One reason many parents send their children to sleep-away camps is to help them become more “independent”, special needs or not. Camp helps kids increase independence in some part because parents aren’t there to step in and do things for their child. Parents aren’t out to make their children helpless, but the modern world is particularly unforgiving to us. Us parents have many reasons we might jump in and do something our kids are capable of doing on their own- such as it takes them forever to do it and we need them to be ready for the bus in 10 minutes. So, we happily ship our campers off to summer programs- with the hope that with all the time in the world and a group of energetic young adults looking after them, they’ll come home able and willing to make their own cereal.
In the world of special needs, this becomes even more complicated. A lot of our campers don’t develop some of the preliminary social connections and social behaviors that are involved in independence. They may be in classroom settings with a very large adult presence, and have little peer connections that help them practice independent social interactions and behaviors. Parents are very anxious about whether they are expecting too much of the child based on his or her abilities- asking “too much too soon” of a child who already struggles with meltdowns and self-esteem challenges. Finally, some of our kids become ‘prompt dependent’, or in other words, ask permission or wait to be told what to do before acting on their own accord, even at very advanced ages.
Every small act you take to help your camper do something, especially self-care, on their own, can be a massive achievement for both them and their family. Know, however, that a lot of these will be “baby steps”. Despite being of an age where you think your camper may be capable of doing a lot of routine things on their own, they haven’t had a lot of practice and lack confidence in their abilities. They also only have their perspective- they’ve only experienced the world from their viewpoint, and that viewpoint may be quite limited.
There are ways at Summit in which we build independence by helping our campers develop cognitive and executive function skills that help their brains be more flexible and be more aware of their own capabilities for self-direction. These are more advanced ways in which our campers are perhaps playing “catch up” with peers who have developed this awareness over the course of their young lives. We will talk more about EF and activities that help build these skills in a specific training on the topic of breaking down executive function.
When it comes to our campers, however, we also have to go back to the point where independence begins- in early childhood- to work with the some of the ways that we very first encourage independence in young children. Our campers have missed so much of this that asking them to take on far larger tasks- such as cooking or cleaning for themselves- are simply impractical and overwhelming demands, even if another person the same age could be expected to do it. This way, we can celebrate those successes and create the building blocks for more age appropriate independence that our campers can continue to work on long after camp has completed.
Links!
VIDEO: Thea (travel director) and Miguel (Counselor)
https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/teaching-kids-to-be-more-independent/