Virtual Camp, Real Life Benefits
Below we have one of our Hometown Stomping Ground parents share their take on how virtual camp can create meaningful connection. Nat is a camp director, an awesome parent, and a long time friend of Stomping Ground. We are so grateful for her support, trust, and love. - Ray
Nat at her camp in Nebraska - YMCA Camp Kitaki
I am one of the directors at YMCA Camp Kitaki, an overnight camp in Nebraska. Through this work I have been fortunate to collaborate with Laura, Jack, and their team. As of this spring, I am also a proud Hometown Stomping Ground camper parent.
On her first day of DnD, my eight year old told me “I am a little nervous. I won’t know anyone.” My daughter was expressing the same sort of hesitation I hear from many campers who attend in-person camp for the first time, and I was thrilled. I choked up as I realized that virtual camp might provide so much more than just a distraction.
Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a family physician, parenting expert, and camp enthusiast, talks about how happy adults share three common traits: confidence, competence, and connection. Hometown Stomping Ground has been helping my daughter experience each of these throughout quarantine.
Confidence
My daughter was nervous, but she still wanted to try. And the next day she wasn’t nervous at all. Virtual camp is helping her step out of her comfort zone and experience success in so many different ways. The staff provide confidence-boosting praise, support her wild ideas, and accept her for the weird and wonderful individual that she is.
My partner and I reviewed the Three Online Safety Tips for Kids and knew their staff were aware of the expectations, so we could feel confident allowing our daughter the space to have a fun adventure with her peers from afar alongside invested, well-trained youth development professionals.
Which means she gets to experience the autonomy and independence that she needs to grow, while her parents can feel great about giving her that space. It is one of the most magical parts of overnight camp, and it has been so wonderful to see it play out online.
Competence
Hometown Stomping Ground is helping my camper learn new skills and improve existing ones. Tangible skills like new recipes and knife techniques in Baking, and harder to pin down skills like waiting your turn to speak. Never having played DnD before the pandemic, she is now planning her own virtual campaign with some school friends. She loves to write, and the imaginative play of camp inspires her writing in big ways. In smaller ways, she has gained the skill of logging into her Zoom meeting on her own. Big and small, these pursuits boost her self-esteem in measurable ways.
Hattie, Nat’s daughter, and others playing Dungeons and Dragons with Brian!
And she is growing in her ability to make and support friends. It may look a bit different than in person camp, but the skills are gained all the same.
Connection
After her first hour was up, my daughter gleefully shouted “That was so awesome!” and went on to recount more details from her campaign than I usually get from asking about a day’s worth of school. And she shared how cool it was to be making new friends from across the country. Camp friendships often form on an accelerated timeline, and her virtual camp experience has been no different. After the first week, she immediately wanted to continue hanging out with her DnD crew. Each session it is such a joy to hear her giggling over inside jokes shared with her new pals, online friends with whom she is building real connections.
That connection extends to the phenomenal HSG staff, who are constantly adapting and finding new ways to foster positive relationships with and among the campers. As someone who trains and coaches staff for a living, I am consistently impressed by the patience, care, and unbridled silliness that I hear coming from these fantastic near-peer role models.
The benefit doesn’t end when the Zoom call does. After each session, my camper runs over to me and recounts in detail the adventures of the fantasy quest and the antics of her group leaders. She gets to have experiences independent from me during a time when that is challenging to accomplish, and in sharing her memories from these experiences our relationship is strengthened.
Confidence, competence, and connection are the building blocks of happiness, and they are central to everything we try to accomplish in a week of overnight camp. During this time when overnight camp isn’t an option, I am so grateful to have an intentionally crafted, safety conscious online experience like Hometown Stomping Ground helping my daughter and so many other campers thrive. It is indeed good to be together, even from a distance.