Summer camp guide 2024: Camp offers mental health benefits for kids

The physical and academic benefits that camp offers to children and teens are well-known. Perhaps lesser-known are the equally — if not more important — mental health advantages of attending a summer camp.

They include: the opportunity to make new friends in person, not virtually. The ability to explore and be immersed in an activity or activities about which the child is passionate. The opportunity to enjoy the outdoors surrounded by nature. Having few time pressures and some “unscheduled” free time to enjoy the moment. Being “unplugged” from electronics and away from the constant pressures and distractions of social media.

“To counteract loneliness and helplessness, we need to offer young people authentic opportunities for belonging and that’s what camp provides,” said Tom Rosenberg, president and CEO of the American Camp Association (ACA). The ACA is the only independent, national accrediting body for camps and a national organization that shares research and resources. The ACA serves more than 15,000 year-round and summer camps in the United States that annually host some 26 million campers. “Kids are craving authentic human connections today, in person. The pandemic was challenging for youths. We have to give them a dose of authenticity.”

“Campers need that time to disconnect,” said Vikki Shepp, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Orange County, which runs day camps and sleepover camp sessions for girls at the organization’s Camp Scherman near Idyllwild. Shepp stressed the importance of children having unscheduled down time, when campers can choose an activity or just relax with a book.

“We have a period called ‘Read, Relax and Recharge.’ They can chill under a tree and read when everyone goes to the pool if they don’t want to go to the pool,” she said, or campers can choose a different activity at this time. This supervised “unscheduled time” helps the campers learn the importance of self-care and knowing when it’s time to sit down and relax, or go on a hike if they feel energized, she said.

Youths who attend a camp focused on a specific activity like sports, art or dance get to explore their passion and learn new skills, said Kim Downey of Tustin, owner of Soca Arts, which offers summer camps to children ages 3 to 12 throughout Orange County in dance, cheerleading, musical theater, and “princess training.”

“The campers can dip their toes into something that makes them happy. They socialize and it forces them to put their cellphone down,” Downey said. “When you take the phone away, it surprises them how much fun they do have and they forget they don’t have it,” she said.

Ray Kubit operates a visual arts camps for children ages 6 to 12 in Santa Ana called Palette Station. Not only does the art camp encourage children to be creative, he said, but Palette Station campers also enjoy nature and the outdoors at the art studio which is located on a lake on acreage. The campers observe a variety of plants, ducks, geese, turtles, fish and large birds such as herons, and sometimes campers take a relaxing walk around the lake or sketch lakeside.

“We try to blend together the idea of ‘I’m going to go to an art camp,’ but part of my time is going to be discovering nature and maybe bringing that back to the camp,” Kubit said.

“It’s a getaway from the norm,” Kubit said. “A lot of mental health issues out there stem from social media and things like that, this gets them away from that and stuff they experience every day, with like-minded kids they get to know.”

In April of last year, the ACA released a new “National Camp Impact Study” that shows just how much quality camp experiences benefit young people’s wellbeing. The study examined data gathered between 2017 and 2022 and is the first such longitudinal study of its kind, the ACA said. The ACA said it was important to conduct this long research in light of all the mental health challenges and isolation children and young people faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many camps were closed.

“Camp plays a vital role in the educational development of the whole child, and that includes mental health,” Rosenberg said.

The study focused on youth, staff, and leadership development over five years. Researchers from the University of Utah conducted the study along with volunteers and the participation of 80 camps. Key conclusions were:

“What we know is that camp improves a person’s wellbeing. Every day, all day, you have the opportunity to connect socially with kids your age and build friendships. You develop a sense of belonging at camp. That builds self-esteem and confidence,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg added that youths at camp are more likely to take a positive risk, like trying rock climbing for the first time, or getting up on a stage and acting. “The more you have opportunities to take a positive risk and not necessarily succeed, that builds emotional resilience like, ‘yes I can,’ not ‘no I can’t,’” he said.

Shepp echoed those sentiments. At the Girl Scouts of OC’s Camp Scherman, campers are encouraged to get out of their comfort zone and try new activities at the 700-acre property, which features a horse corral, archery, axe throwing, kayaking, lessons in survival skills, a 60-foot climbing wall and hiking trails, among many other activities. Wi-Fi is limited which helps reduce distractions and severely limits cellphone use, Shepp said.

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