Color War. Underwear on the outside of your clothes. Sailing badges. Friendship bracelets. It is difficult to overstate how attached some people get to their sleepaway camp experiences - they don't explain, they proselytize. And right now, camp is having a moment in our popular culture as we debate what Jon Haidt has deemed the “phone-based childhood.” Camp is one of the last screen-free zones for kids, and that’s both exciting and, as a parent, a little scary.
Today on ParentData, we're joined by Steve Baskin, a career camp director and incoming head of the American Camping Association, to talk about all things summer camp. We discuss resilience, the value of free play, the need for phone-free time, whether or not your kids will actually brush their teeth (they will!) and why homesickness might actually be a good thing.
Special thanks to Falcon Camp in Carrollton, Ohio for lending their voices to this episode.
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