The Statistical Reason Summer Camp is the Perfect Christmas Present
For parents, Christmas can be a time of joy and simultaneously a time of stress. Will I get my children what they want? Can I afford what my children want? This brief essay should give you a little insight into how you can give your kids a gift that lasts a lifetime – with statistical evidence to provide some peace of mind!
If you’re reading this article, you probably have heard many stories about how camp can transform the life of a child. Just bring up summer camp at a Christmas party and watch how folks come out of the woodwork with their camp stories. But we can find anecdotes to support nearly any claim. Today, we’re going to talk about statistical evidence.
It’s relatively common knowledge that data isn’t always reliable. Often times, people have biases they’d like to confirm, and are able to manipulate their studies in order to convince people of their agenda. But occasionally, research is so overwhelmingly on one side of an issue that the conclusions drawn become consensus.
The data surrounding the importance of camp for a child appears headed in the direction of being conclusive. Assuming a parent thinks camp would at least be a small positive in his or her child’s life, that parent will still face a basic economic quandary: “Would my money be better spent elsewhere?” If you asked that question – good for you! Intentional spending is a wonderful idea. Studies in the last ten years have helped answer this question in ways that many might find surprising.
To quote an article from livescience.com, “The results show that people’s satisfaction with their life-experience purchases — anything from seeing a movie to going on a vacation — tends to start out high and go up over time. On the other hand, although they might be initially happy with that shiny new iPhone or the latest in fashion, their satisfaction with these items wanes with time. The findings, based on eight separate studies, agree with previous research showing that experience-related buys lead to more happiness for the consumer.”
And this makes sense, intuitively. I’ve had countless of talks with people where we nostalgically remembered experiences as being significantly more fun or meaningful than I remember them being at the time. I also know the feeling of walking out of the store with a brand new computer, but being awfully mad at that same computer just a few months later. Of all the things that have been purchased for me, exactly one of those ranks among the things that’s changed my life – my weeks at summer camp.
I know, proof that experiences tend to be more rewarding than material things doesn’t prove that camp, specifically, is the best experience to have. To answer that question, I’ll turn to conclusions from studies done by the ACA and the PCCCA.
In a study done with over 5,000 families, the American Camping Association found that:
- 96% of campers say they make new friends at camp.
- 94% said they made friends with people different from them.
- 92% said camp help them feel good about themselves.
- 74% said they did things at camp they were afraid to do at first.
Parents agreed:
- 70% said their child gained self-confidence at camp.
- 63% said their child continued to participate in activities learned at camp.
- 69% said their child remained in contact with friends made at camp.
And this study was done across random camps of no particular type or merit. One could guess that these numbers would dramatically increase if the right camp were found. The also reported significant growth in independence, self esteem, adventure and exploration, leadership, environmental awareness, friendship skills, values and decisions, social comfort, and spirituality. Not a bad list, right?
For information on camp’s spiritual impact on kids, the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association did its own study to determine the worth of its camps, and found that “Two-thirds of laity and nine in ten ministers report ‘one particular learning or spiritual growth experience that had great significant in shaping their Christian life,” and “among those with a singular spiritual growth experience, four in ten members, elders, and specialized clergy, and a majority of pastors, report it took place at a camp, retreat, or conference.”
Camp is incredible for all kids. It’s a gift that doesn’t collect rust, or break, or get boring. It’s a gift that people actually like more over time! What’s more, if you are interested in helping your child learn more about his or her faith and grow closer to God, you need only look at the PCCCA study to see how crucial summer camp can be at igniting a child’s faith.
As for some data of our own? 18% of our campers in 2011 came for one week, and loved it so much that they convinced their parents to send them for another week that they hadn’t planned to come later in the summer. This represented a %457 increase over last year, as it was the first year trying a new program. It doesn’t count kids who signed up for multiple weeks before the summer started, just kids who loved our Christian summer camp so much that they were willing to fight to come back for more.
Come explore why people who come to Vanderkamp want to come back. Read an article or two right here on our website and see how seriously we take the business of changing lives. Call us to discuss why our camp could be so important to your child. The data is in – summer camp is a must for kids these days. Will Vanderkamp be where you or your child come this summer?
Sources:
http://www.livescience.com/6158-study-happiness-experiences-stuff.html
http://www.acacamps.org/sites/default/files/images/research/directions.pdf
http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/research/pdfs/0802_full_report.pdf
The Vanderkamp Center is a Retreat Center and Christian Summer Camp near Syracuse, NY. We hope to have you a part of the Vanderkamp family!
