St Louis summer camps provide children with diverse opportunities to develop important life skills that are difficult to achieve in any other environment. So let’s take a closer look and explore four significant benefits of summer camp programs.
Summer camp holds a special place in our hearts. It represents a time in a child’s life when they get to experience nature or one of their favorite interests. For generations, children have spent their summers at day and sleepaway camps, trying new activities such as swimming, hiking, and various sports. Many former campers will warmly remember summers spent gazing at the stars, playing a new sport, coding a computer app, cooking delicious foods, building a robot, or other fun and special activities. These nostalgic memories are priceless, but they only scratch the surface of the real reasons that St Louis summer camps are worth every penny.
1. Score a Win in the Fight Against Summer “Brain Drain”
Summer camps can prevent the often-lamented “brain drain” that sometimes happens to kids during summer. Kids often have to play catch up when they return to school from summer break. At the beginning of a school year, it usually takes a few weeks for students to get back into the daily school routine. This restart period ultimately slows down the education process for all students involved after they get back from summer break. Camps, activities, and summer learning programs can keep your child’s mind active and focused throughout summer on subjects they love or want to improve. Brains are a lot like muscles when acquiring knowledge and skills — they need exercise. Summer camp helps your kids keep their brain’s “muscles” active throughout summer to start school on a solid note and stay ahead of their brain-drained classmates, regardless of the interest they choose for camp.
2. Make Summer Time Wise Time…Fun Too!
When you become a parent or a guardian, you truly understand the value of time – your time, your child’s time, and time-sensitive opportunities. Summertime offers a unique window of opportunity for your child to try new experiences, step outside their routine and environment, and grow. However, summer only lasts a few short months, so planning how to fill your child’s time in the summer is crucial. And with programs only lasting a few days to a few short weeks, kids will learn the importance of enjoying camp and getting the most out of their opportunities.
The summer months can be challenging for working parents when the kids are out of school, especially with younger children and those who need more active caregiving. Even though the kids have free time, parents still need to be able to work, run errands, and have important meetings. Summer camp programs can give your child something fun and engaging to do with their time so that you can be more productive with yours.
3. Strengthen Soft & Social Skills
In a world where technology and busy schedules tend to isolate children from their peers, summer camps offer a unique opportunity for your kids to get out and meet new people, develop social skills, and build friendships. Kids learn valuable soft skills like teamwork, communication, empathy at camp, and more robust skill-building. Programs will challenge children to work together, achieve goals, and solve problems. Furthermore, camp allows your children to expand their social circle with people outside their school. They might even socialize with kids from different cities, states, backgrounds, cultures, and countries. This benefit of summer camp often applies to parents, too! You might meet your new “Mom BFF” at summer camp drop-off.
4. Help Children Learn About Themselves & Their Interests
Childhood is a time for discovering who you are and who you want to become in the future. It is a time for finding your strengths, overcoming challenges, and widening your vision of yourself and the world around you. Camps and summer programs help to nurture this environment by providing access to a myriad of topics, opportunities, and experiences. As a result, kids learn about new subjects, interact with new environments, and engage in activities that might not have been available to them otherwise. Parents can even send their kids to the circus, robotics, piano, and yoga camps, just to name a few. (It’s true! Those are all search links that will take you to actual programs listed on Blueprint4Summer this year.)
Find the Right St Louis Summer Camps For Your Family
Summer camp programs help your children grow in ways you never thought possible. Take a look through the summer camp programs this year in the Blueprint4Summer search app for some inspiration. If cost is a concern, there are hundreds of free summer camps, many more affordable programs, plus thousands of programs that accept scholarships. Who knows, maybe they can teach you a thing or two when they get back.
