Cultivating Creativity

Ever wonder about how your kids are benefitting from Summer Camp? As counselors, we see the growth in your kiddos while they’re here even if it is just for two weeks. They learn how to live with people who are very different from themselves and how to actually talk through issues (if any arise) with other campers. These campers practice understanding people who are different and learn how to resolve conflicts that arise.

I was reading an article posted by Laura Clydesdale through The Washington Post titled “I send my kids to sleep-away camp to give them a competitive advantage” where she talks about the benefits she’s seen by sending her two kids to summer camp for two months. Clydesdale points out three major advantages she sees from sending her kids to camp as opposed to them taking summer school classes or searching for an internship:

1. Building Creativity
2. Developing broadly as a human being
3. Not-living-in-my-basement-as-an-adult independence

These not only made me laugh but consider the campers we have at Huawni. I see this in them every day! For example, tonight we have Skit Night where the campers get up with their cabins or friends and show us what they can think of to make Camp laugh. These are some of the most creative and funny acts I’ve seen from kids – whether it’s impersonating their favorite counselor or dancing a choreographed routine in front of all camp. They have the chance here to face their fears of standing in front of a cloud or maybe we get to witness the next child-prodigy here at Huawni. Clydesdale says her kid’s generation has a giant problem:

Creativity seems so intangible.

She argues that camp is the place where her kids are able to have experiences that they’ll reference when they’re older in order to problem-solve quickly. Clydesdale references information found from Adam Grant’s book Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World that Nobel Prize winners were

• Two times more likely to play an instrument, compose, or conduct

• Seven times more likely to draw, paint, or sculpt

• Seven and a half times more likely to do woodwork, be a mechanic, electrician, or glassblower

• Twelve times more likely to write poems, novels, short stories or plays

• Twenty two times more likely to be an amateur actor, dancer, or magician

I chose to highlight this part of her post, because that creativity found in Nobel Prize winners can be found at summer camp, specifically Camp Huawni, rather than an SAT prep class or summer internship. Let’s not allow kiddos lose what is important and lacking in our society – let’s send them to camp!