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Please stop ruining children’s summer camp

Teslie Conrad is the director of Clemson Outdoor Lab in South Carolina, which runs several different youth summer camps. Clemson _______ cell phones and other electronic devices in summer camps. And according to the American Camp Association, most sleep-away camps in the United States _______ access to cell phones.

This makes sense. We traditionally think of summer camps as a place where we get to swim in a lake, camp under the stars and make new _______ over campfires and outdoor adventures, not one where we text and play video games.

Researchers say that campers develop invaluable social skills, while facing risks and working their way through their feelings of homesickness — all _______. “It’s kind of like letting go of everything and coming to a different world,” says Alexa Sherman, an 11-year-old camper. Many of the campers there say they _______ YouTube and Snapchat, but they quickly come to appreciate the hands-on activities and in-person friendships.

The people who have the _______ time letting go, camp directors say, aren’t necessarily the campers themselves, but instead their parents.

Barry Garst studies youth development at Clemson University. He said that whether you call them “helicopter”, “snowmobile” or “lawnmower” parents, over-involved parenting is having a negative overall effect and is _______ the types of positive interpersonal experiences these camps are meant to provide for youth. Not weather, not water safety, not dangerous bears. It’s parents who call every day demanding _______ on their kids and who expect to hear from the camp director about every skinned knee.

Meg Barthel, the lead girls’ counselor at camp Echo, carries a device with access to Wi-Fi around camp. “I have to _______ the mothers who are used to having constant communication with their daughters,” she says. How many ________ a day? “Up to 100.”

Some camps address parents’ ________ for updates by posting pictures and videos online. But sometimes this can have the ________ effect. In response, they’ll often receive the following phone call: “Hello, camp director, I was on your ________ and I don’t see them. Are they OK? Were they sent to the hospital?”

Research on over-parenting, says Garst, shows that when parents behave this way, the development of a child’s sense of ________ can be slowed or can become altogether halted. The parents are sending the message that they don’t think their kids can get through tough moments on their own, and the kids pick up on this attitude. “Children are not really learning how to ________ for themselves.”