{"id":166,"date":"2017-06-13T15:38:57","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T15:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/piercecamps.com\/blog\/?p=166"},"modified":"2017-06-13T15:38:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T15:38:57","slug":"sleep-away-camp-competitive-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/piercecamps.com\/blog\/sleep-away-camp-competitive-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"I send my kids to sleep-away camp to give them a competitive advantage in life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read the full article on the Washington Post website »<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you even like your children?\u201d the woman I had just met asked me.<\/p>\n

The audacity of the question took my breath away. I had been chatting with her, explaining that my kids go to sleep-away camp for two months every year.<\/p>\n

I quickly realized two things at once: She was obnoxious, and she actually didn\u2019t care if I missed my kids during the summer. She was talking about something else.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have to tell her the reason I \u201csend them away\u201d for most of the summer is because I like them. They adore camp, and it\u2019s actually harder on me than it is on them. I often tell people that the first year they were both gone, it felt like I had lost an arm. I wandered around the house from room to room experiencing phantom limb pain.<\/p>\n

Now, instead of being offended, I got excited.<\/p>\n

I was going to be able to tell her something that my husband and I rarely get to explain: We do it because we truly think it will help our kids be successful in life. With under-employment and a stagnating labor market looming in their future, an all-around, sleep-away summer camp is one of the best competitive advantages we can give our children.<\/p>\n

Huh?<\/p>\n

Surely, college admissions officers aren\u2019t going to be impressed with killer friendship bracelets or knowing all the words to the never-ending camp song \u201cCharlie on the M.T.A.\u201d Who cares if they can pitch a tent or build a fire?<\/p>\n

Indeed, every summer my kids \u201cmiss out\u201d on the specialized, r\u00e9sum\u00e9-building summers that their peers have. Their friends go to one-sport summer camps and take summer school to skip ahead in math. Older peers go to SAT\/ACT prep classes. One kid worked in his dad\u2019s business as an intern, while another enrolled in a summer program that helped him write all his college essays.<\/p>\n

Many (this woman included) would say that I\u2019m doing my children a serious disservice by choosing a quaint and out-of-date ideal instead. There are online \u201cIvy League Coaches<\/a>\u201d that might say we are making a terrible mistake.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t think this is a mistake at all. It might not be something to put on the college application (unless my child eventually becomes a counselor), but that isn\u2019t the goal for us.<\/p>\n

Our goal is bigger.<\/p>\n

We are consciously opting out of the things-to-put-on-the-college-application arms race, and instead betting on three huge benefits of summer camp, which we believe will give them a true competitive advantage \u2014 in life:<\/p>\n

1. Building creativity.<\/p>\n

2. Developing broadly as a human being.<\/p>\n

3. Not-living-in-my-basement-as-an-adult independence.<\/p>\n

MIT\u2019s Erik Brynjolfsson says, in his book \u201cThe Second Machine Age<\/a>,\u201d that we have reached a pivotal moment where technology is replacing skills and people at an accelerated pace. He argues that creativity and innovation are becoming competitive advantages in the race against artificial intelligence, because creativity is something a machine has a hard time replicating.<\/p>\n

The problem is that creativity seems so intangible.<\/p>\n

Steve Jobs once said, \u201cCreativity is just connecting things.\u201d He believed that people invent when they connect the dots between the experiences they\u2019ve had. To do this, he argued that we need to have more experiences and spend more time thinking about those experiences.<\/p>\n

Indeed. According to Adam Grant\u2019s book \u201cOriginals: How Non-Conformists Move the World<\/a>,\u201d researchers at Michigan State University found that to receive the Nobel Prize, you need deep study in your field and those broad experiences Jobs was talking about. They studied the winning scientists from 1901 through 2005 and compared them with typical scientists living at the same time. Grant writes that the Nobel Prize winners were:<\/p>\n

* Two times more likely to play an instrument, compose or conduct.<\/p>\n

* Seven times more likely to draw, paint or sculpt.<\/p>\n

* Seven-and-a-half times more likely to do woodwork or be a mechanic, electrician or glassblower.<\/p>\n

* Twelve times more likely to write poetry, plays, novels or short stories.<\/p>\n

* And 22 times more likely to be an amateur actor, dancer or magician.<\/p>\n

You read that right. Magician.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that this kind of original thinker actively seeks out creative pursuits. These original experiences provide a new way of looking at the world, which helped the prize-winners think differently in their day jobs.<\/p>\n

The beauty of summer camp is that not only do kids get to do all sorts of crazy new things, they also get to do it in nature, which lends its own creative boost.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, my kids have such intensely packed schedules full of sports, music, art classes, community service and technological stimulation throughout the school year that it makes finding these all-important quiet mental spaces more difficult.<\/p>\n

Summers provide a much-needed opportunity for my children to unplug, achieve focus and develop those creative thought processes and connections.<\/p>\n

Okay, okay. Creativity might be a compelling tool to beat out that neighbor girl applying to the same college, but what about this \u201cdeveloping broadly as a human being\u201d stuff?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t come up with that phrase. Harvard did.<\/p>\n

William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard, has penned a compelling letter<\/a> to parents. It practically begs and pleads with them to reevaluate the summer extracurriculars race and to \u201cbring summer back,\u201d with an \u201cold-fashioned summer job\u201d perhaps, or simply time to \u201cgather strength for the school year ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fitzsimmons writes, \u201cWhat can be negative is when people lose sight of the fact that it\u2019s important to develop broadly as a human being, as opposed to being an achievement machine. In the end, people will do much better reflecting, perhaps through some down time, in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of \u201cdeveloping broadly as a human being,\u201d summer camp can provide an impressive list of life skills.<\/p>\n

Studies over the past decade have shown outdoor programs stimulate the development of interpersonal competencies, enhance leadership skills and have positive effects on adolescents\u2019 sense of empowerment, self-control, independence, self-understanding, assertiveness, decision-making skills, self-esteem, leadership, academics, personality and interpersonal relations.<\/p>\n

Now for the cherry on top: Independence.<\/p>\n

Michael Thompson, the author of \u201cHomesick and Happy<\/a>,\u201d has written, \u201c\u2026 there are things that, as a parent, you cannot do for your children, as much as you might wish to. You cannot make them happy (if you try too hard they become whiners); you cannot give them self-esteem and confidence (those come from their own accomplishments); you cannot pick friends for them and micro-manage their social lives, and finally you cannot give them independence. The only way children can grow into independence is to have their parents open the door and let them walk out. That\u2019s what makes camp such a life-changing experience for children.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, yes, Ms. Tiger Mom, I am letting my children walk out the door and make useless lanyards for two months.<\/p>\n

They might not have anything \u201cconstructive\u201d to place on their college application, but they will reflect, unwind, think and laugh. They will explore, perform skits they wrote themselves and make those endless friendship bracelets to tie onto the wrists of lifelong friends.<\/p>\n

The result will be that when they come back through our door, we\u2019re pretty sure that, in addition to having gobs of creativity and independence, they\u2019ll be more comfortable with who they are as people.<\/p>\n

And just maybe they\u2019ll even bring back a few magic tricks.<\/p>\n

Laura Clydesdale lives in Berkeley, Calif., with her husband and children. She blogs at lauraclydesdale.com<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter @l_clydesdale<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read the full article on the Washington Post website » \u201cDo you even like your children?\u201d the woman I had just met asked me. The audacity of the question took my breath away. I had been chatting with her, explaining that my kids go to sleep-away camp for two months every year. 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