Loosen Up

Getting campers into the camp groove... A counselor’s perspective

By Elizabeth Bergstrom

Many kids have to deal with adult issues and responsibilities on a daily basis.

Camp is one full week for a child to get away from dealing with their parents’ divorce, getting up at 6 a.m. to work on the family farm or babysitting their younger siblings while their parents are at work.

Camp is like a K.B. Toy Store jingle, “Where a kid can be a kid.”

As a counselor, my job is to help kids forget about “real life” for a while and just have fun and make friends.

On the first day the campers are quiet and reserved. To get them comfortable, Disco, my co-counselor, and I act extremely goofy.

During the camp tour, we perform skits. For example, when we pass by the bathroom we run around pretending we have to go to the bathroom so bad, but we can’t find it. This gets them giggling.

Then we go through all of the rules. If you just recite the rules off of a piece of paper you’re sure to bore them to tears, which just about ensures that they won’t listen!

We spice the rules up by acting them out. If the rule states, “Don’t take anything that doesn’t belong to you.” Disco and I secretly take each other’s things, then get into a huge, dramatic fight about it. By this time, the campers are whispering to each other how silly their counselors are and laughing amongst themselves.

Mix & Mingle
Now that the campers are loosened up a bit, it’s time to mingle. We sit in a circle and the campers take their turn introducing themselves and adding whom they think is the hottest famous person.

Before each girl begins she has to say every girl’s name that has already gone. This is key to remembering 20 new people’s faces and names.

In my unofficial poll, Freddie Prinze, Jr. was the most common answer, followed by Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys. Luckily, they brought Teen magazine to point out who these young hotties are. It’s a shame they’ve never seen Top Gun because I was the only one all summer to say Tom Cruise.

That night, we have a big beach party. DJ Ox and DJ Gonzo play the latest popular tunes to all of our heart’s content.

Counselors should know what’s hot and what’s not with kids of varying ages. It’s often excruciatingly painful to listen to the latest boy band or pop diva, but they like it.

Besides, if you’re going to expand their horizons and enrich their world with tunes from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, for example, you need to know their point of reference.

Our campers are very much like cattle being herded to their doom by what’s been called the Merchants of Cool, so it’s often up to us to show them a better way. Kids usually don’t know that it’s cool not to be cool until it’s too late.

Anyway, the campers and counselors dance on the beach, play volleyball, and play in the water with the sun setting in the background.

It’s tradition to end each day holding hands in a big circle singing Day is Done, and inevitably getting eaten alive by -mosquitoes.

Day one has ended successfully with the campers becoming comfortable with each other and their surroundings. Luckily, there’s six more days at camp, where a kid can be a kid.

Elizabeth Bergstrom is a junior at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and was a counselor at Camp Tekawitha in Shawano, Wis., last summer.