Summer Camps

[steambender]

The thing about camps (12 years starting at age 8, eight weeks each summer in Canada, wilderness canoeing) are the relationships you form and the life lessons you learn.

Lil' Pete is going to a shorter, focused sports/vocational camp, so it will very much affect his view towards fencing. Will it also be his first dose at the next level of organization and intensity?

Find some kids or older, who have gone through the program you're looking at and ask them about what they remember, good and bad, and if they'd do it again, and what they learned. How they'd do it different. Listen carefully to the coaches, they'll leave lasting impressions and help provide the long term motivation (good or bad) it take to get where Lil Pete wants to go.

I learned teamwork, leadership, my limits and the limits of others. the best memories were of fun, and the most valued were shared adversity. Finishing is more important than winning. (wilderness canoeing is more about perseverance than speed). many of the families at the camp I attended were third and now fifth generation.