Coping at Camp after Covid
The kids are alright, says a leading child psychologist. Their parents? Maybe not so much.
“My daughter has spent almost a year in isolation. How is she going to handle living in a bunk with a dozen other girls?”
That’s a question a friend posed recently, one I’ve been contemplating myself of late. We lost family to Covid-19, and throughout 2020 we suffered blow after blow of bad then worse news: the constant but somehow always surprising quarantines, the confusion of remote then hybrid learning, the ever changing calendar due to updated restrictions and shutdowns.
After a while, losses both big and small piled up until they felt not like exceptions but like life itself. No classes or camp or play dates or sports practices or competitions. Friends who handled the virus safety protocols differently, sometimes judgmentally. Friendships that in the absence of presence started to crack, then snap. I could see that my Middle Schooler was resilient, but over time her smile started to flatten.
Look at the headlines — it’s clear she’s not alone.
“Loneliness, Anxiety and Loss: the Covid Pandemic’s Terrible Toll on Kids,”reports the Wall Street Journal. From National Geographic: “Kids Can Get Lonely. Here’s Why That’s More Concerning During the Pandemic.” And this in The New York Times: “Eating Disorders in Teens Have “Exploded” During the Pandemic.” Granted, misery makes the news while happiness rarely earns a mention — but certain facts unveil a troubling truth: according the CDC, during the pandemic, mental health-related Emergency Room visits for 11 to 17 year-olds increased by 31%.
As I reported in my last issue of Campenings, camps are making extensive preparations to protect our kids from the virus that causes Covid-19. But are they prepared for some of the emotional and psychological fallout of living through a pandemic? I’m not talking just about the fear and uncertainty, and, in some cases, the grieving. I also mean the bad habits that have grown out of so much unstructured time at home – the endless screen time, the messiness, the poor hygiene, the loss of motivation, and the regression, to name a few. Children are resilient, it’s true, but when the landscape beneath them is constantly shifting, bouncing back can be harder. Are camps prepped for the possibility that some kids around the campfire may have been traumatized by the pandemic, or at the very least, lost control of certain social skills?
Michael Thompson, PhD, is a world-renowned psychologist, and perhaps the country’s foremost authority on the benefits of the summer camp experience. He’s known by many for Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, and by many more for Homesick and Happy, his ode to the magic of sleep away camp (and the importance of spending time growing up away from one’s parents!). When asked if kids would be ok at camp this summer, Thompson’s answer was simple: The kids will be just fine; it’s the parents we may need to worry about.
My Interview interview with Dr. Michael Thompson:
Campenings: Are camps prepared for kids who may have been traumatized by the pandemic?
Michael Thompson: There is a trauma narrative that is making its way around and everyone is jumping on it. I’m regularly asked about these “traumatized kids.” And my answer is: People don’t understand what trauma is. Trauma is an experience so overwhelming and violent and terrible that is it changes your brain and you have flashbacks and PTSD and those kinds of things. The pandemic has been grueling. It’s been hard. There has been sadness and loss. But that’s not trauma. I don’t think camps need to prepare for a bunch of traumatized kids. For children to play with each other, to be with each other – that’s inherently restorative.
Almost all kids I’ve talked to have been at home with the people who love them. Even if they lost family members, they have been comforted and have had a chance to talk about their loss and grief. Children do well when they are with parents who are doing everything in their power to protect them.
Many mental health professionals insist the pandemic IS a trauma. Media reports describe kids experiencing extreme depression and anxiety; there have even been some suicides. And many parents, however loving, are at loose ends – having lost their jobs or sometimes just their minds as they attempt to juggle work and homeschooling and needy kids. Do you really think these extremes will dissipate around the campfire?
What this comes down to is numbers, and only research tells us that. How many adults and children were traumatized by the pandemic and how many just developed strong feelings of sadness, distress and anxiety without actually developing a diagnosable mental illness? When clinicians say they have seen these cases, I cannot deny that. However, I have talked to hundreds of students in Zoom meetings and they report that they are frustrated, bored and feel trapped. But they are coping. They are okay.
I believe there are always at least 15% of a normal population who are manifesting psychological symptoms of depression, phobias, anxiety; that leaves 85% normal. So, is the ratio in the pandemic now 50/50? Is it 75/25? The experiences of clinicians don't tell us the numbers, only empirical research does.
But have the majority of children been traumatized? No, that’s not true.
How do you imagine campers will react in those first hours and days at camp when suddenly they find themselves in such close proximity to so many other kids after being isolated for so long?
A day camp director friend last summer said that at first kids were a little shy, a little tentative, but within two hours that was done. They just jumped in. The reason is: we are primates, mammals. And what young mammals do is they play. That is what they are made to do. That instinct to play is stronger than the instinct to hang back and be frightened.
Parents will struggle more than kids. These kids have been everything to their parents, who have been totally focused on them, vigilant and worried every day about Covid. It will be hard for them to give up their anxiety and let them out the door.
I know a lot of middle school parents who are counting the nanoseconds until they put their children on that camp bus…
It’s definitely been tough for parents of teens and tweens. They are the kids who are starving for this interaction the most. It’s a little rough at recess for these kids, I’ve heard from educators who have recently gone from remote to hybrid or fully in-person learning. The status seeking and political maneuvering with middle schoolers is a little raw because they go at it in a hard hard-edged way. Especially middle school girls– they are very tough on one another. But they also love being in community. When you’ve been out of the scene for a while you’re not as politically deft. But you get back into practice quickly because you get feedback from kids right away. What controls behavior socially is other kids – not parents coaching from the side or prepping them. Sometimes adults have to intervene, and that’s what the counselors will do at camp.
So you believe that all the social structure and routine that has melted away since March, 2020 will rebuild itself once kids are in camp together?.
Instantly. Instantly. Kids will be grateful for it.
How should camps prepare for kids who feel especially anxious going to camp this summer, perhaps those who were exclusively remote, or who lost family, or who have been mostly isolated?
I don't want counselors to do therapy or think they are providing something therapeutic; however, every counselor should know something about how the pandemic went for his or her campers. Counselors should sit their campers in a circle and ask them, "Please tell me about the pandemic. How hard did it hit your family?" They can ask it in a variety of more specific ways: "How scared did the virus make you, on a scale of 1 to 10?” "What was the worst thing about being stuck at home?" "How much school did you miss, or what did you miss most about school when you couldn't be in person?"
Every child has a pandemic story, a tale of loss and sacrifice followed by courage and adaptation. Depending on the age of the children, counselors should get a picture of what the pandemic was like for every child so they know whether some were fine and others lost a grandparent.
Finally, every counselor should ask, "Is there anything about coming to camp that made you nervous?" "How worried are you about being at camp?," and, once you know the source of the nervousness, a counselor will want to ask, "How long do you think it will take for you to get over being scared about that?" What should follow that question is a story of resolve on the part of the camper to beat their fears.
Studies show that recreational screen use among children rose nearly 50% during the pandemic (I think it’s much more than that!). For some, their entire social lives played out in the ether. Certainly it will be good for kids to get away from their screens, but do you think they will still know how to relate to one another IRL?
There will be some kids with withdrawal pains from Instagram and Snap Chat. But it’s been like that for the last ten years at every camp I visited. The first two days the 6th grade girls think they are going to die because they don’t know what’s going on back home. There will be FOMO, but they will soon switch their heads from their group at home whom they have been online with, to the kids at camp who are in front of them.
During that pandemic it’s been difficult to hold to certain standards that just a year ago seemed hard and fast. Not just screen time, but personal hygiene, chores, cleaning routines and so on. Norms have been disrupted, and people now have their own way of living that for many has strayed from universal habits of daily life. How do you think kids will adjust to communal living?
Camp is a community effort. Kids do things at camp like shower and brush their teeth and make their beds because everyone does it, because there are rules in place. But it’s totally different from when your parents tell you to pick up y our room. Camp is a place where kids feel less intruded upon and less bossed around, even if it’s tightly scheduled and there are rules. It’s much more kid-paced and you’re never at kid pace in your own home. It’s much different when your 19-year-old counselor tells you to take a shower.
You can’t tell what these kids would be like if there wasn’t a pandemic. Being edgy and angry and not liking the rules is so characteristic of adolescents. It may be ramped up a bit. The thing is, we are now with them all the time and anything negative they say, we hear. If they were away from us more, we wouldn’t hear their negativity so much. Parents have been absorbing all of that, because who else do kids have? All of the conflict is with you.
What about so many camps cancelling Visiting Day? Will that be hard for kids, particularly this summer?
Anyone who thinks camp visiting day is an unalloyed good hasn’t been to many of them. It can be confusing to switch gears, and for kids to see their parents and then have their homesickness kick up for the next two days. Visiting days are both lovely and conflictual. I don’t think not having one this year will knock any kids to the ground. It will be much more painful for the parents.
Have camp directors been calling to ask, “How are we going to handle all of these kids who have been inside for 16 months?”
No, they’ve been asking, “What do we do with all of these anxious parents?”
I understand the hopes and fears of parents. But I also see how those hopes and fears get in their way, and in their children’s way. A break will be very helpful.
Do you think kids will be more homesick this summer than in pre-pandemic years?
Parents will experience Missing Limb Syndrome. But kids will be profoundly relieved. Kids love their parents, but they experience them daily as intruding on them and trying to get them to use their time productively in ways that matter to the parents. Self-respecting kids hate that.
That said, we’ve never had a summer where kids were so sequestered at home and then suddenly at camp. It’s a bit of a social experiment.
How do you think counselors will manage not being able to leave camp for the entire summer to blow off steam for the entire summer?
I am very confident that 19, 20, and 21 year-olds will find private ways to recreate. One camp director told me, “I have two groups to manage this summer -- the campers, and the libidos of college age counselors.” The counselors will be ingenious, they will. I would never count on this age group to be completely celibate and completely away from substances – that’s who they are. They will find a way. I know. I was a counselor once.
Will camp feel less complete without socials or inter-camp competitions?
I think what is will be good enough that there won’t be much grieving for what isn’t. After this long pandemic, what’s good is going to feel so, so sweet.
Michael's comments were right on and very helpful. One thing we did notice in 2020 at camp was that for the first couple of weeks campers were complaining of feet issues and very sore muscles due to their inactivity. I expect much of the same this summer. We are planning more stretching, yoga before athletic activities and expect a lot of ingrown toenails and other foot maladies to kick off the summer.
This is so interesting. A lot of this relates to all of us coming out of the pandemic and adjusting to socializing again in a more normal way.