Punishments At Camp

[collissimon]

I don't think that it's to do with atmosphere, but beyond camp there are consequences for negative behaviour, if that happens at your camp, how would you deal with that without some sort of system for negative behaviour?

For example, if a 11 year old boy, it's his first year at camp, so he doesn't quite know the way camp works, gets angry and hits another camper. How do you deal with it? He's not quite old enough to have a talk that is effective with older ones. How do you tell him that he can't repeat this behaviour?

Positive behaviour is very hot at our camp too, it's the main emphasis of what we do, and if you can raise a campers self esteem, then the summer has been a success. A lot of what we do is to achieve this end. I agree with you that the little things that the campers have earned are often what they remember, and I do too! If a camper has a spot in the Unit Play, he will remember it next year.

The PJ Day we had last summer was ace: we went round in our PJs all day, and took the rest hour to make a special snack, and we got some beads to read, and extra story time, and it was the best day! The whole day was a celebration of their good behaviour as a group, but one of the kids during the day kicked off, and had to take some time out from the activity to sort himself out. It's just keeping the two in balance.

[Dave]

I think it's really awesome to reward great behavior. At our camp kids are only there for a week, so it's sometimes hard. We can't really take out an activity or add in a special event because we have to follow our schedule. However, if we have a great week we'll let the kids stay up late on Friday and hang out and we'll do a really cool cabin chat to wrap up the week. One week me and my co bought our girls ice cream for the final night and we ate it right after dinner, we just took our girls away from the other cabins so others wouldn't see.

It's just something special that the kids love. I've had girls come back the next year and they'll say something like, "Remember our ice cream party!? That was one of my best nights at camp!" And it's just exciting to know they remember things like that and that they really are special to them.
I agree with rewarding great behavior. One example from last summer was if a kid would help up clean up after lunch (without being asked) they'd get a second popsicle during popsicle time. That's one example I thought of.

[camper]

lets see. i'm not sure what they would do on boys side, but if that happened on girls side i, as a counselor, would just sub that girl in whatever game we were playing until she cooled down as i told her that it is unacceptable to hit, and then let her back in the game once she seemed calm. then i would tell the grouphead and she would take it from there. the kid's parents would most likely be called as well as the parents of the girl who was hit just to inform them so they hear it from us first and not their daughter. maybe the subbing would seem like a form of punishment, but in most of our activities we sub in and out as part of the activity, so its nothing really unusual. i can't even imagine taking away something like swimming or flat out not letting someone play an activity, b/c we encourage the kids to ALWAYS play, so for us that would be kind of contradictory and make it a lot harder to get all of the kids to play.

[drink the wild air]

I agree with the positive reinforcement. Its always a good thing to point out good behavior. And I know that extra treats and fun things always work on me. :)

[campCardinal]

It's really all about equal balance. And I think it can be difficult to have a meaningful conversation about behavior with my campers. I have the 6-9 year olds, and some of them are still learning right from wrong. If they do something wrong we sit down and we'll talk about respect. We use the golden rule a lot too- because those are some things that the younger kids can understand. I've had this talk before and it lasted tops 2 minutes, because they can't pay attention any longer. If it is a continuing problem we'll refer it to the unit leader -- but we try and take care of it within the cabin as much as possible.

As with someone hitting another camper, we have this happen somewhat often. It's not usually a really hard hit that makes a camper hurt, but it still needs to be addressed. We seperate the children and talk to them each on their own. And then we go from there.

On Friday nights (our last night) a lot of the kids are getting antsy about going home and things and we have our closing ceremonies. We have to wait in a line to go in that sometimes takes 10-15 minutes. There isn't really any structured time and usually the kids start hanging on eachother and getting mad at eachother. I can't talk to them all about keeping their hands to themselves so we quickly engage the kids in a game of simon says or something like that. It keeps the kids focused on themselves and it calms them down a little.

[collissimon]

I agree campCardinal, you do need both sides of the coin! I've got the youngest kids too, thought mine are 8,9,10... and sometimes I think they need some sort of physical reminder. I like to use posters, because the kids can draw pictures of how their behaviour effects other people (good if they have an autistic spectrum disorder, and don't quite understand empathy etc, but can note down physical changes in demeanour). The physical reminder is helpful, because they can take it away with them.

We try to use the UL as little as possible, just because if you really do need him, each time you use him for smaller issues, his authority (because of his distance) is reduced.

I like playing little games too, I like to use a kind of copying game, but with really silly actions (like 'If you're looking and listening, make your eyebrows caterpillars!).

camper, it's not about discouraging participation: that is really important at my camp too. But it is recognising that sometimes the kids aren't ready to be with the group, or deserve to have some time off the group. If anything, it makes participation even more important, because taking a kid away from the group makes them more likely to want to be in the group. You don't want to take a kid away from the group, but their behaviour leaves you no choice. Even then, it's only two or three minutes, but to the camper it seems like so much more, meaning they want to change their behaviour.

[campCardinal]

Collissimon -- I think we're on the same page on the issue. And I've never used the drawing the consequences technique but I might try it this summer with some of the kids who are hard to reach.

[collissimon]

It can work, though like as when you work with the little kids with anything, it is never a permanent solution!

I can be helpful, because if they find it difficult to express themselves (which can work just as well with pubescent teenagers as little ones ;)) then this can help them address their own behaviour.

Also, it is a great diversionary tactic if the stresses of living with 8 or 9 strangers, and being looked after by 3 or 4 new adults is getting to them! It's an absorbing activity that can help them take a step away from the situation around them.

A worksheet works in much the same way, if the child isn't artistically minded.

You can also frame it in such a way that you can get them to address their own behaviour. Two good posters that worked for me were, where one kid wouldn't stop throwing stones, so he made a picture of three different things that could happen to someone/thing else when he did that. Another one was a friendship dispute, where one kid decided that he wasn't going to be the other person's friend. The other person was completely confused why, and was really upset by it. I got the first to draw a picture of what he thought the second kid could be feeling. He drew a sad person, which worked really well (though unfortunately that didn't stop him from doing what he was doing, but you can't win them all!)

[JJester]

Punishment is no fun for anybody, be it camper or counselor, but I think creativity is key.
When I was a 14 year old camper many years ago, my friend snuck out one night and went to see her friend who lived in a nearby neighborhood. It was pretty innocent, but couldn't be ignored by the counselors. Her punishment was to remain at camp when the rest of us went on a trip. She had to help out with the youngest group all day and was given a task to complete by the time we returned from our trip. She had two identical pictures from a Lisa Frank coloring book (very intricate, for those who aren't familiar), and had to color them in way that made them look distinctly different. The hard part was that she was only allowed to use four different crayons, and they were all a different shade of orange.
Because she was old enough to understand her mistake, and knew she'd have to pay some price, this was an effective punishment. I wouldn't recommend it for younger campers, though.
-Julie

[sarahdee]

Umm at our camp the major form of punishment is time-out,, usually for 2 or 3 minutes depending on what they did and the age of the camper.
If the camper did something serious or continue to do the same thing over and over we will put the camper to bed early meaning they miss evening program or they may miss an acitivity or take time away from their favourite activity

[collissimon]

We don't use time out as a punishment itself, because we'd rather let them spend some time away from the group to get themselves under control rather than lash out at someone else, but that's more to do with the kids I work with rather than anything else!

We have a bit of an embargo on trip days: we're not allowed to take them away except in very extreme circumstances (which would prob mean they were going home anyway). I had this situation on one of my Deputy Days, where several counsellors had told their kids they weren't going to the County Fair because of suchandsuch behaviour. As they were the youngest kids, and the Fair is the largest trip of the whole summer, this sent me in a bit of a flap, because of staffing levels and boring things like that! After chatting with the Program Director etc. I made the counsellors back down, because the camper's behaviour would have escalated if they were left behind. I do think that some of the older ones have been left behind though...

[KiwiCRB]

My last session of the summer last year was a special canoeing session. These girls were really really excited about going. But one of the would not drink enough water and got migraines like every day. We, well the nurse and program director really, did have to threaten her that if she got one more headache from not drinking enough water she wouldn't be able to go on the trip. It is a good way to get them to do what they need to be doing.

[AshleyJane]

Haha, we get some really...."interesting" kids at our camp, so we've got alot of ways of dealing with things. Obviously wherever possible punishment should fit the crime, but failing that usually what I do, is when the kids arrive I ask what their favorite thing to do at camp is. (usually it's swimming) So when they repeatedly misbehave I take off 1-5 minutes of their swim time (per offense) for that day. BUT I give them the chance to earn it back, if they behave and don't repeat the problem behavior I will add the time back on. I find this works extremely well with our campers.

[Sparkes]

one of my campers was rotten. She just enjoyed making all the other girls cry for some reason. Anyways, we racked our brains trying to figure out what to do, and exhausted all the normal ways to deal with it, so that in the end the girls head counsellor decided to make the camper her "assistant" so she had to follow her around camp and watch the other kids all get along, but couldn't participate. She also had to sweep, and help me sort the mail (which my girls loved to do during the day so it wasn't punishment at all). It worked though.