Your son returns from Scout summer camp more capable and mature than the boy you knew one short week ago.
Outside the normal support structure of his family, away from the solitary distractions of modernity, a Scout must take care of himself and cooperate with his peers. He does all this in a supportive environment that permits failure without compromising safety. He’ll be challenged to expand his abilities, to accept and offer help, and to function cooperatively in everyday tasks.
Here’s some of what your Scout does at Camp:
- Gets up in the morning on schedule.
- Shares a tent with another Scout and keeps it neat and clean.
- Shares chores to maintain the campsite.
- Shares three meals a day served family style sitting at a table with seven other people.
- Says grace at meals.
- Serves as a waiter for his table setting, serving and cleaning up after meals.
- Manages and budgets his money.
- Sets and follows his own schedule of activities according to his own interests.
- Is responsible to find his way to and from these activities and manage his time.
- Builds character and values by attending campfires, ceremonies and reflecting on his activities.
- He is complimented by adults and peers.
- His opinions are valued and heard by other Scouts and adults.
- Has the opportunity to take on real responsibility and lead others.
- Makes a new friend.
- Strengthens existing friendships.
- Learns new skills.
- Tries something he has never tried before.
- Learns about the environment.
- Challenges his critical thinking skills.
- Puts what he learns into action.
- Works with others to establish and achieve goals.
- Uses his time to contribute to the goals of others.
- Trades T.V., video games and cell phones for actual social interaction.
- Finds healthy resolution of conflicts.
- He benefits from positive peer pressure following the good example of older Scouts and counselors.
Summer camp is challenging, adventurous, it’s full of possibility. Camp is an opportunity to let him go a little – let him stand on his own two feet, it’s an expression of confidence, of trust in his abilities and a test of your parenting.
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As a scout, I used to love summer camp. It was the best week of the entire summer. I see it as a requirement of being a Boy Scout. You learn so much in the one week that you are there. The list you have is a good way to describe it.
On the meals, we had family style as well when I was a youth. One of the scouts in our Troop each day would be a waiter. Waiters were required to arrive early and help serve the scouts. The food was ALWAYS good (at least to my 13 year old pallet) and there was a sense of togetherness with the family style meal. I do prefer that.
The main camp in our council does the cafeteria style. Which, I do not prefer but understand that due to the size of our council and the number of boys that attend camp, it is difficult to do the family style. We have been to the Cub Resident Camps but not the Boy Scout Summer Camp as of yet. However, there isn’t any ‘entertainment’ during the meal.
When I was a youth, it was great when there were ‘announcements’! Everyone broke into a 5 min. overture about annoucements followed by beating on the metal tables as loudly as possible. Good times.
Yes, food service can make or break it for most boys.
We’ve been to two summer camps recently. At one, troops arrive at the dining hall at different times, go through a cafeteria line where they are served by kitchen staff, then sit down, wherever, at long tables and eat. The program director makes announcements periodically but has to repeat them because troops eat in shifts, and everyone isn’t there all at once.
At the other, troops line up outside the dining hall right after flags, the staff leads everyone in the camp spirit song, the adults and waiters go in, followed by the Scouts (seated at round tables with 8 Scouts, one adult and one staffer at each), grace is led by a Scout, everyone eats family style, then after the meal the staff conduct announcements, funny skits and a cheering competition to finish it off. Assistant waiters stay behind to clean up.
Guess which camp we keep going back to?
Great article! And I always enjoy the comments.
Our Troop has a campout tradition that Patrols don’t eat until all members are present (or tracked down!) and grace is said. At summer camp, that is extended to the whole Troop, so we wait , standing, until all get their food and we say grace as a unit. It matters little that they guys at the far end can’t hear the grace, they know they are part of a Troop that will wait for them.
Clarke is good at getting me to ask why we do something, and should we continue it.
This practice helps a boy know he has responsibility to the group, and the group to him.
That seems worthwhile, despite the chorus of “Hurry up! You’re holding up lunch!” that sometimes greets the late arrival.
Oh, and on the practical side, Scouts soon learn that pushing to be first through the line just means you get to look at your food longer before you can eat it!
Bill said: ‘Clarke is good at getting me to ask why we do something, and should we continue it.’
That made my day! It’s what I am aiming to do – good to know it get’s through.
“Our Troop has a campout tradition that Patrols don’t eat until all members are present (or tracked down!) and grace is said.”
Sounds like an excellent tradition.
Family style is best, but camps and some adults don’t like it. It’s a shame. I’ve noticed the trend away from family style meals at camp. At Camp Daniel Boone, when we first started going there, everything was sit down family style with waiters. We then all took our stuff to the back porch and washed our dishes. The camp staff then stacked everything in a tray and ran it through a steam box. I’m pretty sure that when they started, way back in the thirties or forties, there was no steam box 🙂
I agree that if you are going to eat in a dining hall family style is best for the Scouts. Food service is usually the largest single line item on the camp budget and can be the source of horrendous difficulties for a camp director. Good food + bad weather + indifferent program = good week; bad food + excellent weather + strong program = bad week.
By the third bad meal insurrections begin; the camp director gets shouted at a lot, the food service staff turns surly and things start sliding downhill pretty quick. Mobs of adults with pitchforks and torches, ad-hoc committees of vigilantes, it gets ugly.
As a past camp director I would ask any adult volunteer reading this to have a little understanding if you go to camp and the food is not so great. Constructive criticism is good, offers of assistance is good, but sometimes this is a problem that can’t be altogether fixed.
One summer I had the whole food service staff walk out with two weeks left in the season. The rest of the camp staff was elated! (the food had been pretty awful). We set up a rotation of program staff to prepare meals and they were happier than they had been in weeks. The food service that was rated consistently fair to poor for five weeks was rated good to excellent for the last two.
I wish I had this article last week when I spoke to the parents of our troop.
BTW, I have been to several different summer camps, and they do meals differently from camp to camp. At our council camp, we are more like a cafeteria, where you go through line and get your food and take to to the table your troop is assigned to. At another camp we went to, they did it family style as you described, and at yet another, there was no dining hall. We sent a quartermaster to the camp depot, got our food ingredients, brought them back to the campsite, and cooked and ate as a troop. This is the way my Dad remembers doing meals at summer camp when he was a scout in 1945.
I guess each scout camp is different.
Food service is different from camp to camp – we do family style service at our camp. I think it has more opportunity for youth leaders to practice leadership than cafeteria style service but it’s what I am used to.