Camp Creature: Striped Skunk

"You won't believe what happened to me last night. I was out on one of my nightly walks around camp when my life flashed before my eyes. Well, that might be dramatic, but I did almost step right on a doe feeding on grubs near the Gaga Pit. I know you're thinking, 'What!? Deer eat grubs?!' But I'm not talking about deer. I'm talking about skunks. Did you know skunks are also referred to as buck and doe? Anyway, I look down and see a set of eyes peering up at me, I whip out my flashlight, catch a glimpse of black and white, and I bolted out of there at a dead sprint. I didn't stop until I reached the top of the Marina. Again, a little dramatic, but I had to know I was safely out of reach of that putrid spray."

A few summers ago, those are the words Alli shared with us one morning that started our little love affair with a really interesting camp creature: the striped skunk. As a team, we didn't know all that much about skunks beyond the fact they are capable of shooting out a disgusting musk, which was something we did not want to experience!

But what was bringing these little guys into camp?

Grubs. It was a summer with a high grub population, which allowed for a boom in skunk reproduction and activity. As a nocturnal creature, skunks would wander into camp at night to dig for grubs in the soil. Thus leading to Alli's encounter with her new skunk friend. These encounters happened multiple times throughout late summer and into the fall, but the skunks never felt threatened enough to spray, allowing us to make it out of the summer unscathed. Thankfully, this skunk population has moved on and our skunk sightings have been infrequent as of late.

Skunks maybe aren't the most desired visitor, but they sure are an interesting critter to learn about, especially when it became clear they weren't here to maliciously spray their rancid musk. For more information on skunks, check out this Minnesota DNR: Striped Skunk info page!

I've also heard skunks can make good pets... If you have more info on this, I'd love to hear all about it!
 

G is for Grit

Grit is a very special word here at Foley, and it carries a very special meaning as well. We see grit as the ultimate prize to be earned during a child’s time at camp; while ribbon awards are symbols of achievement in activities, grit is the trophy received when campers gain the confidence to get up when they fall, push back against their fears, and view failure as motivational.

When we say that campers grow at Foley, we mean it.  Camp is fun but not easy, and campers come to recognize that they have better experiences when they face the possibility of failure not with fear, but with the expectation that they will overcome it and grow from it. As a result, the kids know that the goal of camp is not to be the best at every activity, but rather to be better than they were before they arrived. Developing grit is both the cause and the outcome of that improvement.

When we see our campers and staff displaying grit at Foley, we feel that we have achieved one of our highest goals. Every child has the potential to grow grit, and they carry it with them when they leave to apply to any situation they may encounter.

Can we turn failure in to motivation?

In the January edition of Southwest The Magazine (from Southwest Airlines), Heidi Stevens In Criticism of Praise.” The article discusses the effect of too much or insincere praise on a child’s emotional and physical well-being. Do we as parents, educators, and youth developers use praise so much that it can actually cause kids to fear failure and hesitate to go outside their comfort zone? We wanted to take a look at how praise is used at camp and what we can do to encourage kids in healthy, meaningful ways.

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When your child comes to Camp Foley we strive to bring out their best. Sometimes that means gently pushing them to try new things. Or perhaps encouraging them to meet a new friend. And often it means supporting them when they have a bad day by not saying “you did great” (even when they didn’t) but by coaching them in how to succeed next time instead. By giving honest (yet gentle) feedback to kids,  we are able to allow growth that is unique to each camper. Likewise, it means we must constantly be evaluating our program  to ensure our campers get the most out of camp.
In the article, Stevens tells us, “As with most pursuits among modern children, their performance is immaterial. How they feel about their performance, however, is paramount.” In order to increase positive results, we, as youth developers, must first make sure that the child feels safe. At Foley, this is always our primary concern. Performance is not just athleticism, but intellectual, artistic ability, social performance, etc. So what happens when a kid feels like they are no good? Can we turn failure into motivation?
Failures or setbacks are just stepping stones to greatness. Instead of praising children with words like “ You did an awesome job, you’ll get it next time,” we encourage our campers to recognize maybe something they are missing or let them know that it’s OK to make mistakes. Mistakes are a great way to learn. Unnecessary praise can cause a child to protect what they they are good at. This could cause them to possibly stay away from challenging activities that would create a ripple on their reputation. If they stop taking these risks and challenges it could eventually cause their intellectual and emotional growth to slow.

When you think of failure as an invitation it seems less scary. It is an invitation to learn from and overcome defeat. To accomplish something eventually even if it isn't right away.  According to child psychologist Kristen Race, “Calibrating the frequency and style of our praise is one of the most important shifts parents and youth developers can make.” Now, we are not saying we never praise our campers. In fact, Foley directors and counselors love to give all kinds of praise and recognition. We love to praise our campers when they work hard, play hard, achieve success and overcome failures.
 Foley does a week and half of intense training with our counselors to ensure they are prepared to help partner with you, as a parent, to help your child achieve success while at Foley and likewise to take those skills away from camp and use them for the rest of their lives.  They learn through reading, tutorials, workshops, professional experience, as well as their own experience and knowledge. This allows your child to get the right kind of praise they need and deserve to help them grow.
So, as we look to another summer, we vow to continue to remember that kids will fail, they will stumble, and their pride may be hurt. But the opportunity to help them stand back up, try again and feel pride when they do succeed is what motivates us to create the very best program we can for your kids.

Resilience, Grit and DURABILITY.

Something recently caught our attention on the Children & Nature Network website. The title of the post, "The Importance of Being Durable: Building Natural Strength in Our Kids" immediatel
y made us think of "grit," an important part of Foley's ideology.

In this article, Jennifer Joy Madden explains how "grit" and "resilience" fall under the even broader term: durable. As she says, "Durable means to be the best human being you can be, capitalizing on your own unique powers and drawing strength from the natural world around you."

Humans are all too ready to turn to a screen for stimulation than turn to our natural world to explore and investigate.  The Chinese are actually studying a condition they call, "Internet Addiction Disorder." It has been noticed that students that spend exorbitant amounts of time online per day actually have less gray matter (as Madden puts it, "the thinking stuff), than students that spend fewer than two hours online per day.

Madden, author of The Durable Human Manifesto, says, "Early childhood is the only time in life when a person is completely free to discover his or her native 'gifts.' I'm not saying that gifts of tablets and apps are not amazing, but their time will come. In the meantime, when toddlers range around, freely using all of their senses to examine, taste and play with whatever they choose, they are making rich and lifelong neural connections."

We're clearly not a summer camp for toddlers, but in the post Madden explains how older kids also need this down time. Summer camp allows much needed time for youth to recharge and have the opportunity to use all of their senses in nature each day.

Read the post: http://blog.childrenandnature.org/2014/03/27/the-importance-of-being-durable/
The Durable Human Manifesto: http://durablehuman.com/productions/this-is-the-durable-human-manifesto/

Growing Grit at Camp Foley

We've been throwing around the word GRIT for a few years now at Camp Foley. The definition, according to Google, is: courage and resolve; strength of character and is synonymous with courage, tenacity and perseverance. Foley-GRIT is defined as: courage to take risks without fear of failure; unshakable spirit; resolve. 

At Foley campers learn to take risks, try their best, and if they fail, to try again!

In the May/June edition of the American Camp Association's Camping Magazine there was an article for camp directors about how camps can work on developing grit in their campers. The article, "Eleven Tips to Building Resilience with Campers," is a good one for camp directors AND camp parents. 

11 Tips to Building Resilience with Campers

1. The Benefits of Failure

From the article: "True competence and self-esteem develop when we face difficult challenges and realize we can find a way to get through them."

2. Encourage Effort and Improvement

3. Do All Kids Deserve Trophies?

From the article: "Campers need 'realistic' pictures of their strengths and weaknesses so they can develop truer pictures of themselves based on fact."

4. Instant Gratification Does Not Build Frustration Tolerance or Equal Accomplishment

5. True Self Esteem and Confidence

From the article: "Where does confidence come from? I bet it comes from facing difficulty and finding a way to succeed." 

6. Is Every Camper a "Superstar"?

From the article: "All children can be their own superstars if we help them find ways to feel good about themselves. We need to encourage our campers to evaluate success for themselves - not based on our ideas of what is good for them or their parents' ideas of what is good for them." 

7. Points of Contact

8. Teaching Inclusive and Not Exclusive Behavior

From the article: "Children will feel good when they stand up to do what is right and make a contribution to include others' they will feel rewarded for reaching out to be inclusive."

9. Boredom, Frustration, Disappointment, and Patience

10. Are You Ethical and Fair?

11. Encourage Positive Thinking and Optimism

From the article: "Having resilience means you are able to find a sliver of something positive even when going through the roughest times."

We strongly encourage reading the entire article online to learn how campers benefit from summer camp by growing grit and building resiliency. 

What's Your Grit Grade?

Find your grade on
Duckworth's site.

The American Camp Association (ACA) recently spoke with Paul Tough about his book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. In the interview, he mentions a Psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Angela Duckworth, who has actually created a "Grit Test." Are you gritty enough to find out your actual grit grade? (When you get to the page, click on "Get Your Grit Score.") There is also an interview in the Washington Post with Michael Thompson, the author of Homesick and Happy: How Time Away From Parents Can Help a Child Grow. In the interview, he talks about the importance of resiliency, or "grit": "You can't know you're resilient until your resilience is challenged. And resilience or grit is key because it's what gets you through the hard times in life." Alli, for the most recent newsletter, wrote an article about this exact idea and uses Tough's book to to explain how it translates into what we try to do for our campers at Foley. Take a moment to read what she has to say, if you haven't already! 

     I would be willing to bet that most of our camp parents have attended parent-teacher conferences with some regularity. You have sat across the table from a variety of dedicated teachers that have offered advice on how to help your kids improve math, science, reading and writing skills. You have listened to accomplishments, goals and expectations. For some parents this can be an extremely rewarding conversation. One that makes you pat yourself on the back and say, “Yes, my kid is going to make it.” For others of you, this quarterly conversation can come with a lot of anxiety. Perhaps school isn’t going as well as you would like for your kid. You may be left scratching your head and saying, “What is my kid doing wrong?” What if there was something else on that report card? Something that you could work on without the use of books or chalk boards or overhead projector.
      Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, suggests that schools should be doing just that (and don’t worry, some are). We should be offering kids a “character report card.” Parents, school officials, teachers and kids should be in a constant conversation about how well kids are learning to cope with adversity, make friends, work through problems and my favorite – exhibit grit. Mr. Tough argues that in order for kids to truly succeed in life they need to find safe ways to do what every parent (and anyone else who loves kids) find it hard to do – fail.
      Mr. Tough writes, “For many of us, character refers to something innate and unchanging, a core set of attributes that define one’s very essence. [Researchers] Seligman and Peterson defined character in a different way: a set of abilities or strengths that are very much changeable — entirely malleable, in fact. They are skills you can learn; they are skills you can practice; and they are skills you can teach”.
      I recently had the opportunity to see Paul Tough speak at the American Camp Association (ACA) annual conference in Dallas, TX and what struck me while listening to him talk was that camp is exactly the place that offers all of the things he is talking about. Plainly put our kids “fail” on a daily basis. They don’t win sailing races, they don’t quite get enough points for an award in archery, they disagree with a cabinmate and the event they plan for a group of younger kids is a complete disaster. Sometimes they go days, or even weeks, without earning a single award or accomplishing a tangible accolade.
      I, not once, but twice have worked with a kid that has tried to get up on skis and/or wakeboards countless times with no success. (Don’t worry, the kids counted.) Two hundred times of thinking they are going to accomplish something and “failing.” Ninety times of having the “embarrassment” of falling, quite literally, on their face in front of a group of “accomplished” peers. But they tried. They tried very hard. And was there disappointment sometimes? Yes. Was there a feeling of “failure” on occasion? Of course. And not just for my poor skiers. All of the kids experience these feelings at some time.

Indeed it does!

      So what made it all worthwhile? On the 97th and 211th try, the world stopped spinning. The water felt a little warmer and the sun shined a little brighter. And I’m serious. No kidding. The faces of those kids could have stopped an army. One of the kids got so excited she flung her arms in the air and let go. Her jubilance literally propelled her out of her skis. Shortest, successful run of skiing ever.
      That grit, that determination, that ability to fail and fail and fail is exactly why we, “camp people,” do what we do. It may not be what we are supposed to tell the parents of our campers, but we love to see kids fail. So when the report cards from the school year are hung on the fridge and the bags are packed for camp, we ask you to turn your attention towards the other report card - the one that lists creativity, worldliness, kindness, teamwork and of course, grit.

      Let us help your kid work on that Grit Grade. Let us help your kid to fail. Never fear - it’ll be a blast.

~Alli Faricy, Director