Illustration by Lauren Baldwin
For many families, summer sleepaway camp is a rite of passage, a youngster’s opportunity to learn independence in a completely new environment, free from the usual strictures of home life. Sometimes, however, that new place can have an all-too-familiar problem: bullying.
The definition of bullying is simple, says one child advocate: “Bullying is anything you say or do to purposefully make someone feel scared, sad or angry; the purpose is to shame,” says Curtis Lee Jr., program coordinator for Challenge Discovery Projects, a local nonprofit that runs a school-year initiative designed to prevent bullying.
According to stopbullying.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 28 percent of students in grades 6 to 12 have experienced bullying, 30 percent of young people admit to bullying others, and more than 70 percent of young people say they have witnessed bullying in their schools.
Bullying can occur anywhere, at any time.
Unexpected Challenges
When Jennifer* sent her son Nicholas* to his first sleepaway camp at the age of 10, she wasn’t worried about his interactions with other campers because “a huge group” of elementary school friends were attending the same week — which made what happened all the more surprising.
The night Nicholas returned home, tired but seemingly happy, Jennifer received numerous phone calls from the parents of his friends, telling her he had been targeted and harassed by his cabin counselors, one 16 and one 14. The counselors used homophobic slurs and denigrated campers’ bodies when the boys were in their cabin. To escape their taunts, Nicholas would change clothes under his covers or in the bathroom.
“Nicholas told me he ate a lot of meals at the [senior] counselors’ table,” she says.
“It was a safe place. He was embarrassed [by the bullying] and felt terrible.”
Jennifer contacted the camp, which eventually admitted the young counselors had behaved poorly and had been given a talking-to. The following year, both counselors were rehired. The reason according to camp management: They were children themselves and deserved another opportunity. “I appreciate giving people second chances, but in this circumstance, you can’t do that,” she says.
With a friend’s help, Jennifer found another camp for Nicholas and tried again, with a much better outcome.
Jennifer remains relieved that Nicholas’ first camp experience didn’t lead to long-lasting damage, even though he remembers the taunts verbatim, years later. “He seemed to understand it was these two guys, and it was an isolated incident,” she says, adding that she is still thankful that the other parents brought the bullying to her attention. “In the end, you have to have communication with parents of [your kid’s] friends, and you have to have [communication] with your kid,” she says. “You have to be able and willing to step up when something happens.”
One camper-turned-counselor agrees that early action is essential. High school senior Morgan Canaan began attending a sleep-away camp in another state the summer after fourth grade; she became a junior counselor the summer after her freshman year and still works at the camp. She says her training focused on safety and the importance of counselors being with campers at all times, which can deter bullying. Plus, her camp requires counselors to check in with each camper individually at the end of the day, creating an opportunity for campers to raise issues, “If someone was being bullied, you’d hope that in that time, they’d share that with you,” she says.
Canaan didn’t witness much bullying as a camper herself, but she has been more aware of bad behavior as a counselor. “If you have disciplinary issues with your cabin, you really have to nip it in the bud,” she notes.
Canaan says bullying at camp is typically more about exclusion than nastiness. “It’s that someone doesn’t have a partner every single time, or there isn’t any space at the lunch table,” she says. “It becomes the counselor’s job to create a teamwork experience rather than an individual experience.”
The Importance of Training
Camps will often send questionnaires to parents prior to campers’ arrival, seeking not only medical information but also personality characteristics, significant life events (parents’ divorce, a recent move, etc.), and even likes and dislikes. Parents should do their homework, too. In addition to reviewing a camp’s website, parents can turn to the American Camp Association. With both individual and organizational members, ACA offers accreditation for camps based on guidelines for health, safety and training standards, plus a host of other resources. Approximately 2,400 camps nationwide are certified; a simple search engine on the ACA’s website (acacamps.org) verifies membership.
ACA accreditation requires written documentation from each camp explaining how staff deal with bullying. The ACA also suggests parents look for the camp’s philosophy and program emphasis, check the experience of the camp’s leadership team, and ask for the counselor-to-camper ratio. Most of all, if the camp isn’t accredited, parents should ask why.
Anna Muller, operations director at the ACA-accredited Westview on the James in Goochland County, says Westview seeks to end problems before they begin. “We spend a lot of [staff] training time on inclusivity,” she says.
Muller acknowledges that bullying can happen at camp. “Kids are constantly judging others; there are challenges that come with society,” she says. “Our No. 1 rule is that at the very beginning [of every camp session], we talk about how we build one another up, not tear one another down.”
And while preventative measures help, they're not a cure-all. “I think every camp would like to say they don’t have bullying at all, but that’s not true,” she adds. “If you define bullying as intentionally hurting others and repeatedly doing so, and targeting kids who may be weaker in some areas, then we do have that. We stop it before it becomes serious.”
When a problem persists, Muller says, staff search for the root cause: “Are [the kids] tired and cranky, and they need a rest, or is this a pattern?” If the bullying behavior is intractable, then the camper may be asked to leave. “I’ve had to send a couple of kids home,” she says, “when it becomes a point that they are a danger to themselves or others.”
Muller says it’s easier to see and defuse bullying with the low counselor-to-camper ratios the camp uses: 1 to 6 for young campers, and 1 to 8 in older age groups.
Summer Camp as Bullying Prevention
The ACA notes that a summer camp experience may actually help with bullying prevention. An ACA Youth Outcomes study indicated that 96 percent of campers said camp helped them make new friends, while 93 percent said they got to know kids who were different from themselves at a summer camp.
Challenge Discovery Projects works with more than 1,100 students yearly, presenting an in-school curriculum that focuses on building students’ self-esteem and tolerance, which both reduces harm from bullying as well as decreases incidents. “No one wakes up and decides, ‘I’m going to be a bully,’ ” Lee says. “Bullying is learned behavior.”
In 2014, the nonprofit decided to expand its reach by adding a summer camp, Say It With Heart.
“During the year, we seek to equip students with social and emotional resiliency so they can survive and thrive during challenging situations,” Lee says. “In the summer, resources aren’t available to reinforce resiliency, and when we came back from summer, we found we had to start from ground zero to build those students back up.”
The Say It With Heart camp is supported by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond and Sports Backers, and it uses games to teach skills, Lee says. Youngsters learn about communication when they play volleyball, team building in field hockey, and the importance of rules and position in basketball and track and field. Any student can apply, not just those who attend schools that offer the academic-year program.
Lee says the goal is to help children learn to manage their challenges and problems. “We want them to have confidence in themselves, a connection with family, know their character, know what they can control and what they can’t control,” he says. “Hurt people try to hurt other people.”
Westview’s Muller, who first went to camp at the age of 6, agrees that kids learn at camp. “You really become very independent,” she says.
Before camp begins, though, parents should prepare their kids. “Talk about the fun they are going to have,” Muller says. “Also talk to kids about the safe people they can talk to. Camp counselors are there to help.”
Canaan adds that parents should also be realistic. “For some kids, [camp’s] just not their thing,” she says. “If you are trying to force your kid to be a camp kid, don’t do that, please. Those kids can then become the ones who are separate because they aren’t engaged.”
Luckily, Muller says, there is a wide range of options, with camps for kids who have autism to those who love sports or theater.
“I don’t think camp is exclusive to any specific type of kid,” she says. “There is a camp for everyone out there.”
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.
Tips for Parents
Stopbullying.gov offers these steps parents can take to foster bullying prevention.
Talk with your kids about bullying. Make sure they know how to get help and understand that bullying is unacceptable.
Keep communication open. Let them know you’re available to chat and listen to them.
Encourage them to participate in something they love to do. Hobbies can boost their confidence, create new friends and deter bullying behavior.
Serve as a model of how to treat others. By treating others with kindness and respect yourself, your children will pick up on that behavior.
