8 Benefits of Summer Camp for Kids & Teens

We asked some of the best summer camps experts in the world about what are the benefits of summer camps! Let’s see what they had to say. Are you currently wondering whether to send your children to camp this year? Sending a child to camp can create a lot of doubts and question but can also be a fantastic experience for both parents and children.

Summer Camps are a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as campers and generally live on campus, this program will be called a residential camp. Providers can also offer day camps with activities during the day only. Camps are typically located in beautiful and natural setting immersing students in a different educational environment while providing a supportive and challenging experience.

Going to camp can be intimidating. However, the experience is well worth the cost. Camps offer students a chance to enjoy nature, exercise, and learn about themselves and others in an enjoyable, supportive environment. They teach children self-reliance and help equip them for a brighter future.

To help you make an informed choice, here are the 8 benefits offered to campers by outdoor education and summer camps:

Connect with nature
In recent times, there has been a sharp decrease in the amount of time children spend in the outdoors. Camps solve this dilemma by providing students with a safe space where they can exercise and enjoy nature. They can go on guided hikes and learn about their world.

Many camps offer lessons in outdoor survival, ecology, and wildlife studies. They teach students how to utilise the resources provided to them by nature. Campers learn to be conscientious citizens who respect the environment. Attending outdoor education or summer camps helps teach children the importance of nature around us while staying healthy and active in a fun environment.

Unplug from Technology
Summer camps are a vacation from Technology and Internet! Screen time becomes a problem when it prevents children from doing sports, playing with their friends or siblings, playing outside, reading, doing their homeworks or communicating with others, face to face. More and more parents are saying that one of the best benefit of summer camp is to keep their child away from screens and technology. Summer camp offers a rare opportunity to disconnect from the outside world, to be surrounded by nature and build new friendships by communicating face-to-face — experiences that are increasingly rare for most children these days.

Every camp can apply a different rule regarding technology. Some camps will apply a strict no-screens policy, while others will allow mobile phones at restricted times. Other devices such as tablets, laptops and handheld computer games are generally not allowed. All phones are generally collected at check-in and kept for safe keeping over your child’s stay at camp. Depending on the conditions of the camp, campers will have the opportunity to check their phone (once a day or once per week or more) and check-in with home.

Learn new things
Summer camp is also about learning, but this learning is different. It is unlike studying to pass exams and earn diplomas. It is project based and collaborative, it inspires curiosity and creativity, it is problem solving and solution finding in action.

Summer camps will offer hiking, canoeing, biking, campfires and also a wide variety of specialised activities such as sports, arts, music, business, computer programming, language learning, mathematics and many many more, just explore our advanced search to see how many activities or specialties are offered by some of the best summer camps worldwide. Campers are guided by enthusiastic mentors to acquire skills that are going to be really useful to them, they expand their minds and experience the joy there is to be found in learning.

Get healthy (Physically & Mentally)
During summer camps, children will make a lot of exercise everyday. The tonic for their mental health that accompanies all the physical activity is extraordinary. That old phrase mens sana in corpere sano might be over-used but it is true.

Their active summer will bring clarity of thought and new priorities. It is a state of mind when even life’s challenges can find positive solutions. As the days grow shorter and the summer ends, they will carry with them the glow of sunny days and fresh air.

Make new friends
Summer is even better when it is shared with a great team of like-minded people. Just as it is important for children to be physically healthy, it is also important for them to learn how to interact with others. While at camp, children have the opportunity to engage with students from all over the world and from different backgrounds. They can form friendships that they would never have the chance to build outside of camp.

Have fun
Many studies have proven that Fun is essential to children’s development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional wellbeing of children. The amount of fun will depend on the type of summer camp your choose and its focus or specialty.

Grow independence, strength and resilience
By spending time away from home, campers learn how to operate on their own without having to constantly look to others for guidance. It is a chance to taste a bit of freedom in a friendly environment where they can feel secure. Because they are supported and cared for, they will handle negative emotions like stress or homesickness.

While at camp children will develop strength, independence, resilience and learn positive conflict-resolution strategies. As a result, they will become better equipped for their future adult life, university or any other path they may choose.