How Summer Camp Can Fire Up Your Child’s Creativity
Kids today have jam-packed schedules and are constantly stimulated. With their lives busier than ever, it can be tough for them to find time to breathe and maybe get their creative juices flowing. That’s where Swift Nature Camp comes to save the day! Tucked away in the scenic north woods of Wisconsin, Swift Nature Camp is the perfect place for kids to take a break from their everyday stressors and get an opportunity to spend some of their childhoods the way their parents and grandparents did — in the great outdoors!
Being creative and flexing the brain muscles that are responsible for coming up with new ideas is important in developing the problem-solving skills that kids will use for the rest of their lives. Here are a few ways summer youth camps can help spark a child’s creativity:
A Break From Technology: The current generation of campers are some of the first to never have to go without social media or have technology at their disposal 24/7. Technology and social media can do a lot of wonderful things, but a downside is that they allow kids to occupy themselves without ever having to use their own creativity to do it. Why exercise that part of their brain when they could simply feed off of the endless content on their phones and tablets? Swift Nature Camps and other summer youth camps offer kids a chance to live without the security of their tech. This helps them flesh out their own creative process and discover new interests and talents. For parents who have kids that are camp veterans or parents looking for first-time summer camps, this break from technology might be just what the doctor ordered.
Arts & Crafts: Unfortunately, schools around the country are deprioritizing art in favor of other subjects. Those schools that do still have art programs often have a rigid curriculum that doesn’t always cater to a child’s creativity. At camp, they will have some of those projects where the instructor will guide them through, step-by-step, but they will also have the opportunity to express their artistic side in a less structured way. Maybe they want to paint or make something out of clay. Maybe they want to make jewelry to take home as a gift. Or maybe, they don’t have an end goal and want to create just for the sake of creating!
Physical Activity: Another thing that is rapidly disappearing from kids’ lives is healthy levels of exercise. When it comes to exercise, we tend to focus on what it can do for our physical health, but something that doesn’t get enough attention is how exercise can help us feel good mentally and emotionally, as well. Not only does physical activity promote the growth of new brain cells, but it stimulates the area of our brains that help us imagine the future and think about things with new perspectives. Summer youth camps are the perfect place to help kids develop a positive attitude towards physical activity and jumpstart their creativity!
Free Time: The concept of “free time” and its benefits can vary depending on who is asked. So many kids today don’t have the luxury of free time, as every minute of their day is typically occupied by their schooling, extracurriculars, family, and technology. Even the amount of recess time kids receive has been getting shorter over the last couple of decades. On the surface, it might not seem like such a bad thing to make sure they are always occupied. After all, everyone who has been around kids has heard the phrase “I’m bored” countless times, so why facilitate time for them to possibly be bored? Well, you know the old saying of how sometimes the best ideas come to you in the shower? Research shows that when kids are presented with a block of time in which they have no predetermined activities, their brain will naturally search for stimulation and start to wander into an almost daydream-like state. But that isn’t a bad thing! This actually helps to clear their mind and give them a little breathing room to explore new ideas and possibilities.
Exposure to New People/Cultures: Our lives are shaped by our thoughts, and our thoughts are shaped by our experiences. In every-day-life, kids are typically surrounded by people of similar socioeconomic status and culture. At camp, kids will be exposed to other kids from all over the country, including some international campers. Getting to learn about different kinds of people and ways of life can help kids expand their minds and develop critical thinking skills that are central to the creative mind. In addition, summer youth camps like Swift Nature Camp offer a unique culture of their own that can’t be found anywhere else in the world! Kids who come to this first-time summer camp are in for a culture shock in the best possible way.