Being a camp counselor has, without a doubt, been the best job that I have ever had in my life. People can say that camp counseling isn't a real job, it's just a summer job for teens, but there is so much more to it than that. Camp counselors instill important beliefs and morals in their campers, and they lead by example. They turn into RA's, and possibly RD's later in their lives, and are always willing to step up and take on a leadership role. These are just 9 things that being a camp counselor taught me.
1. How to resolve a problem without making the situation worse.
This was always super important when I was at camp. When inter-staff conflict arises, we never handle the conflict in a passive aggressive manner, nor do we directly call the person out in front of people. We take the person aside and have a mature and adult conversation about what they did, or why what they did was wrong. This kind of approach avoids public humiliation and any kind of drama.
2. What kind of influence one person can have on another person.
An activity we did at the end of the summer was a thing called "Taps". We split up into two groups, and one sat in a circle, and the other walked around the circle. A supervisor of the camp would read out statements such as, "Tap someone who has changed your life." and the outside circle would tap the head of someone on the inside circle if the statement applied to that person. The feeling of tapping someone and letting someone know that they are genuinely, truly loved, and the feeling of being tapped, knowing that you actually are very much loved by someone, is an amazing feeling. It just goes to show how much a small gesture, like tapping someone on the head, means so much.
3. Bottling up your feelings is not healthy.
Sometimes a camp environment can be stressful. You might have a cabin of 12 campers that you are essentially in charge of. You have the responsibility of making sure they know where they are supposed to be at what time, and that all of them are safe and accounted for. Not to mention the fact that you also have an elective area full of campers that may not be your own, but are for that hour that you have them. It's your responsibility to make sure they are engaged, active, happy, and safe for that one hour. Finally, there are other staff members that you have to interact with. That's probably about 100 people you have to deal with, in just one hour. Out of 24 hours in the day. Yikes. Most of the time, campers take up your time, because campers' needs tend to come first when you're a counselor. However, that does not mean that your needs aren't important. If you had a bad day, or you received a bad letter or phone call from a parent, there is nothing that says you can't talk about it. Actually, it is encouraged that you take time out of your day to go and talk to someone. It doesn't have to be about anything specific either. It can just be talking about how you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed or angry. You might be able to figure out where your feelings are stemming from and come up with a solution for it when you talk to someone.
TL;DR-- talking to someone about your feelings or problems is a good thing.
4. Ask for help when you need it, no matter the simplicity of the task.
Sometimes asking for help is hard. We all have some degree of pride, and if someone doesn't understand something that is relatively simple, we tend not to ask for help. Maybe we fear rejection or ridicule, but there is nothing to be embarrassed about if you need help or clarification with a task. It could be as simple as making a craft, or as complex as building a bench. No matter what the task is, you can always ask for help.
5. If you're tired, sleep. If you're hungry, eat. If you're stressed, talk about it.
Seriously. If you are a camp counselor, sleep when you're tired, eat when you're hungry, and de-stress when you're stressed. This is so important. Fixing your problems before going back to your campers avoids lashing out at campers and staff members and creating more problems than necessary. Also, why would you want to continue feeling miserable?
6. Sometimes social interaction with great people is the thing you need when you're feeling down.
So maybe you had an awful day of electives, where kids were goofing off and being disruptive to your elective area, and you're feeling pretty down because you couldn't take control of the situation, and your elective area staff members yelled at you for it. So now you're feeling pretty sad, walking back to your cabin of campers, where you're greeted with smiles and excitement. I had an experience when I was on a day off, and I came back from it, and my entire cabin yelled with excitement that I was back. Sometimes the right group of people can lift your spirits instantly and provide you with the right kind of love that you needed.
7. SLEEP ON YOUR DAY OFF
I literally just talked about this, but for your day off, you have 24 hours where you can just veg out. You can sit on your butt all day and no one can yell at you for it. NO ONE. So if you have the opportunity to go to bed early and sleep in for a little bit, TAKE IT.
8. How to work in large groups
You know how you feel when you're in school and you have a group project with a bunch of people you don't know, and you feel like you're carrying the entire group? Not at camp! Being a camp counselor taught me how to be open to other's suggestions, and trying to make them work in a project. If the ideas didn't work, we always appreciate their suggestions and insight, and try to tweak their suggestion to make it work. No matter what, everyone will be heard and appreciated.
9. People manifest their best selves in a place where they feel safe and loved.
This is one of the most important things that I learned from camp. You see people's true selves whenever they are in a place where they feel safe. Camp is an entirely accepting environment, where people can feel free and comfortable to be themselves. A lot of the time, we enter the "real world bubble", where we're constantly thinking about deadlines and homework, school and work, and extracurriculars and scheduling and after-school sports. When you enter camp, you feel free. You feel free to love and to accept love, and be yourself, who you truly are. People have come out at camp, including me. I first told someone I was bisexual at camp. It is a safe space. It is a space that is full of love. This is the most important lesson I learned because I learned that if I felt so safe and happy at camp, I needed to find a safe and happy place that wasn't at camp, so I could be my true self all the time.
Camp has been the biggest blessing I've ever received in my life. I don't know how my life would have turned out had I not gone to camp every summer since I was 8 and worked there since I was 18. I'm devastated every single time I have to leave for the school year, but I always have to remember that camp will always be there for me, "and grace will lead me home".
