Sunshine Parenting

Audio excerpt from HAPPY CAMPERS: 10 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Independent, Capable Kids Who Become Thriving Adults

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is one of my favorite people. She's a psychotherapist, founder and executive director of the Center for Connection in Pasadena, California, and co-author with Dr. Daniel Siegel of four of my favorite books, including The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become And How Their Brains Get Wired.

Over the past several years, I've had the privilege of getting to know Tina not just as an amazing speaker and author but as a phenomenal person and friend. She even wrote the foreword for my book, Happy Campers!

In The Power of Showing Up, Tina and Dan share important research and findings about childhood attachment and how being present for our kids is so vital for their healthy development. This book is helpful not only for parents but also for adults who want to better understand how their own childhoods impact their adult relationships and how to change generational patterns of insecure attachment.

View more notes about the book & episode here.

Show notes & links available here.

In this episode, I'm speaking with Dr. Jess Shatkin, about preventing mental illness and promoting health in children and adolescents. As a clinician, researcher and educator, Dr. Shatkin is one of the country's foremost experts in adolescent mental health, risk and resilience.

• Extensive research about mental health has led us to a good understanding of what we can do preventatively for young people.
• Dr. Shatkin offers practical strategies for parents and people working with kids to help prevent mental illness:
  • Practice authoritative parenting:
    • show love and support
    • give clear guidelines
    • set limits
    • reinforce positively
    • punish infrequently
  • Other parenting styles, authoritarian, permissive or negligent parenting, produce more negative outcomes for children.
  • Professionals need to understand and apply these authoritative parenting skills when working with kids.
  • Kids themselves can learn these basic tools of behavioral modification, and it would go a long way toward helping them have better relationships, social awareness, and improved mental health.
• These behavioral modification tools are:
  • positive reinforcement
  • effective commands - brief directives not stated as questions and praise by labeling exactly what was done right
  • active ignoring - ignore the behavior you don't like coupled with positive reinforcement for good behavior
  • scheduling kids
  • using reward programs
  • limit setting
  • consequences (such as time-outs for little kids)
• Global strategies to address these issues:
  • We should support more teacher training in these areas.
  • Early education should include teaching behavior modification, emotion regulation, emotion identification, and communication skills.
• Resilience education with college students has lowered anxiety, improved mood, and coping skills, lowered dysfunctional attitudes.
• Dr. Jess Shatkan's triumvirate of good health, three healthy habits that every parent can help their child to develop:
  • Exercise
    • When people exercise regularly, they feel better about themselves, they feel more competent and more empowered. Too many kids are not getting enough exercise. More physical activity leads to better concentration and overall health.
  • Sleep
    • Sleep is critical for managing stress and anxiety.
    • When people don't sleep their brain patterns are disrupted causing worse decision making, higher rates of obesity, and less empathy.
  • Nutrition
    • Obesity is a huge problem, as over 35% of children are overweight.
    • Parents need to provide healthy meals whenever possible, avoid fast food and pesticides and hormones in food.
    • Schools and parents can teach the importance of good nutrition.
• Because excessive screen use is shown to have damaging effects on health and wellbeing, parents should enforce these screen rules:
  • parents own the screen and the child uses it as a reward or opportunity.
  • parents "friend" their kids on social media
  • parents supervise and limit screen time
  • screens should be in public spaces (not bedrooms)
  • use a blue light blocking device when used in the evening to avoid sleep problems
• An environment like camp, which offers time away from screens, exercise, healthy food options, positive social interactions and well-trained counselors, promotes good mental health for our children.

Jess: "Mental illness is growing in frequency, it's happening more commonly. The more we study it, the more we see it, the better our practitioners are trained, the more easily we pick it up, the more treatments we have, the better people do. But at the same time, we've learned so much now about mental health that there's a lot we can prevent."

Jess: "Kids who have parents who are authoritative do much better in every way. They become better students. They're more likely to stay in school, less likely to have a premature pregnancy, less likely to get sexually transmitted infections, less likely to get involved in drugs, less likely to have accidents and injuries like automobile accidents. They are more likely to go to college. They're more likely to be healthy adults and not have depression and diabetes and all the rest. It's the amazing power of parenting."

Jess: "I think that we should be teaching the skills that lead to this kind of approach, this sort of behavioral modification, in the earliest of years, that teachers could be using these skills in elementary schools and kids could be learning what these skills are in high school so that all their relationships are better."

Jess: "So it's a mistake to ask your kids for things unless no is an acceptable answer. If you give them a choice, 'would you like to wear a sweater or jacket? It's cold tonight.' You get a choice, but it's not, 'do you want to put on something?' or 'do you want to brush your teeth?' or 'do you think it's time to do this or that?' Or 'how about cleaning your room buddy?' or those kinds of things."

Jess: "Authoritative parenting can be taught through parent training--this is what I mean by prevention. We see a lot more mental illness amongst kids who drop out of school, amongst kids who have premature pregnancy, amongst kids who have accidents, injuries, and sexually transmitted infections. And these kinds of things will help us to manage the behavior of kids better so we don't get to that point."

Audrey: "The camp counselor training that we do is a lot of this stuff that you're talking about. It's using positive words, ignoring things, pointing out the kid that's doing the thing right so that the other kids see that you noticed. It's all this basic stuff but most of them have not experienced it themselves before they've come to camp. And so they will tell us afterward that because of the training they got at camp, they're a better parent. They're great teachers."

Audrey: "Some teachers don't know how to relate to kids. They go through their teacher training, they get their credentials, and they know all about physics or English, but they don't know what their kids need in order to feel belonging, connection to the teacher and a desire to learn what's being taught."

Audrey: "I always say like connection before everything else. Connection before correction of course, but also just connection before learning. Your kid on the first day of school is sitting in that class of 30, and they're thinking, who's here am I gonna have any friends? Who's gonna be my partner at this science table? The teachers need to address that. Do a few team building activities like the ones we do at camp. It might take five minutes and then you have this connection and the kids are looking forward to going into that room and feeling part of this community. It's so fundamental. And the same with families. So I'm with you on that. I would love to see universal parent education."

Jess: "When I go into schools and I say to parents, 'what do you want for your child by the time they graduate high school?' they never say 'be great at geometry' or 'be able to speak iambic pentameter.' What they say is, 'I want them to share. I want her to be a good citizen. I want him to do what he says he's going to do. I wanted to have good friends.' They never say anything about academics. Mostly its human qualities."

Jess: "We spend a third of our lives asleep, yet nobody knows anything about sleep except for people who study sleep. And then there's a lot to know about sleep. Now you may not be able to make yourself a perfect sleeper by learning about sleep, but you can do a whole lot better than you're probably doing now. And it makes a big difference for people."

Audrey: "I agree with you that the first thing is just parents understanding communication, how to relate to their child and have this authoritative style. But sleep is so critical and for parents too because when we don't get enough sleep, we are not good with anybody. So it's like everybody is sleep-deprived."

Jess: "Increasingly we're recognizing that there really is an impact from screens. It impacts the brain, it impacts the way we perceive a threat, how anxious we feel. It affects our sleep in a big, big way, and when your sleep is affected, a lot of things are affected."

Jess: "We can look deep into the brain now and we see the effect that being on screens is having on kids. We see less empathy and when the screens are taken away, they all of a sudden become more empathic."

Jess: "Exercise helps our bodies in myriad ways, not the least of which is to sleep and burn calories effectively. You maintain a high metabolism, but also to improve your mood. We know that people who exercise regularly improve mood and we know that exercise works as well as psychotherapy for mild and moderate depression."

Jess: "I always direct parents to do stuff with their kids. Go biking with your kid, take vigorous walks with your kid, go hiking with your kid. There's nothing better than family activity."

Audrey: "I just think if there was one thing parents of young kids could do now is just keep the screens out for themselves too. It seems like that's a simple thing that actually if you're not on your screen as much, you're probably getting more exercise and more sleep."

Jess: "There was an interesting study where they took middle school kids out in the woods for five days and they did school out in the woods and the kids had better eye contact at the end of those five days. They reported more empathy in the surveys that they completed. They were happier."

Audrey: "It's true that when kids are at camp, they report that they feel happier and they feel like they have better friends in those two weeks at camp than all year because it's real connection without distraction. And they're outside, getting tons of exercise and a lot more sleep and nutritious food."

Dr. Jess P. Shatkin, MD, MPH, is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, who leads the educational efforts of the NYU Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He sees patients each day, in addition to running all medical student, resident, and psychology training emanating from the department. In addition, Dr. Shatkin has developed the nation's largest undergraduate program in child/adolescent development at NYU, which teaches 100 courses to over 5,000 students each year. Finally, Dr. Shatkin studies adolescent risk, resilience, and the prevention of mental illness. He has written two books, over 100 scientific articles, and is a popular presenter at meetings and conferences worldwide.

Dr.JessPShatkin.com

Social media: @DrJessPShatkin Facebook

Dr. Shatkin's radio show on Sirius XM

Dr. Shatkin, Born to be Wild book

Dr. Shatkin, Child & Adolescent Mental Health

Alan Kazdin, Parent Management Training Book

Cynthia Whitham, Win the Whining War

Thomas Gordon, Parent Effectiveness Training

Ep. 16 about Dr. Shatkin's book Born to be Wild: Why teens take risks and how we can help keep them safe.

Ep. 111: Raising an Exceptional Child in a Conventional World

Ep. 87: The Impact of Camp Experiences with Laurie Browne, Ph.D.

10 Reasons Great Parents Choose Summer Camp for Their Kids

In Episode 52, Sara Kuljis and I chat about ways to help our kids process experiences. The ideas work for post-summer camp debriefing but also for our kids' other adventures and experiences.

Sara is a 20-year veteran camp director and parenting trainer who has great insights and ideas about parenting and counseling kids.

Sara, with her husband Steve, owns and directs Yosemite Sierra Summer Camp, a Christian adventure camp for children ages 8 to 16 years old founded 45 years ago by Sara's parents Jim and Marna Slevcove. Together, the Kuljises also direct Emerald Cove Day Camp in San Juan Capistrano, a day camp that serves children from kindergarten through 4th grade.

1. Plan time to rest/process.
2. Listen to their stories.
3. Look through photos together.
4. Ask thoughtful questions: • What did you enjoy/love? • What was challenging? • When (not if!) you do it again, what will you do differently?
5. Avoid "interviewing for pain" (Wendy Mogel).
6. Bring home a ritual or tradition: • Flower Sundays • WOWs • Goodnight Song
7. Continue with an interest that's been sparked (archery, guitar, etc.).
8. Create a remembrance.
9. Encourage kids to stay in touch with new friends.

Books We Talked About

Off the Clock, Laura Vanderkam

Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Wendy Mogel

Blessing of a B-, Wendy Mogel

Like listening to Sara and Audrey chat? Here are our other podcast episodes!

https://sunshine-parenting.com/2019/04/ep-85-grit-is-grown-outside-the-comfort-zone-pegtalk/

Ep. 3: Raising Resilient, Independent Kids

Ep. 7: Family Pace & Space

Ep. 23: Peaceful Mornings

Ep. 28: Focusing on Our Kids' Strengths

Ep. 37: How to Get Ready for Overnight Summer Camp

Ep. 39: How to Handle Your Camper's Homesickness

Ep. 57: The Importance of Adult Friendships

Ep. 63: Growing Gratitude

Ep. 77: Comparison is the Thief of (Parenting) Joy

Ep. 82: Sibling Conflict, Pt. 1

Ep. 86: Conflict Resolution Skills for Siblings (and Everyone Else!)

Show Notes

This week's discussion is with Jenifer Joy Madden, author of How to be a Durable Human. We participated in a conversation for Digital Wellness Day, and this episode is a recording of our conversation from that webinar. We discussed concepts from both of our books.

Madden is a health and environmental journalist who is also a digital broadcaster and adjunct professor for Syracuse University in their DC Program. Madden is a child advocate who has volunteered her time to establish new walking and biking trails throughout northern Virginia. Madden is also the parent of three durable adults.

Listen to Episode 30 if you'd like to hear my first interview with Jenifer about her book, How To Be a Durable Human: Revive and Thrive in the Digital Age Through the Power of Self-Design. And you can listen to our second chat here: Ep. 71: Growing Your Child's Bushy Broccoli Brain.

Our kids need to be seen and heard especially during the pandemic.

We still need routines even if we and/or our kids are having a hard time right now.

When we "think outside the loop" we can create memorable moments for our families.

It's important for us to be "durable" and for us to help our kids become "durable" as well.

Audrey: We have to be more intentional and in control of this digital world that is so much now a part of what we do.

Audrey: During times of stress or challenge is where we build our resilience or our durability.

Jenifer: Resilience has more to do with being knocked down and being able to get up again, but durability is to endure day to day and to actually maybe even grow in strength.

Jenifer: Almost every expert agrees that we need to be rocks and models. And what I mean by that is that for children, we are their constant in all of this. Their lives have totally been upended as have ours, except we're the adults in the room. And so we have to be reassuring to them and we have to be steady and they have to lean on us.

Jenifer: Especially when we're talking about technology, we have to be aware of how we're using our technology so it doesn't get in the way of them.

Audrey: During meals is a good time for everybody to catch up and see each other. And then bedtimes are very important for that, too.

Audrey: I think a lot of parents are feeling really frazzled just from the pressures of everything going on. And I just think that I know with my kids who are a little bit older, it's been really good for us to just be sharing. We share at dinner our highs and lows. And just to say, "You know what, today was a better day because this and this and this, and today I was just really feeling discouraged or down." and being really open and honest with them that these are very real and normal feelings during this time to not feel like your best self every day.

Jenifer: We have to know we're not superheroes. We can't be. We can't have our finger on every pulse at every moment. We almost have to lower the expectations for ourselves.

Audrey: Just a simple activity that we can all do right now is just to make a really short list of just the little things in life that bring us some delight.

Audrey: They always say at the end of our life, the things that you're going to miss most are just the real basic stuff, like having a cup of coffee with your spouse and chatting in the morning and smiling and talking with your kids and laughing over a funny joke around dinner. I mean it's those things that money can't buy.

Jenifer: The experts are also saying that we need to validate their feelings, which is if they're moping around, rather than giving them a hard time, say, "I understand, I know what you're going through," and they suggest you can say, "I'm here."

Audrey: It is great to have a really warm, close relationship with your kids, but it is not the same. We are not the same for them as what their peers and their friends do for them.

Jenifer: The hug is like a muscle relaxant, tranquilizer, and love potion all rolled into one.

Jenifer: Having screen-free bedrooms is a good idea.

Audrey: We need to raise people who are able to make good decisions and promote their own good habits.

Audrey: In order for your little microcosm of your home to function well, everybody needs to be pitching in.

Audrey: The message of pro kindness and reaching out and having compassion for others is far more powerful in a way that we can appeal to their identity as a person.

Jenifer: Once you get them going, their imaginations do take off.

Audrey: When the kids are there all day, you really do need to strategize some ways to get them and encourage them to play either on their own or with their siblings without needing you there all the time.

Jenifer: When they grow up and they want to go to medical school, they want to be a surgeon, they have to be able to handle a needle. So this is another reason to give them play-dough instead of a screen.

Jenifer: We have to have this overview of giving our children some time to be bored and not be constantly entertained. So they actually start to think for themselves.

Audrey: Doing things with our hands is to me kind of a good, relaxing thing too.

Audrey: It's interesting that we are being drawn to these things that make us more durable.

Jenifer: I think things might get even more confusing than they are now. And so we have to be checking in with ourselves about: Are we getting upset? Is there a way that I can back out of this and not be so upset? I think that using techniques such as deep breathing, removing yourself from the situation, placing your hands on a hard surface if that's the least you can do, close your eyes and take some deep breaths just to get yourself pulled back together because there are going to be challenges and we need to have quick strategies to figure out, "Wait a minute, I'm flying off the handle. I don't want to, I'm not going to." and walk away.

Audrey: What a great example we can set if we can manage to just take even one or two deep breaths before we respond.

Jenifer: I know it's possible for you to be durable and keep that compassion and that intuition and creativity up front.

How to be a Durable Human by Jenifer Joy Madden

Digital Wellness Day

Digital Wellness Collective

Unplugged Family

Interview with Coach Madlin of Unplugged Family and Jenifer Joy Madden

Ep. 30: How to Raise a Durable Human with JJ Madden

Ep. 116: Why We Need to Unplug to Connect with our Families

10 Lessons for Parents Raising Children in a Digital World

Ep. 71: Growing Your Child's Bushy Broccoli Brain

SHOW NOTES

My guest this week is Dr. Nicole Beurkens. As a licensed clinical psychologist with advanced degrees in psychology, education, and nutrition, Dr. Nicole Beurkens is the world's leading holistic child psychologist. She has dedicated her 22+ year career to providing parents with research-based strategies that get to the root of children's attention, anxiety, mood, and behavior challenges so they can reach their highest potential. She runs a multi-disciplinary evaluation and treatment clinic and is a best-selling author, published researcher, award-winning therapist, and experienced mother of four.

One of the best things we can do for our kids is stay grounded ourselves and model that for them.

There is often not a "right" or "wrong" choice. It's important to look at what is best for your family to help you decide.

It's important for kids to have independent time either by themselves or with their siblings.

It's helpful to pay attention to our coping skills and model healthy ones for our family that do not always involve screens.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Parents and kids are now facing starting a year in a really different way. And just the uncertainty of that is generating a lot of anxiety and a lot of distress for kids. But I would say even more so for parents. I get asked all the time, "What do we do for the kids? What do we do for the kids?" And the reality of it is it's really how we're dealing with it as parents that sets the tone for how our kids deal with it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: The first thing is to realize exactly what we're talking about—that the tone that we set as adults, as parents really makes the most difference. If we're able to manage our own emotions and behaviors around this in healthier ways, that really goes a long way to helping kids do that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: We need to figure out how to keep ourselves more stable and more regulated.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: We need to find some time to ground ourselves and to help ourselves through the feelings and the things that are going on for us.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: It's super healthy and important for kids to have time when an adult is not structuring or generating and initiating activities.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Please realize you can step back and take some time to do the work catch-up that you need to do, to sit down with a book and a cup of tea for a few minutes, if that is soothing to you, to go out and take that walk, to do the things that help keep you healthy—your kids can go navigate that time by themselves.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Ultimately what happens is they start to find things to do. And that's really where an increase in creativity and self-generated activity and initiative comes from is when we allow them to have times where they have to figure it out either independently or with their siblings.

Audrey Monke: I think part of it is that when both parents work outside the home, I think what they're used to is when the time that they are home, maybe it's dinner time or whatever, it's very concentrated family time. So I think this shift when your kids are always there, maybe that's an issue that people think, "Oh, it's supposed to always be this like full on work."

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Screens do not always have to be an option for kids and shouldn't always be an option for kids. And in fact, they should have times during the day when they're not options and there's other things they need to do.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: It's so true that very often now for kids their default, if no one is engaging them in something, is just passive screen time kinds of things. So we need to be intentional about setting times and spaces where that's not happening and here's the secret to that: 100% expect they will not like that. And that is okay. It is totally okay.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: It's something I'm seeing in a lot of older teens and young adults now in my practice that they have not learned how to tolerate uncomfortable feelings, how to be with themselves and their own thoughts because their generation has just grown up sort of defaulting to using passive scrolling through social media or, you know, doing things online and on their devices as a way to kind of numb that. And while that works in the short term, it is not a good longterm strategy and it's not a strategy for helping kids grow up to be more resilient, to be emotionally and behaviorally regulated.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Now you may be on the computer for many hours a day for work related things, but to even be intentional about things like device-free meal, times to be intentional about when I'm doing something with you, playing a game, taking a walk, doing some kind of play with you. I don't have my devices there. To be intentional about your children seeing you doing activities and things where you're taking a break from the devices where they're not part of the picture, seeing you doing things for yourself to relax and engage in self-care without resorting to devices. Those are really important models. And I think those are far more powerful than the things that we tell them about.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: That's the thing we've had conversations with the kids about. Okay, let's think about all the possible scenarios. And let's just kind of think through some plans for that. And I think that's really helpful strategy for parents and kids to be doing. Especially if you have kids at those milestone kinds of situations.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: I think what that does in thinking that through is it just brings that anxiety down because anxiety is all about uncertainty and about things that we can't control. And while we can't control those things, just by thinking through and making some plans and having like a Plan A, a Plan B a Plan C and even just talking through and anticipating how that will feel and how we'll respond to that. That's a really productive way of helping kids process and work through those emotions.

Audrey Monke: I think all of us need to be flexible and that's in workplaces, in families, in schools, teachers, everyone, because like you said, everyone's kind of doing the best they can.

Audrey Monke: We've all been talking about mindfulness and how important that is, but it's almost like we're being forced now to be aware and totally better with what is going on inside of us. I think when you slow down, all the stuff comes up.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: A lot of our typical coping strategies have been taken away because at least in the United States, a lot of the default coping is to stay busy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: What are the silver linings here? Or what are some of the benefits?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Nothing that's going to happen is all bad.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: As families and as parents, we can support each other and realize that there is no right or wrong, there are options. And you need to look at what is in the best interest of your family's health, wellness, wellbeing.

Audrey Monke: Like you said, you can pivot if it seems like it's not working.

Dr. Beurkens' Website with resources for parents and professionals

Horizons Developmental Resource Center

Better Behavior Show Podcast

Life Will Get Better Book

More of, Less of, Same of (MO, LO, SO)

One Simple Thing video series

Creating moments during COVID (surprise camp blanket & jacket presentations):

SHOW NOTES

Join Audrey's email subscriber community for resources and ideas for happier, more connected families.

Jean Rogers is the Director of the Children's Screen Time Action Network, where she leads a coalition of practitioners, educators, advocates, and parents who collaborate on practical methods to reduce children's time on screens and digital devices, mitigate the dangers, and preserve childhood in the digital age. Jean is the host of Action Network Live!, a webcast bringing experts to parents on how screens impact all aspects of child development. She writes a weekly blog and speaks widely to parents, teachers and activists, empowering them to implement simple solutions to a complex 21st century parenting challenge.

Jean earned Masters' degrees in Education and Parenting Education at Wheelock College, where she took up the mantel of Susan Linn and Diane Levin, trailblazers in media literacy, play-based learning, and avoiding a commercialized childhood. Prior to working at the Action Network, Jean was a freelance marketing writer, illuminating products and services for nonprofit and business clients. She was also a music teacher, director of a large church school, and a college writing center consultant. Her greatest role is mother to 5 children.

• The Social Dilemma is fantastic because it helps you understand that social media apps were designed for profit for the companies that designed, not for the benefit of the users (a good term because of the addictive nature of the apps).

• If you have preteens or teens, we encourage you to have them watch The Social Dilemma with you. They'll understand more at the end, they'll maybe see themselves or their friends in it or their cousins. They'll understand it from the perspective of one of those ages. If you have young children, the film is really a cautionary tale. It's something that if you watch it now you can prevent some of these things from happening.

• While we do have the children's online privacy and protection act, that has not translated into the regulations for social media that you would expect, and kids are still able to scroll. They're able to find things.

• For our kids, it's so easy for them to believe everything that they see and for us to need to explain that not everything is real on the internet. Fake news and stories spread much faster than true ones.

• Where to connect with and find out more about Jean and the Children's Screen Time Action Network: Website Facebook Book: Kids Under Fire Action Network Live

• Jean's interview with Audrey and Lenore Skenazy on Action Network Live.

Happy Campers at Home: Navigating Summer with Children during COVID-19 from CCFC on Vimeo.

• "The Social Dilemma"

• Cyberwise

• "The Great Hack"

• Cal Newport

• Digital Wellness Collective

• Wait Until 8th

• Turning Life On

• Audrey: "I had heard that a long time ago about Steve jobs, that his kids weren't allowed to have iPads."

• Audrey: "These tools that have been created are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works."

• Jean: "The Children's screen Time Action Network is a project of Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood."

• Jean: "Creating routines reduces stress."

• Jean: "I think one of the things they say in the film is, it's not like a bolt of lightning that happens. All of a sudden your kids are converted to this world. It's a gradual change in their behavior. And so we don't want to wake up someday and not know our kids."

• Jean: "There are studies that say, we learn a lot more. We absorb a lot more by reading the real book."

• Jean: "You can't change it. That only the industry can change it, but you can change what's going on in your own home."

Ep. 156: The Tech Solution with Dr. Shimi Kang

Ep. 148: Connecting with Nature & Each Other During COVID with Ariella Rogge

Ep. 144: Raising Happy, Durable Kids in the Digital Age

Ep. 116: Why We Need to Unplug and Connect with our Families

This week's One Simple Thing is one from Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults.

Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport

I think we're only scratching the surface on the damage caused by our current technology habits. As I argued in Digital Minimalism, these tools are both powerful and indifferent to your best interests. Until you decide to adopt a minimalist ethos, and deploy technology intentionally to serve specific values you care about, the damage it inflicts will continue to accumulate. -Cal Newport, Do Smartphones Make Us Dumber?

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Audrey

Today's show, Episode 85, was recorded live at Pegasus School in Huntington Beach as part of their PEGtalks parent education series. I'm with my frequent guest, Sara Kuljis, the owner and director of Yosemite Sierra Summer Camp and Emerald Cove Day Camp. We talked about my book, Happy Campers and we discussed Camp Secret #5,…

The post Ep. 85: Grit is Grown Outside the Comfort Zone (PEGtalk) appeared first on Sunshine Parenting.

In Episode 98, I'm chatting with Tom Rosenberg, CEO of the American Camp Association. Last year, in Episode 46, we talked about summer camp, accreditation, and #CampKindnessDay (July 20, 2021). In this episode, we talk about the research about the positive impact of camp, our joint passion for partnering with parents to bring camp to schools and homes. Tom uses my new favorite word, "camplify," to describe this spreading of the camp message to other venues outside of camp.

• There are an estimated 14 million kids going to camps in the U.S. this summer.
• Ninety-three percent of American Camp Association camps offer financial aid and scholarships for campers. Parents need to work well in advance to apply for those resources.
• Parents can use the 'Find A Camp' tool on the American Camp Association's website to search for the ACA accredited camps. This is a parent's best assurance that a camp has met the foundational standards of a safe and healthy camp experience for their child.
• There are many different kinds of camps. There are camps for specific cultural groups, for kids with a particular medical disorder, for kids with a specific area of interest, and many, many more.
• It's important for parents to visit a summer camp before sending their child to one so that they can see what camp is all about.
• At camp, kids have the opportunity to learn to be themselves, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and try again.
• The American Camp Association website provides wonderful videos and other resources for parents.
• Camp helps kids build relationship skills and learn from people with different backgrounds and experiences.
• Camp is about positive risk.
• The more kids put into their camp experience, the more they get out of it.
• People who been camp counselors before becoming teachers or parents really have an advantage when it comes to relating to kids.
• Camp techniques work at home too.
• On Tuesday, July 20, we will be celebrating Camp Kindness Day across America.

Tom: "All different kinds of camp experiences are more accessible than ever before and we're working hard to provide more equity around the affordability of camp, and the accessibility of experiences. Ninety-three percent of American Camp Association camps offer financial aid and scholarships. The trick is that parents have to work well in advance of the summer to apply for those resources."

Audrey: "This is the time to start thinking about next summer. If there's a camp that you're really interested in, you can tour the camp while it is in session to see if its a good match for your family, meet some of the staff and campers."

Tom: "I'm a former camp director and I'm the CEO of the American Camp Association but I still, as a dad, find myself trying to help my child not make mistakes. I find myself trying to protect him and camp is a place where kids have the opportunity to learn to be themselves and make mistakes. And learn from those mistakes and try again."

Tom: "It's hard for a parent that hasn't been to camp before to have the experience, and to understand the experience, and to know how professional camp directors build a physically and emotionally safe place where young adult mentors and camp professionals create these opportunities for kids in ways that we, parents, can't do by ourselves."

Tom: "At camp kids learn different ideas, like learning to accept that you and I might agree to disagree about something. At camp kids have the freedom to listen and communicate better with their friends about what they believe in. And even if they don't agree on everything, they learn to disagree amicably."

Audrey: "In the world today, those communication skills, resolving conflicts and 'agreeing to disagree' are so important and many adults aren't modeling that. One of the great things about camp is that there are going to be conflicts in the group and that's what we want to happen. That's how kids learn to work through things and communicate."

Tom: "Part of growing up and getting to go to camp is to have an opportunity to take some positive risks on a progressive basis, in a structured way, so that you take risks that you're ready for."

Tom: "The Pure Research Center's study on teens, technology, and friendship found that just one out of four teens in the study were having daily out-of-school social contact time with a friend, in person. And that a great number of the new friendships that they were forming were digital. Only one out of five of those digital relationships were finding their way into the in-person realm."

Audrey: "I'm finding that kids at camp really enjoy being off their technology when they're at camp. Just hanging out and making these really close friendships at camp is intense face-to-face time for them. It's very different now from their life outside of camp."

Tom: "The Knowledge Works Foundation predicts that the most sought-after competencies for the best jobs for kids and young people in 2030-2040 are going to be those that, quite frankly, have camp skills. We're talking about problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, coordinating with others, emotional intelligence. So camp is positioned to help kids develop a strong inner self that will allow them to be resilient and reflective. And build strong relationships."

Tom: "If we do our jobs right, as parents, teachers, and camp directors, this generation will be, I hope, a generation of inventors, innovators, design thinkers, and creatives."

Tom: "Here at the American Camp Association, we are looking to help provide camp and camp-like out-of-school-time experiences for every young person in our country."

Tom: "What we're really trying to do is help young people and their parents bring those camp values like empathy, kindness, generosity, and compassion from camp home, from home to school, and from school and afterschool activities back to camp."

Audrey: "We need to just continue to go out and 'camplify' the world. That's the basis of what we do. We want to bring the magic of connection, relationships, nature and appreciation of differences to the whole rest of the world."

American Camp Association (ACA)

Videos for Camp Parents (ACA)

Accreditation (ACA Standards)

On July 20, the camp community will participate in Camp Kindness Day – an event highlighting the practice of intentional kindness that happens every day at American camps. This is an opportunity to raise awareness of the great work that camps are doing to teach kindness in engaging, simple, repeatable, and high impact ways that live on in the daily lives of campers and staff members when they return home.

Focusing on our youth and young adults, Camp Kindness Day will help showcase the commitment of the camp community to fostering the core values of kindness, compassion, generosity, and care, and integrating those values more fully into every aspect of our society. These values are already part of the fabric of the camp experience. We share the mission for our youth to be nurtured, taught, supported, and inspired to grow into our new generation of kind, compassionate, socially-minded, community-oriented citizens.

Camp Kindness Day will allow camps to incorporate into their July 20 programming fun theme-based activities and cooperative games, cool projects, and memorable moments which will celebrate the value and impact of kindness.

Tom Rosenberg has a distinguished career in the camp profession and a long resume of service to ACA. He most recently served as the executive director of Camp Judaea in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Prior to Camp Judaea, Tom spent more than two decades with Blue Star Camps in North Carolina, most of those years as a director. Tom is a past national treasurer and board member of the ACA as well as a past board president and treasurer of ACA Southeastern. A founding board member of the North Carolina Youth Camp Association, Tom was awarded the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce's inaugural Camp Industry Leadership Award as well as the American Camp Association's National Honor Award and ACA Southeastern's Distinguished Service Award.

With an educational focus in business, Tom graduated with distinction from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California with an MBA and from the AB Freeman School of Business at Tulane University with a BS in Management. He is also a graduate of ACA's Camp Director Institute.

Tom melds his experience in the camp profession with business expertise, inspirational vision, successful fundraising experience, professional agility, organizational skills, and strategic focus — attributes that are essential to achieving success as ACA's President/CEO. We are indeed fortunate to have such a thoughtful, dedicated, and experienced leader who is willing to take his commitment to camp, youth development, and ACA to a greater level. Tom, his wife Pam Sugarman, and their son Daniel live in Atlanta, Georgia.

American Camp Association (ACA)

Parent Blog (ACA)

Find a Camp (ACA's searchable database)

Accreditation (ACA Standards)

Kindness Evolution

Ep. 87: The Impact of Camp Experiences

Ep. 46: Camp Kindness Day (2018)

Research Finds Children Learn Social Skills at Camp

5 Reasons Not to Worry While Your Kids are at Camp

The Power of Kindness

Too Much Screen Time? 4 Ways Summer Camp Can Help

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