Want Happy Kids? Empower Them In 4 Key Areas by Amy Lowe

We may have only just officially entered into the summer season, but we’ve been running

WinShape Camps for a month already. And in that one month alone, we’ve already seen

kids’ lives change.

Some of the connections our campers make are dramatic, and obviously providential:

Campers arrive struggling with grief or family strife and are miraculously paired with a

counselor who’s known the same adversity. Witnessing such connections is humbling and

wonderful, every time I see it.

But these sorts of obviously transformative experiences aren’t the only ones I see over

the summer. I see some campers leave a better version of themselves, a little happier, a

little more grounded, a little more aware of God’s love for them — in short, I see them

leave empowered.

This isn’t by accident. We invest in our campers intentionally, at every level. Every one of

our staffers is there because they want to be there, and they want to connect with the

campers. And those campers thrive when offered the opportunity to connect

authentically with a community of adults and peers who genuinely care about them and

whose faith guides their lives.

But over the years, I’ve realized that there are four essential areas of development that

require — and receive — our special attention at camp. These areas of development, and

the ways we invest in them, can be applied to any child anywhere.

Social empowerment

Social empowerment is probably the most obvious on this list. Of course camps would be

social! But it’s important to note that we can’t make our campers socialize or connect with

other kids. Empowering them socially is much more complicated than mandated

icebreakers.

Instead, it looks like adults who model good relationships and work hard to get their

designated group to bond. It looks like opportunities to connect organically and

authentically with other kids in a safe, fun environment. It can also look like safe, healthy

conflicts — and safe, healthy resolutions to those conflicts.

Social empowerment is, at its heart, about giving your child the social models and

opportunities they need. Campers surprise me every day with their capacity for joy and

friendship. They often just need to be given a chance to embrace it.

Emotional empowerment

Social and emotional empowerment are closely linked, since both center around the

quality of the relationships available to a child.

But where social empowerment is largely about stepping back and letting kids blaze their

own path in a safe space, emotional empowerment’s emphasis is much more often on

being a safe space. It takes a lot of preparation to be able to be a child’s safe space, too.

At WinShape Camps, we invest beforehand in education and training to make sure our

camp staff can listen sensitively, prudently and charitably to our campers. We make sure

they’re prepared to help field concerns as commonplace as friend disputes or as

vulnerable as issues of self-harm.

When we sit with them, we can help them think through their own experience, talk

through it, and eventually self-regulate or seek the proper help. Empowering our children

emotionally is very often about teaching them how to be vulnerable — and that they can

be vulnerable, without their world falling apart.

Spiritual empowerment

It’s easy for campers to open their Bible every day at camp. But what about when life gets

busy, and they’re back home? What about when nobody around them is opening a Bible,

or talking about Jesus?

Spiritual empowerment helps show kids that their faith can and does seep into every part

of their lives. Tie Jesus and your faith into every single thing you do. Bring up the Lord

freely and openly. Just seeing a camp full of cool 20-somethings whose faith matters to

them goes a long way to convince a young camper that they, too, can own their faith.

Imagine how much more important the example of a loving, faithful, joyful parent could

be.

So if you want to spiritually empower your child, show them just how much your own walk

with Jesus matters to you. Don’t let your faith get stuck in a box that you only open on

Sunday mornings. Let it wash over every part of your home and make it a regular topic of

conversation.

Academic empowerment

There are a lot of things campers learn while they’re with us. One of the most important

things is never, ever found in a textbook: It’s resilience.

Resilience isn’t just an ability to withstand physically or emotionally difficult things; it

applies to everything—even academics, for example. If a resilient student encounters a

math problem that has them truly stumped, they keep trying. They are persistent and hard

to discourage.

Empowering our kids academically starts not with a study program but with a relationship

to the world that lets them say: “I am capable. I can figure this out.” And with time, they do

figure it out.

And while I think camp is a uniquely powerful way to empower our kids, the ways we build

them up can be translated into any home, and into any relationship.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, [a]nd when he is old he will not depart from it,”

we read in Proverbs 22. Give them the tools they need most as children, and they will

flourish for the rest of their lives.

Amy Lowe is the director of WinShape Camps for Girls and oversees WinShape Camps for

Families.