Lost-and-Found: How Summer Camps Create A Need for Connection in the Time of Covid
By: Jake Labovitz
Tags: Covid 19, Summer, Kids, Connection, Summer Camp

“I hate camp,” he said. His mom looked surprised. “Tell me more.”

“I was fine before I went. I was perfectly happy being by myself and not needing people. Now I know I need people and having friends to do things with is way more fun. And now I’m lonely.”

As a camp director at Windsor Mountain Summer Camp in New Hampshire (www.WindsorMountain.org) for over ten years, I’ve heard many “camp sick” stories over the years. Many campers struggle to adjust to life at home following a carefree summer at camp with old and new friends. In 2020, it’s different. Returning home presents a whole different level of loss. It is beyond “camp sick.”

This pandemic has not just created new problems. It has made some of our existing problems more apparent and hidden others. Now more than ever, it is easy to get lost. Lost in ourselves, lost in our phones, lost in our sense of the passage of time.

Though the Covid situation is an easy mark, and a fair one at that, this pandemic is not the only cause for a feeling of loneliness. Without getting bogged down in a list here, we all know the usual suspects — technology and social media being big ones — that are causing unprecedented rates of depression among this generation of kids.

With many of our kids home and remote-learning, they are losing their connection to others and to many activities. Their sense of what is missing and what is “normal” starts to fade. This isn’t all bad, as long as it’s temporary, because it is an excellent display of the adaptability of humanity and helps to develop resiliency. In essence, the ability to exist in a different way becomes a defense mechanism so that we are not all stuck in a constant state of joylessness and despair. Ironically, because kids generally are better at adaptation that adults, it is easier for them to get used to the “new normal” and focus less on what is lost and more settled into the now.

One problem with children adapting to being happy alone is that it isn’t all that emotionally healthy without balance between connection and “me time.” Unfortunately, video games, screens (and sometimes even books) are a solo escape for so many young people and a substitute for need. They tend to create loneliness, which is detrimental to social development even if our kids don’t recognize it as such.[1] Indeed, the loneliness that develops in the early teen years often continues into college years and beyond. (https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/blogs/stephen-gray-wallace/lonely-but-almost-never-alone-0)

As parents, it is critical that we see with clear eyes the current emotional state of our children. While they may love spending hours on their devices, scrolling through social media and gaming, we all know it is doing them no favors. From an emotional development perspective, it is dreadful. Their neurons fire from the stimuli, eyes wide with wonder and excitement, but it is easy for them to lose sight of what brings true joy to human beings — connection in-person. So it is our job as the guideposts of their lives to show them what they need and what they lack.

This is where summer camps come in. Though overnight summer camps started at the turn of the 20th century, it is clear to any camp parent that they have never been more important than in this moment in history. They serve to create for children a palpable sense of community that right now is lost in our society-at-large. Bob Ditter, licensed clinical social worker and camp guru, has been talking for years about how it is vital for children’s mental health to step away from technology and into meaningful, vitally engaged relationships at camp. https://www.acacamps.org/resource-library/camping-magazine/camp-vital-engagement

Yes, summer camps provide that vital engagement. But they do something even more important.

Summer camps show children what matters. That connection matters. That a sense of community is critical to a feeling of being whole. The person who reminded me of this is the camper I referenced at the beginning.

This camper put voice to an idea that had never really occurred to me, at least not in this way. The importance of summer camp is not just that it fills a need to be connected — it actually helps to create the need itself. While our camper friend may now still be lonely in his room thinking of what he had, he no longer recognizes that feeling as acceptable. Camp actually changed this child’s tolerance for loneliness and showed him how to live a more fulfilled life. This is a gift that no video game could ever offer.

See you in the sunshine of summer 2021.