Selling For Social And Emotional Success

Enlightened ways for staff members to hype camp … and for directors to update the camp website

By Chris Thurber
Photos: Prep4Camps / Chris Thurber

Admiring a photograph of an expert climber flashing a frosty smile and waving a tiny flag on the summit of Mount Everest is radically different from actual Himalayan mountaineering.

Similarly, admiring a camp’s website, replete with carefully curated camper profiles and senior staff-bios, impressive activity lists, tidy buildings, and verdant playing fields, is pleasing but peripheral to the daily joys of camp life.

Of course, marketing an experience and living that experience are never the same. Parents know that. Camp consultants know that. But who is telling the kids? If campers’ social and emotional struggles this summer were any sign, the answer is next to no one.

Many camps—both day and overnight—offer outstanding programs. The facilities, staff members, and counselors provide wonderful experiences; the wholesome values and leadership opportunities promote sterling character; and, where it exists, the diversity of the campers and counselors challenge young people’s assumptions in healthy ways.

The vibrancy of camps has kept me working in them for nearly four decades, but campers’ current mental-health struggles suggest that vibrancy alone does not make camp successful.

Multiple factors contribute to the mental-health problems of campers and young staff members, such as a chaotic family history, neighborhood violence, and unhealthy parental pressure. Unfortunately, we cannot change the past. But as youth-development professionals, our shared responsibility is to confront the future, having concluded nearly two years of focusing on the ever-changing present.

The Fantasy-Reality Gap

The yawning gap between families’ pre-arrival camp fantasies and their post-opening-day realities creates predictable shockwaves in campers’ social and emotional adjustment. For example, marketing materials never mention that about 95 percent of all campers—both new and returning—experience some degree of homesickness.[i] Nor do they mention the silent, socioeconomic shame that many less-affluent campers feel or the gender-role stereotypes that gnaw at those who are LGBTTQQIA.

But, is it reasonable to expect excellent camps to radically alter their brochures and websites by adding detailed descriptions of the social and emotional difficulties many campers face? After all, a camp’s image as a reprieve from the “outside world” is valid, and its power to accelerate healthy development in just a week or two far exceeds that of any school.[ii]

However, it is as unethical for camps to neglect preparing new and returning campers for social and emotional challenges as it would be for an Everest guide to attempt summiting with a group that had not yet acclimated to Himalayan altitudes. Yes, parents also have a role to play in properly preparing young people to get the most out of camp, but coaching those caregivers on how has become camps’ ethical responsibility.

Smarter Marketing = Happier Communities

It may seem contradictory to acknowledge the promotional problem of making homesickness or bullying the main menu items on your website, while simultaneously imploring camps to prepare kids for these realities. Fortunately, there are effective and ethical solutions that focus on good mental health and nurturing resilience. If, after the second challenging summer in a row, you remain committed to the developmental outcomes of your camp’s program, then keep reading. I will share three pathways to smarter marketing and happier communities.

Pathway 1: Market The Match

Every staff member, every director, and every owner believe their camp is the best, in most respects. But without any formal education in statistics, a quick check of basic logic reveals that, if there is such a thing as the one best camp, then 99.9 percent of staff members, directors, and owners are mistaken.

Given the strong talent pool among camp professionals, that conclusion is implausible. Therefore, the premise must be false: There is no “one best camp,” nor even the “100 best camps.” Instead, there is a handful of best camps for this particular child—ones that best match interests, abilities, and developmental level.[iii]

Action Plan: Prominently publicize a detailed description of the interests, abilities, and developmental levels that typify the young people who are well matched to your camp’s strengths, and who predictably thrive at your camp. As the budget allows, eschew the old-school concept of “filling spots” in favor of “making matches.” After all, campers who are well-matched to your program are the most likely to benefit from the experience.

Pathway 2: Support Simulations

Every staff member, every director, and every owner want young people to arrive at their day or resident camp prepared. However, we too often define “prepared” in terms of clothing and equipment. Arriving on opening day with gear that precisely matches a packing list is a fantastic first step, but what about arriving with the social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills appropriate to your program? Are not these domains of preparation even more important? Once again, honest reflection yields a quick answer: Of course. Curiously, few camps provide preparation beyond a packing list.

Action Plan: Enthusiastically provide social and emotional coaching to all enrolled campers and their families. Describe how caregivers can simulate key aspects of the camp context, such as: (a) spending time away from home, like overnights with friends or weekends with relatives; (b) making choices for themselves, such as how to have fun on Friday evening or what to plan for a play date; (c) becoming more self-reliant, such as remembering to brush teeth without reminders or to dress for the weather; (d) doing their share of the work, such as clearing the table after a meal or folding laundry; and (e) putting others’ needs before their own, such as giving a sibling the last cookie or helping an elderly neighbor.

Pathway 3: Add The Attitude

Every staff member, every director, and every owner know about the virtues of putting young people in the “challenge zone” between comfort and panic. In fact, around the time that summer camps were proliferating in the United States, Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) theorized that children learn best in what he called the “zone of proximal development.” Akin to the challenge zone, the zone of proximal development describes skills too difficult for children to master on their own, but that can be done with guidance and support from a competent instructor.[iv]

Of course, for kids to not give up or freak out when challenged, we have to do more than adjust the difficulty of the task. We also have to instill positive attitudes and teach kids how to cope with adversity. Most youth-development professionals do this well at camp, such as “psyching up” campers before a burly hike, “debriefing” a group on the ropes course, or “having a chat” with a severely homesick camper.

But where are the explicit efforts to shape campers’ positive attitudes in the months before camp? Where are the explicit lessons on healthy coping with peer conflict and homesickness—both of which will occur—in the months before opening day? You guessed it: Not there, for the most part. But wait! Wouldn’t campers’ social and emotional health be far better if we gave them strategies to practice long before camp started? Of course! 

Action Plan: Offer families a membership to Prep4Camp.com, which hosts the only video program that decreases the intensity of parental anxiety and first-year campers’ homesickness by 50 percent, on average.[v] Prep4Camp works by teaching campers and their caregivers what to do in the months before opening day to prevent strong homesickness, as well as the most effective ways to cope with any leftover feelings of missing home during the session.

Most owners and directors customize their Prep4Camp site by sharing photos of fun activities and a one-minute-selfie welcome video. Camps also add PDFs of the opening-day schedule and daily schedule, plus driving directions, a campus map, and a packing list. Answering FAQs means fewer phone calls, calmer families, and a smoother transition from home to camp.

Move Your Marketing

Marketing with postcard generalities, precious little realism, and virtually no social-emotional preparation guarantees you will continue to enroll campers who are a poor fit for your program. As such, they will never fully realize the developmental outcomes of camp. Although kids may make it through a session, they will never become your best ambassadors, effortlessly filling registration and even wait lists, by simple word of mouth.

By contrast, summer-youth programs that market the match, support simulation, and add the attitude—online, in print, and in person—will have campers and caregivers who calmly look forward to opening day, who start sessions with confidence, and who reap many benefits from the experience you have worked hard to design.

One hundred years before New Zealand philanthropist Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first people to summit Mount Everest, Abraham Lincoln wrote, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

When I see photos or movies about Everest, I feel certain that Hillary and Norgay would have endorsed Lincoln’s 2:1 preparation-to-equipment ratio. When I look at most camps’ websites or listen to most staff members encouraging a new camper to enroll, I hope they, too, follow Lincoln’s sage advice.

Christopher Thurber, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and faculty member at Phillips Exeter Academy. He created Prep4Camp.com, the only evidence-based homesickness prevention program, and co-authored the best-selling Summer Camp Handbook with Dr. Jon Malinowski. His newest book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure, provides caregivers healthy ways to set children on their unique path to success. Learn more about the work that Chris does with schools and camps on DrChrisThurber.com.

References

[i] Thurber, C. A., & Sigman, M. D. (1998). “Preliminary models of risk and protective factors for childhood homesickness: Review and empirical synthesis.” Child Development, 69, 903-934.

[ii] Thurber, C.A., Scanlin, M., Scheuler, L., & Henderson, K. (2007). “Youth development outcomes of the camp experience: Evidence for multidimensional growth.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 241-254.

[iii] Thurber, C. A., Malinowski, J. (2000, 2014). The summer camp handbook—everything you need to find, choose, and get ready for camp—and skip the homesickness. Madison, WI: ESC

[iv] Vygotsky’s work was not translated into English until 1962, so his insights have only recently made their way into most North Americans’ understanding of youth development.

[v] Thurber, C. A. (2005). “Multimodal homesickness prevention in boys spending two weeks at a residential summer camp.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 555-560.