Help with a camp activity

In article ,
beeswing wrote:

The *point* of my post was the part you snipped: that there is an easy way out
of it. Simply give the names to *all* the kids verbally. Then no one feels
singled out. I don't like being quoted out of context, though I'm the first one
to acknowledge that I have no control over it in this environment.

This is not simple to implement. Every kid would have to have every
other kid's tag whispered to them.

Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)

"Robyn Kozierok" wrote in message
news
In article ,
beeswing wrote:

The *point* of my post was the part you snipped: that there is an
easy way out
of it. Simply give the names to *all* the kids verbally. Then no one
feels
singled out. I don't like being quoted out of context, though I'm the
first one
to acknowledge that I have no control over it in this environment.

This is not simple to implement. Every kid would have to have every
other kid's tag whispered to them.

Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)


Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of using verbal
instructions instead of the tags.

beeswing

"Beeswing" wrote in message news:...

"Robyn Kozierok" wrote in message
news
In article ,
beeswing wrote:

The *point* of my post was the part you snipped: that there is an
easy way out
of it. Simply give the names to *all* the kids verbally. Then no
one
feels
singled out. I don't like being quoted out of context, though I'm
the
first one
to acknowledge that I have no control over it in this environment.

This is not simple to implement. Every kid would have to have every
other kid's tag whispered to them.

Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)


Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of using verbal
instructions instead of the tags.

Never mind. I just realized that I'd misunderstood the game.

Please just hold onto the concept that I was aiming to be inclusive and
dismiss everything else I wrote.

beeswing

In article ,
"Jeff" wrote:

"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
news:tdfqc.17724$gr.1470367@attbi_s52...
(...)

Doesn't know Moses? The Buddha? You've never discussed these with her? How
about Jesus? Man, my kids were asking me about Jesus by preschool, because
they met junior evangelists on the playground. But I can't imagine having
religious figures as a part of a guessing game. It's just too easy to
cause
offence. You *might* be able to get away with Santa Claus.

This is a YMCA camp. The C is for Christian. I think Mose, Christ and Santa
Claus are fair game.

Jeff




Except that, while "Y"s may have "Christian" in their name, they do not
insist that people using their facilities BE Christian. They are open
to everyone, without discrimination. Around here, a "Y" program is very
likely to include kids who are from a wide variety of religions,
including Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, as well as those who are completely
"unchurched" or come from families that are adamantly opposed to
organized religion.

Even for kids who are nominally Christian (ie, their parents would
identify that as their religion) the kids may not know any of the
stories or people; some receive NO religious education.

I'd think that some of the cultural figures -- Santa Claus, the tooth
fairy, the Easter Bunny -- might be safe, at least if none of the kids
are recent immigrants.

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Luna wrote in message .. .
Pointing out that some 6
year old kids can't read yet (which is a really atrocious indictment of
public school systems, imo) is great advice.

To me, what you're doing here is the typed equivalent of an eyeroll.

If you're going to automatically assume that all 6 year olds can read
and that if they can't, it's because of something as politically
charged as their school system AND if you're going to assume that
everyone will simply *play* a game, no balking, no shy kids holding
back...well, it is my humble (and public-school-educated) opinion that
you are in for a long, long summer. So are the kids in your charge.

You need some additional advice: First and foremost, you need to come
up with a little sympathy for the shy kids. You also need to put aside
your pigeon-holing. "Atrocious indictment of public schools" indeed.
More advice - don't say those sorts of things in front of the kids'
parents.

You will find that children are far more intuitive that you likely
think. There will probably be a shy, lone, public-school-educated 6
year old who may be just out of kindergarten and may be struggling to
read, like many *average* kids, public *or* privately schooled. You
will force him to play a game that shakes his self-esteem to the very
core. He'll pick up on your feelings about him, his required
participation, and his educational level in a nano-second. It will be
horrible for him. I suggest you do whatever you can to set your
feelings aside for the summer.

If you are becoming a camp counselor because you want to persue a
career in childcare or education, these are things you need to think
very seriously about. If you just want a summer job that sounds kinda
fun, maybe you can be a lifeguard at the camp or something that
doesn't require you to wrangle kids of different ages and abilities on
a daily basis.

Or
we could do a variation with pictures of fruits, foods, animals, or plants,
maybe with the words typed under the picture.

This is a great idea. It equalizes the readers with the non-readers
without being obvious. It also affords the less than stellar readers
the opportunity to *learn* while they're playing. Shhhh...don't tell
'em that!

I do have a problem with eliminating an entire part of
summer camp, which IS getting to know other kids, or with letting kids sit
out because they think it's "lame."

So what *are* you going to do with a kid who balks or even cries when
you require him to play? Do you have a plan for that? My YMCA does say
that they reserve the right to send kids home if they're not abiding
by the camp rules. I'd be sorely peeved and I'd have a long chat with
the camp director if they sent my kid home because they couldn't force
him to play a "getting to know you" game.

We were and are fortunate in that the YMCA camp my kids attend is
apparently a little more lax in what "required" means. One counselor
figured out my oldest within days - this was my son's summer after
kindy. My son is bright enough, but a little shy in groups. The
empathetic counselor picked up on this, befriended my son and
eventually taught him that participating in some of these games would
be okay. However, the counselor didn't force my son to play any of the
games in which my son seemed uncomfortable.

Think about what you will do if you have a kid who doesn't want to
play. "This is lame" may be a euphanism for "I'm shy," or "I'm
scared." How to handle that sort of thing should *really* be a part of
your training, I think.

For example, there's another game we played at training where we had to get
in a group of fifteen, and we had a rope. The person in charge called out
a shape we had to make with the rope, a triangle or a rectangle, and we had
to make that shape. Then, we had to do it with our eyes closed. Then, we
had to do it with our eyes open but no talking. I thought it was lame, but
I still had to do it. I could give at least 5 more examples of games like
that. I had to play all of them, and it didn't hurt me one bit.

That actually sounds like a fun game. A game my kids would love. Proof
that "lame" is in the eye of the beholder.

Also, you're an adult, I assume. At least you're old enough not to be
considered a "camper." You know that sometimes you gotta do what you
don't wanna do and you know that if you whine and say: "This is
laaaame!" that people are going to think you're *such* a pain. So you
do it anyway and no, it doesn't hurt.

Kids - especially the younger ones - don't know that. Don't care,
either. They just know that they don't want to play and thinking about
it makes their stomach hurt, so they sit down. Kids are self-centered.
Not in a bad way, just in a kid way. You have to learn to handle that
somehow. And you have to learn to handle it in some way other than
just repeating the mantra: "It's required."

- Bev

"Scott" wrote in message
...
beeswing wrote:
Jeff wrote:

This is a YMCA camp. The C is for Christian. I think Mose, Christ
and Santa
Claus are fair game.


I believe YMCA activities are open to folks/kids of all ethnicities
and
religious backgrounds. [snip]

That's probably true.

But I don't think anyone should be surprised if a YMCA/YWCA
camp activity assumed a knowledge of Moses, or Christ.

I don't think surprise has anything to do with it -- at least, for me.
I'd want keep things open to as many kids as possible, that's all. If
the camp is open to all, why make kids who aren't Christian feel like
outsiders? (Oh, and isn't Moses the one that had something to do with a
burning bush?)

beeswing

In article ,
Scott wrote:

beeswing wrote:
Jeff wrote:

This is a YMCA camp. The C is for Christian. I think Mose, Christ and Santa
Claus are fair game.


I believe YMCA activities are open to folks/kids of all ethnicities and
religious backgrounds. [snip]

That's probably true.

But I don't think anyone should be surprised if a YMCA/YWCA
camp activity assumed a knowledge of Moses, or Christ.

Scott, DD 10.9 and DS 2.3


I would.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Beeswing wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message
...

beeswing wrote:

Jeff wrote:


This is a YMCA camp. The C is for Christian. I think Mose, Christ

and Santa

Claus are fair game.


I believe YMCA activities are open to folks/kids of all ethnicities

and

religious backgrounds. [snip]

That's probably true.

But I don't think anyone should be surprised if a YMCA/YWCA
camp activity assumed a knowledge of Moses, or Christ.


I don't think surprise has anything to do with it -- at least, for me.
I'd want keep things open to as many kids as possible, that's all. If
the camp is open to all, why make kids who aren't Christian feel like
outsiders? (Oh, and isn't Moses the one that had something to do with a
burning bush?)

I guess a question might be: what's wrong with feeling
like an outsider? Do you expect a child to be a non-
outsider their entire life? I think learning to deal with
being un-in is a pretty handy skill, and the earlier
learned the better.

If DD/DS had experienced something in a camp that they
didn't understand, I would treat it as a learning
opportunity and we would look it up. I might also prepare
them with a brief 'you may not understand everything
at this camp...I'll ask you tonight and help you understand
things that confuse you' kind of talk. Alternatively,
I could respond to their confusion with rage at the
person causing the confusion. My opinion is the
former course of action is to be preferred. If I send
my child to a camp that is affiliated with some
religion, I will prep them in advance that there
may be some things about that religion that they don't
know that may come up. And if they do come up, we'll look
them up, or they should ask the counselor.

Presumably, the kids in the know are not actively jeering
those who are ignorant. (If they are, I'd have to ask
myself how the heck I agreed to send my kids there!)


Scott DD 10.9 and DS 8.4

"Scott" wrote in message
...
Beeswing wrote:

I guess a question might be: what's wrong with feeling
like an outsider? Do you expect a child to be a non-
outsider their entire life? I think learning to deal with
being un-in is a pretty handy skill, and the earlier
learned the better.

I guess my answer would be: It depends. It depends largely on how the
"outsider" is made to feel. In my experience, attitudes to outsiders can
run from open acceptance to outright hostility.

If I were in a game where I was just beginning to get to know folks, I
*personally* wouldn't want to start out from the position of being put
on the defensive. Once I knew people better, I'd be more open to
discussing the differences between myself and the other folks present.

I guess part of what I'd like to ask you is: What do you see as the
point of the game in this particular setting? To have the kids get to
know each other better? To get them feeling comfortable with each other
as a group? Or to teach them a lesson about the differences in people --
even if that means that the kids who are different in certain ways might
feel some distress?

beeswing

In article
,
Luna wrote:
In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:
I'm sure glad I'm not sending my 8-year-old son to your summer camp! Being
forced to play a lame game like that one would result in even more
stubborn fits than school does. He might CHOOSE to play such a game,
but being given no options is almost certain to result in massive
disobedience. Getting him to go back the second day would probably be
nearly impossible.

... Hopefully we will have enough
variety that everyone will have fun at some point, but there is no way to
be 100% sure that 100% of the kids enjoy 100% of the activities. And
having "everyone just do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do
it" simply would not work, unless we had enough money for each kid to have
his or her own individual counsellor to follow them around to the pool, the
soccer field, the arts and crafts area, etc. Actually it would have to be
two counsellors per kid since regulations forbid any counsellor to be alone
with a kid.

I think a later message from Luna indicated that she hoped to have
some variety available at any time. That is a more reasonable goal
than either extreme (every kid does his own thing or everyone must do
exactly the same thing).


Oh, and as for your child having fits when told to do something by an
authority figure, how does he handle having to do homework? Or take a
test? Or be quiet in class during lessons? If his reaction to being told
what to do by an authority figure is to have a fit, then I'm glad he's not
coming to our camp either.

Getting him to do homework is difficult if he decides he doesn't want
to do it. He generally likes tests, though he hasn't had many so far.
The "stubborn fit" generally manifests as a shutdown---unwilling to do
anything, rather than as out-of-control behavior. We would not send
him to a structured summer camp that offered him few choices (unless
he had chosen to go), because it would be unfair both to him and to
the counselors. (We certainly wouldn't send him to a sports camp, as
he has absolutely no interest in sports.) He did very well last year
at a science camp run by the Long Marine Lab, and we expect him to do
well at the one-week theater day camp he's going to this year. In
both cases, he had bought into the goals of the camp ahead of time,
and wanted what they had to offer.

He's generally better with real work than with busywork. Being quiet
in class is no problem---he just reads a book. The problems come when
they want him to STOP reading---particularly when they want him to
write. We have worked out different strategies with different
teachers to get him to do his work without causing a fuss. No
technique is foolproof, but here are some of what we found helped:

Physical preconditions:
Make sure he has had enough sleep the night before.
Make sure he has eaten in the last 2-4 hours.
Make sure he has peed in the last 4 hours.

Mental preconditions:
Make assignments be fun activities.
Offer choices whenever possible---he's much more willing to
work hard on things he has chosen.
Explain what the purpose of an assignment is---what is to be
learned or accomplished. He's more willing to do
something if he sees the point to doing it.
Find out what his objection is, and see if he can propose
a compromise (sometimes his objections are to some
trivial or stupid part of an assignment that can be
skipped or replaced). He's often willing to do something
more difficult, if he sees it as more fun.

Desperation measures:
Negotiate a "deal"---what does he want in return for doing
what you want? Often the deals he proposes are quite
reasonable.
Offer bribes (like getting to read ahead in the story if
he answers the questions, or extra screen time if
the homework is done early).
Use "natural consequence" threats (like no computer time
until the homework is done).

Some of the standard bribes and threats teachers use (like
staying in during recess or going to the principal's office)
are ineffective with him---he'd rather stay in and read a
book, and he likes the principal better than he likes his
teacher (in Santa Cruz---he doesn't know the principal well in
Seattle).


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.