to lead and care for young people, there is another easy assessment: The Tme Off Test. Simply ask yourself, upon returning to camp, “Do I feel relaxed, refreshed, and ready to go?” (Remember, whether you work at a day camp, overnight camp or another youth-serving organization, you’ll need energy and patience all season long.)

 

Your honest answer to that single question will help you plan for the next time off. If your answer is “Yes,” then you’re probably doing what you need to be doing. If, on the other hand, your answer is: “No. I feel worse than when I left,” then you should revise your plans for the next night or day off. Most of you reading this are not parents, but you can all ask yourself a second, hypothetical question: If your campers were your own children, would you be proud—honestly—of the kind of shape you are in?

 

Poor Use of Time Off

Binge drinking may be the most common unhealthy time off choice for camp staff worldwide, but there are other poor uses of time off that deserve mention. Like drinking, each is motivated by good intentions, such as having fun and bonding, but each is blind to the bigger picture of professional responsibility. Examples include:

 

• Driving outrageous distances. “Road trip!” may sound fun when it’s shouted at the start of time off, but long drives are exhausting. As a rule of thumb, staff should spend no more than 25% of their time off in the car. For example, a staff member at a resident camp with a 24-hour day off should spend no more than three hours driving to a day-off destination.
• Staying up most of the night. Surrounded by friends and a festive atmosphere, it’s easy to watch movies or play games all night, but sleep deprivation has dangerous consequences. A drowsy lifeguard, belayer, van driver, trip leader or boat driver could neglect duties or experience slowed reaction time…with lethal consequences.
• Using or abusing drugs. Alcohol is not the only recreational drug that staff abuse at camp. Prescription painkillers, stimulant medications, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications can all have illicit uses, in addition to their helpful, legitimate uses. Just as staff must be abstinent from illegal drugs such as marijuana, they must also abstain from medications not prescribed to them.
• Participating in dangerous activities. Staff at day and resident camps spend a great deal of time designing and supervising healthy risks for young people, as well as ensuring that they are wearing properly fitting helmets, life preservers, and footwear. Ironically, these are the same staff who go cliff jumping, drag racing, have unprotected sex or drive drunk during time off. Staff would be wise to maintain safe practices all season long, both during time on and time off. Healthy behaviors benefit individual staff members, the young people they serve and the reputation of the camp.

 

Healthier Options

Time off spent wisely is a bonding experience that is both fun and restorative. But it does take planning. Without preparation, partying becomes the default plan. Therefore, the most successful camps have spent years building a three-ring binder full of healthy time-off choices. These binders typically include local points of interest, the best neighborhood restaurants, addresses of alums happy to host nights and days off, and recreation options (camp sites, shopping malls, movie theaters, national parks, etc.) within striking distance.

 

The value of a time-off binder is twofold: First, staff are more likely to spend their time off wisely, because a multitude of healthy options—vetted by previous staff members—are at their fingertips. Second, staff are less likely to engage in unhealthy risk-taking, such as binge drinking, because they experience the easy value of spending time off in fun and wholesome ways. Best of all, the staff themselves revise and contribute to the binder. As old venues close or fall out of favor and new venues open or rise in popularity, the binder’s content evolves.

 

Examples of healthy time-off choices include:

 

• Camping out
• Seeing a movie
• Climbing a mountain
• Eating at a restaurant
• Sleeping later than usual
• Visiting nearby camp alums
• Cooking together, indoors or out
• Relaxing at a public beach, pool or lakeside

 

Shifting Your Mindset

Working at camp involves a paradigm shift. Youth leaders are transitioning from college, university or a vocational setting, where the work is mostly self-focused, to camp, where the work is expressly other-focused. During the academic year, staff may complete some phenomenal volunteer or service work, but they are primarily working toward earning grades, stuffing their resumes, or making money. For themselves.

 

At camp, staff are working for others. And not just any others. You are caring for other people’s children. There can be no greater responsibility. This means that more than your mindset needs to shift. You also need to shift your behavior as you consider what the consequences of your actions are. Ask yourself, “How will this choice affect the young people I serve?”

 

Fail Like Phil? You Decide.

My compliments to any staff member who has read this far. Many staff are dismissive of health advice. I was, between the ages of 16 and 26. Even with a strong family history of malignant melanoma (a deadly form of skin cancer), I dismissed my mother’s advice to put on sunscreen, in favor of cultivating my summer tan. I changed my mind about sunscreen when I first noticed permanent wrinkles on my face and a few scary-looking freckles on my back that my dermatologist had to burn off with a laser. But my dermatologist was clear: the bulk of sun damage had already been done. Lesson learned. But only time will tell if my learning was too late.

 

These days, I’m happily surprised to see young staff putting sunscreen on themselves and their campers. What caused this behavior change? It was nothing I said. It was two other factors: Availability and example. When I was a young leader, sunscreen was an optional, personal toiletry. In the last decade, most camps have strategically placed one-gallon sunscreen pumps throughout camp. That’s availability. Just like time-off binders, giant sunscreen pumps make healthy choices abundantly available. That’s one factor.

 

The other factor—example—came in the form of experienced staff publically showcasing their use of sunscreen. The rest of the staff (and campers) followed suit. It’s simply what was done. And it’s the same for time off. When a few experienced staff showcase their healthy choices—by talking about their great camping trip or pinning photos of their mountain climb on the camp’s bulletin board—they are setting a great example for other staff to follow.

 

You’ve read to the end of this article, which I hope indicates your willingness to set that great example. Following in Phil Bader’s footsteps is one option; choosing to spend your time off wisely is the other.

 

Dr. Chris Thurber serves as a teacher and psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy. He is co-founder of ExpertOnlineTraining.com, the leading provider of Internet-based educational content for youth leaders. Chris also hosts ACA’s homesickness prevention DVD for new campers, called The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. To book Chris for an event, visit CampSpirit.com.

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 16, 2013.

 

It’s not as simple as you might think…but it just got easier.

Back in the day, all a college kid needed to land a camp job was to be a college kid. Camps were started in the latter part of the 1800′s by progressive educators-college professors and prep school headmasters-with degrees from Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and so forth.

Naturally, the young men (and, eventually, women) those owner/directors employed were-you guessed it-students from Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale and Columbia. The educational pedigree was enough. Alternatively, a university student might have a patron of sorts who wrote a handwritten “letter of reference” attesting to their character.

I don’t have hard data to support my gut feeling, but I sense that by the 1950′s, that Ivy League line was all but erased. Yet with all of the beneficial variety in staff educational backgrounds came looser (dare I say sloppy?) hiring practices. Enter movies such as Meatballs, whose portrayal of camp shenanigans in the 1970′s is as legendary as it is accurate.

The second millennium ushered in a new wave of staff hiring practices. Heightened awareness of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by camp staff, along with industry associations that emphasized staff professionalism, established practices like background checks for all staff and transformed slapdash one-day orientations into “staff training week.”

These days, camp directors won’t even look at a prospective staff member’s application without first conducting a criminal background check and acquiring three references. There are even a growing number of national and provincial accreditation standards that suggest specific topics for staff training, which is wonderful. Topics such as equity and diversity, which never got mentioned, now get equal billing alongside lifeguard training and behavior management.

All of this specificity and conscientiousness has created a new problem, however. There is no longer enough time during staff training week (which in most cases is actually five days, not seven) to cover all of the recommended topics in any kind of meaningful depth. The average camp staff member needs to know everything from CPR and first-aid for anaphylaxis to bullying prevention and best practices for “responding to sensitive issues.” So although industry professionalism is an admirable goal, constraints in time and on-site expertise mean it is seldom fully achieved at the level of the front-line staff member.

How can a twenty-first century camp train professional-grade staff without expanding staff training week into staff training month? The answer is ridiculously simple: online education that staff complete before staff training week. Today’s college students already spend 6-8 hours per day online. Why not create a library of YouTube-length videos hosted by the top professionals in youth development and education? And, to ensure that the young man or woman taking care of your son or daughter has actually understood what they’ve watched, each video should be followed by a quiz whose results are also viewable to the camp director.

Enter ExpertOnlineTraining.com, an educational website with an impressive library of videos hosted by internationally renowned authors like Dr. Michael Thompson (of Raising Cain fame), Dr. Joel Haber (of BullyProof Your Child fame), and Faith Evans (of The More the Merrier fame). There are even videos hosted by Canadian canoeing expert Mike Sladden (ofCamp Pathfinder in Algonquin Provincial Park fame).

Ok, full disclosure: I co-founded the site. But that’s exactly why it should matter to moms and dads. I’m a father of two campers, ages 8 and 10. So now you now know an industry insider and camp parent who created an educational solution to a serious problem no camp director would dare mention. I’m biased, of course, but I recommend that every parent look for the EOT logo on their camp’s website and ask how they use ExpertOnlineTraining.com to complement their on-site training.

Your child deserves a capable leader, not just a student with a smile. And yes, we now have a video training module on treating anaphylaxis. Thank you, Dr. Laura Blaisdell.

Dr. Christopher Thurber, a frequent contributor to camping publications and health blogs, works as a clinical psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He is the co-author of The Summer Camp Handbook and the host of the homesickness prevention DVD entitled The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. Learn more on Chris’s website: CampSpirit.com.

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 9, 2013.

 

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 2, 2013.

 

The following article by Dr. Chris Thurber, on the virtue of severing the “digital umbilical” and letting kids grow at camp, is included in the new on-line version of ACA’s CAMPparent magazine.

http://acacamps.info/2012_CAMP_REV/index.html#/20/