I was reading through some articles this morning online and came across this link to an article titled – Materialism linked to self-esteem and this article as well.
What an interesting find to land upon two days before Christmas. The thought that we can reduce children’s materialism by increasing their self-esteem is amazing. It leads me to think that camp has a bigger role to play in helping our cameprs become less materialistic, another positive for the camp experience.
We want children to leave with and improved level of self-esteem, how do we accomplish that? Do our programs allow our campers to increase their self-esteem? Do we give our counsellors conrete tools that will help them understand how to increase a child’s self-esteem?
In my experience at numerous summer camps – our training falls short with our staff – we focus on the program and not the development of the child. Sure, we might move them up a level, increase a skill, but do our staff know what changes to look for in a camper to help them increase self-esteem?
The role that camp has to play in the development of children is bigger than we communicate to the world.