Jackie Ruder was always copying her older brothers as a kid. So when the boys went away to camp in the summer, she naturally decided to tag along.
“I remember showing up, and the first person I met turned out to be my best friend to this day,” says Ruder, 12 years later.
The camp’s director then and now is David Graham who remembers Ruder as a reserved eight-year-old girl.
He knows her now as a health sciences student at Simon Fraser University who returns to Minden, Ont., each summer, now as a counsellor at her native Camp Kandalore.
“If you had told Ruder 10 years ago, that she’d be leading kids down whitewater rivers, responsible for their safety, she’d say she would never be able to do that,” says Graham.
“Today, with the skills she’s learned, she can look you in the eye and tell you she can do anything.”
Graham admits this is often the case with children who attend summer camp.
By giving kids challenging experiences to overcome, he says camp helps to reinforce ideals of hard work and teamwork.
And for the parents, the experience of a summer away can be a useful tool toward a child’s development that complements, rather than conflicts with, everyday life at home.
For many kids, however, the thought of leaving home for months at a time can be scary.
Day camps are a fit for kids who want to stay at home but still want to learn and have fun with new friends and peers.
Many day camps also serve as extensions of a basic school curriculum and are built to expand upon areas that pique the interest of young students but are not covered in depth in the classroom.
The Art Gallery of Ontario offers one such camp designed for kids who don’t get enough school time at the easel.
“At camp, kids are free to take risks and grow through those risks, says Jane Lott, a summer camp coordinator at the AGO.
“Through that process, they are building emotional intelligence and confidence.”
She adds that, when the burden of homework and good grades comes off a young person’s shoulders, he or she will naturally begin to let creative juices flow.
“It is not a studious environment, we keep things light to keep kids engaged,” she adds.
Dr. Anita Ramani, a Toronto child psychologist who deals with children facing Asperger syndrome and autism, agrees that the relaxed nature of camp can be extremely conducive to a young person’s emotional growth.
She says she regularly recommends summer camp to parents of children with autism because of self-esteem building along with the reinforcement of social skills.
“Whether or not your child is having trouble fitting in, camp provides good social ground where children can learn basic social rules and how to interact with each other through group activities.”
“Camp is a great way to prepare a child for the real world,” Ramani adds.
Jackie Ruder reminisces about one such experience she had while learning how to kayak on the coldest day of the summer.
“I had never been so cold in my life, but [my counsellor] stayed with me until I mastered it.”
“It made quite an impression on me,” she adds. “And when I became a staff member, I tried my hardest to be there for the kids the way that counsellor was for me.”
Graham emphasizes that this type of experience, while not unique to Ruder, is hard to replicate in any other setting.
“It’s like putting a hyper fertilizer in a plant,” says Graham. “The growth that takes place in a camp stay cannot be compared to anything else.”
