Parenting Goals with Teenage Daughters August 4, 2019 Tennis Competition Helping Others Working as a Team Dealing with teenage daughters and their ever changing moods can seem daunting. We never know “who” is going to show up for breakfast. In an article by Marika Lindholm, Ph.D, she has outline 10 parenting goals we can all try to implement with our teenage daughters. Below we have outline 5 of these that we use at Camp Marimeta. Here are some parenting goals with your teenage daughter. Lets start by trying to ignore the dreaded eye roll. We all find it frustrating but most ever girl does it. We try and remember that she is thinking for herself and judging what is being said to her. In fact it is developmentally fitting, and eventually they move past this phase. Try not to “pick up the rope” on this one. Talk to your daughter later, telling her how it made you feel when she rolled her eyes at you. Egocentrism and teens go hand in hand. In fact, they can be down right selfish. Only thinking about their needs and wants are also normal in their development. In any event, remember to talk with them about empathy, kindness, and perspective. This too shall pass. We all know girls can be blunt, annoying, and merciless. It is how we react to these tactics that can make the difference. First of all, let them know it is not ok to talk to you that way. Then, table the conversation for when you both can discuss it calmly. Also, once you have the discussion with them…let it go. They need to know we can move on after disagreements. “Facing consequences and overcoming challenges is part of becoming a resilient adult.” We have to let our daughters struggle with setbacks and realize that it is not the end of the world if they mess up. Support them and guide them with solutions, but above all don’t fight their battles for them. Finally, own your own inappropriate attitude. We all make mistakes and lose our temper and say things that we are not proud of. Apologizing shows your teen that being an adult doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It does however mean that an adult accepts their missteps and trys to make reparations. Please read the full article in Psycholgy Today to find out the other 5 tips to help reach those parenting goals with your teenage daughters.
We Love Alumni – Please Come to Visit July 28, 2019No matter if you have been at Camp Marimeta for just one summer or 20, we really are family. Alumni is important to us- we love you! We love when Marimeta Alumni come to visit. We had the pleasure these last couple of weeks to welcome many Alumni back to the shores of Meta Lake. Our Alumni are very important to us and often visit for many different reasons. First, many Alumni return to Camp Marimeta to show their spouses where they spent many of their summers. It is always fun to meet the person that captured our camper’s heart. They visit the mess hall and look for old pictures and have a good chuckle about their hair style. Many return for bachlorette partys as well. It is always amazing to see so many camp friends that last so long. Second, many former campers return as adults with their own daughters to tour camp for them. This of course is very special and heartwarming to us. We are so pleased that they want to share “that Marimeta Beat” with them. Their is nothing like comparing camp stories with your daughter and understand everything she is talking about! They also are very proud to show their daughters the many plaques their names are on. Equally as exciting is when Alumni return to present new 5 year campers their jackets. It could be their mother, their sister, their aunt or even their cousin that gives them their jacket. Each of these former campers are also in the 5 year club. It brings tears to everyones eyes when any of these people come up for this one very special evening. One of our favorite times with “Metalum” is at Alumni Camp. This is where we get to spend an extended amount of time laughing and reminiscing with everyone. Furthermore, Alumni Camp lets you relive your childhood. Many Metalum look forward to these 3 days all year long. In fact they start planning their skits and lip-syncs way before they even arrive. In any event, there is not a single person that isn’t laughing to the point of crying. We get to sing old songs and we also have the chance to “capture the flag”. Above all, no mattter where you go or how long you’ve been away, Marimeta will always be your summer home. We hope you take a bit of Camp Marimeta with you wherever you go. We love our Alumni and hope you visit us soon. mom presenting 5 year jacket to daughter Metalum 2017 Alumni sisters
Combating materialism in this very consumerism world. July 21, 2019Gratitude seems to be the answer to helping our children become less materialistic. First of all, a study by Lan Nguyen Chaplin, a UIC associate professor, states “that higher levels of gratitude are associated with lower levels of materialism. Also cultivating your child to be grateful helps them to disassociate “things” with happiness and wanting more. As a result of Professor Chaplin’s study, we learned “participants of children who were encouraged to keep a gratitude journal showed a significant decrease in materialism and increase in gratitude. In addition, the group that kept a gratitude journal was more generous than the control group.” We need to work on teaching our children the difference between need and want. Many of us want the newest technology but do we really need it. And more importanly what do we need it for? Here are 3 things that we as parents do to promote materialism. First, we reward our children for their accomplishments. With that, we are teaching them that material things are the only goal. Second, we choose to give presents to show our love for them. This shows them that our affections equals gifts. Finally, we usually punish are children by taking away their things. This seems to confirm that possessions are needed to feel good. Good news is there are ways we can combat consumerism in our children. Generally speaking, giving gifts to our children is normal and healthy. We just need to remember moderation is the key. Next, we can take away privileges they may have earned instead of a possession. However, sometime it is the most fitting consequence. We just need to be mindful to not make that our only adverse consequence. Other ways to combat materialism is to talk at dinner about what each of you are grateful for. Tell them how you are grateful for people in your lives. Talk about acts of kindness that you experienced instead of things you purchased. Another key factor to consider is spending quality time with them. Doing things with our children, like going for a hike or playing outside with them teaches them to appreciate time over presents. In any event, our actions speak louder than our words. Show them how to be generous with their time. Let them see how you treat people with kindness. Help them become aware of your charitable donations and how they can help. Remember to help them see with your actions that you appreciate people over things. At Camp Marimeta we stress that being grateful of the little things that people do for you is important. As an illustration, we have the bead necklace program. If anyone does something kind for or to you, you have the option to get a bead for their necklace. You present it to them with the reason you are giving it to them. One of the reasons could be that they helped you during cabin clean up. It could be that you were feel a little down and they helped you through it. We also have a whole day named gratitude day. It is just a reminder to think of others and for all the good things in your life.
Finding the Happy Medium in Parenting July 7, 2019 working together for a common goal waitressing our table unconditional counseling taking the time to really listen It seems like it is getting harder and harder to find the happy medium in parenting styles. Can we, as parents, find that “sweet spot” that will produce happy and self-suffient children. Here are some ways to finding the happy medium in parenting, from the article How to Raise Successful Kids Without Overparenting. Have your children set their own goals and schedules. We need to let them succeed on their own terms. In addition, we also need to let them fail on those terms as well. We all want our children to be happy but many of us are going about it the wrong way. Therefore, we should be working on raising ethical, principled and productive children. Happiness hopefully will follow. Love them unconditionally! Schooling is important but not the most important thing. Chores are essential for all children! They should chip in without being asked. We all have things we have to do even if we don’t want to. Remember, whistle will you work. By helping our child learn that we have a choice in how we approach these task, we can teach them that we can find the fun in all most anything. All the little things matter…. Read to your children. Put your phone down and away when they are talking to you. Greet them with excitement when they return home from school. Please follow the link above to four wonderful Ted Talks that go further into detail on each of these bullet points. To Sum up, we have such a hard job as parents finding the perfect balance between not being over protective and being too lenient. Either way, we can only keep on trying to improve how we handle all that is thrown our way. Let’s hope we can all find that happy medium in our parenting style. Camp Marimeta incorporates all of these points into our daily camp life. Campers are responsible for setting up their own activity schedule. Embracing the Marimeta morals is a must. Teaching tolerance of everyones differences is an on going project. All campers have assigned chores on a daily basis for the betterment of the cabin. In addition, they also have to waitress for their table once a week. Stopping and asking how was your day and waiting for their response is something the lodgies do daily. .
How We Make New Friends at Camp June 30, 2019I was recently reading an article in Psychology Today that was titled “Make New Friends But Keep the Old… Or Not”. It made me think of how many campers make new friends that last a lifetime. Is it due to the fact that they to learn to live with others despite their differences? Could it be that having no screens (tv, cell phones etc…) encourages more conversations? Maybe it’s that so many of the activities are geared towards personal and social development. For example, when things may not be going their way at home they usually turn to you as parents for support but at camp they are more likely to look to their counselors and cabin mates. We work daily at camp to foster these friendships by asking them to pick activities that they are interested in. This helps encourage like minded friendships to bloom. At Camp Marimeta we work with conflict resolution often when cabin issues arise. We encourage the girls to make new friends by placing them in different teams and groups for special events. We also switch tables weekly to cultivate new relationships. With all that said, camp is a great place to help create lasting friendships, however camp is only 4 or 8 weeks of your daughters year. It is difficult to change a child’s thought process or help them learn healthy social interactions that will stick with them in that small time frame. Here are some ways you can help your child cultivate friendships at home during the school year: Ask them, “How do you see yourself? How do you show people your values?” Make them do some soul searching, so they can find friends who will be a good fit. Remind them that not everyone of their friends will be their BFF. There are many different kinds of friendships. Work with them on their conversational skills. This may seem easy, but in todays digital world it is much harder then we think it is for them. Ask them to keep the conversation positive and upbeat. Moreover, encourage them to actively listen. Teach them to fight fair. Friends will argue and that is o.k., but that doesn’t mean the relationship has to end, if they can learn to take a step back when needed. Be careful how you express your opinions when speaking to your children about their friends. If you have a strong opinion regarding their friendships, watch the way you word it. Your opinion is valued and you want to get it across effectively. Help your child develop meaningful relationships with other adults. In fact, having these stable realtionships will help them navigate the ups and downs of teenage friendships. Reference: Ways to Help Your Teen make and Keep Good Friends Old Camp Friends Like Minded Friendships Adult Friendship
Summer Camp and Mental Health June 23, 2019Camp can be more than a place to have fun. Smart parents know that overnight summer camp can help their child’s mental health. Summer camp can be an integral part of a child’s development in many different aspects, including their mental health. Camp helps develop life skills, character and can be a respite from the stress and pressure of home/school life. In the last couple of years we have noticed a change in many of our campers. They are more anxious, less tolerant and they lack many coping skills. Therefore, Marimeta has correspondingly spent more time in promoting and developing social skills and coping tools to help combat this new trend. In a Psychology Today article, 10 Reason Teens Have So Much Anxiety Today, author Amy Morin states, “I agree that anxiety is a widespread issue among adolescents.” Amy speaks to this issue; see full article here. Below is our summary of that article: 1. Technology can offer an unhealthy withdrawal. Access to digital devices gives them a way to escape uncomfortable situations: boredom, loneliness, sadness or being sent to their room when they are in trouble. So then, when you avoid discomfort, you don’t develop the coping abilities needed to handle everyday challenges. 2. Happiness at all cost. Parents believe it is their job to make their kids happy. Therefore, children believe if they are not happy something must be wrong. They don’t understand it is ok and healthy to feel melancholy, disappointed, defeated and yes even irate. 3. Giving undue praise. Does not build self-esteem like we think. It actually can create overachievers and perfectionists that struggle to live up to the hype. The child’s fear of failure and that they could disappoint their parents can cause debilitating anxiety. 4. Parents are buying into the rat race Parents are becoming their child’s personal assistants. Hiring SAT tutors, sports coaches and whatever else they feel will give their child a leg up. In addition, parents are making it their job to build their child’s resume. 5. Children are not learning emotional finesse 60 % of college freshman feel emotionally unprepared for college. Young adults feel vulnerable when it comes to time management and coping with everyday stresses. 6. Parents should be guiding their children. Parents believe their role should be protector and want their children to be exposed to as few emotional and physical scars as possible. In addition, more parents have become overprotective and the children rarely get the chance to practice dealing with the issues on their own. Ergo, kids feel they are too weak to grapple with the actuality of life. 7. Parents struggle knowing the right way to help their children face their fears. We push our kids too hard on one hand or we don’t push them at all. Exposure is a good way to quell fear. This exposure needs to be done gently, with guidance, so that they can gain confidence when facing their fears. 8. Guilt and fear parenting. Parents are changing their parenting style due to their own fear and guilt. Anxiety is guiding their own ideals about parenting. We are teaching our kids that difficult emotions are unacceptable. 9. Free play is the rarity. Unstructured play develops skills like conflict resolution. To sum up, playing alone teaches children to be ok with their thoughts and content with themselves. 10. Kids rule the family. Children should not dictate to us how to parent them. Furthermore, giving children what they want all the time is not good for them. Why summer camp may help strengthen your childs mental help- Camp Marimeta tries hard to keep technology out of camp. We ask parents to keep their campers “screens” at home, so that the campers will interact with each other rather than having their noses in a screen. In addition to dealing with missing home, we also talk to campers about understanding that it is ok to feel frustrated or have self-doubt. Sometimes feeling sad or unhappy or both is very normal. When our campers follow the rules and generally deserve praise, they receive it. A saying that is repeated every five year night states: “We can’t all be captains, we got to be crew. There’s something for all of us here.” Crew is what makes the boat move forward. Good captains take credit, great captains honor their crew for all they do. Marimeta holds all campers accountable for their own space in each cabin. We also teach them to be responsibile beyond their own area. All campers learn to understand what is good for one is good for the group. Marimeta works on teaching time management and coping skills daily. In addition to our counsleors teaching accitvities, our counselors on a daily basis work on guiding your children to explore their fears. Guidance without the fear or guilt of parenthood can make the world of difference. Many of our campers say college is such an easy transition for them because they already know so many more life skills than their peers because of camp. As hard as it is to watch our campers struggle with unscheduled free time, the rewards of watching them solve a problem or an issue on their own is so worth it. Seeing campers use their imagination as they are playing in the water is incredible. The other day some of our young campers decided they were mermaids and their tales were the swim noodles. Observing the campers build a vessel for their egg in the egg drop challenge is always exciting and interesting. In conclusion, summer camps can provide a reprieve from the pressures from home and school life. The time away from social media and screens, though hard, is exactly what these growing brains need. Camps provide a safe and challenging environment that lets your child explore their feelings, even the sad ones. Summer camp can serve as a place for your child to strengthen their mental health.
Terry’s Time: 4 Steps to Creating an Amazing Camper June 25, 2017We often wonder, how can we be a better parent. How can we help our children become amazing? We look online and read self-help books. We ask friends and relatives for advice. Sometimes it helps and others times we are left wishing we had an owner’s manuals for our children. Well, the science is in and it says to “WACC” your kids. Work on yourself Autonomy Communication Community Read the full article by Barking Up the Wrong Tree Here Work on yourself – Research has shown that your happiness level directly affects your children’s ability to cope with stress. By taking care of yourself and living a happy life, you are creating a model for them to follow. So, while your children are at Camp Marimeta, find and do things that make you happy. Find ways to reduce your stress and recharge your batteries. Autonomy – Letting your children make decisions for themselves and take responsibility for their own schedule makes for children who are better able to deal with their mistakes and learn to cope with their successes and failures. At Marimeta your daughters are able to pick their own schedules. They work with their counselors to come up with their own cabin rules. They also help come up with consequences for not following those rules. Ownership for their choices and behaviors help enhance their cognitive and behavioral skills. Camp Marimeta also allows for unstructured play time, which helps with their cognitive and emotional development. Communication – Sitting down and eating three meals a day is not something we get to do often at home. At Camp Marimeta we get this opportunity everyday. Meal times at Marimeta are a huge social gathering where many topics are discussed. Our counselors are taught to ask open ended questions. We talk about how our day is going, what can we do to make it better and how can we help someone else have a better day. Camp Marimeta makes meal time a time for communication. Promoting a healthy dialogue at every meal is something we strive for daily. Community – Community is what Marimeta is all about! We work endlessly to create a community of acceptance. (Remembering we are working with young ladies that struggle with this) Our aim is for everyone who attends Marimeta to feel like we have their back, not only at camp but throughout the year. Our counselors are trained to start working on creating not only a community within their own cabins, but all over Marimeta. So when we feel like we need to do better with our children just “WACC” them! May your week be filled with fun, sunshine but most of all laughter! Love, Terry
Terry’s Time- Turning Fears Into Triumphs July 3, 2016Aristotle said, practicing courage could make all the difference in life. “You will never do anything in this world without courage.” This week at camp the lodge has really been impressed with the courage many of our Camp Marimeta girls have displayed so far. As we we walk around camp or watch out our window we see these young girls taking baby steps to build their confidence. At Camp Marimeta our girls are encouraged to take risk and look their fear in its face. We have one camper who last year was so afraid of dogs she couldn’t even be in the lodge if the dogs where in the other room. Today not only is she in the lodge with both Mimi and Lola but she will even pet them. Exposure is hands down the most successful way to deal with everyday fears. We are all so proud of how this young lady as well as her friends that encouraged her, to not just face fear, but to take the risk to take action. Action breeds confidence and courage. Many of Marimeta campers are swimming in a lake for the first time. Not seeing the bottom and worrying about fish and the unknown are genuine fears of many of our little girls. With concern in their eyes they literally “jump into the lake” and go for it. The older girls give to the beginners, helping them move ahead. To take a big risk, it helps to have a friend or mentor or a “big sister”. The high ropes challenge course is a place where we see acrophobia. The fear of heights can be crippling. Tears and anxiety are common sites on the ropes course. This year the determination and bravery of one of our tiniest and youngest campers has been inspiring. First off she took action by deciding to put this activity in her schedule. On the first day of class she found the fortitude to climb the initial ladder, she got up to the top of the ladder and she decided she had enough. Shaking and with tear in her eyes she made her way back down to the ground. On the following day with great apprehension not only did she succeed and make it to the top, she also participated in each of the elements on the course. The cheering and support was so incredible, she must of felt like she climbed Mt. Everest. So what are your fears….go out and get busy making them disappear. May your week be full of fun, sunshine and most of all laughter. Love Terry
Terry’s Time….Camp Marimeta is more than fun. June 27, 2016Camp is all about the fun….so they think. Overnight camp offers much more then many people realize. At Camp Marimeta we strive to challenge our girls to take healthy risks. Of course these risks are carefully calibrated by our fantastic staff. We structure our girl’s environment so they have lots of opportunities to fail, which is so counterintuitive to our parenting skills. Marimeta gives them the structure they need with greater autonomy. Self management and self regulatory skills are goals Camp Marimeta works on regularly. Marimeta embraces the challenges of these purposeful life tasks. Daily our campers must suppress impulses, control their attentions, keep track of their belongs all while “having fun.” The campers may not know these are the intentions of our many activities and special events but our choices are thought out carefully with these and many other end results in mind. For example it may seem like just “Marshmellow Wars”, but self control (don’t use your paint up to quickly) and team work are important pieces in this “fun” event. Camp Marimeta allows the girls to look at themselves in a new light. A light that they can create for themsleves. Ownership of who they want to become and where they want their road to take them. These are key components of emotional intellegence and self-awareness. May your week be full of fun, sunshine and most of all laughter. Love, Terry
Terry’s Time: It’s The Little Things August 11, 2015“Give me a hand when I’ve lost the way Give me your shoulder to cry on Whether the day is bright or gray Give me your heart to rely on Send me the warmth of a secret smile To show me you haven’t forgot That always and ever, that’s, now and forever Little things mean a lot.” Song: Kallen Kitty – Metro lyrics Marimeta honors the little things. One example is the bead necklace each camper receives, at the start of the summer. It is Camp Marimeta’s way to show our campers how the little things can add up to create something impressive. At Marimeta, the girls earn beads for many different reasons. Some of these beads are rewarded for participating in activities. While these beads are fun to collect, it is the rarer beads that have the greatest impact. Our campers not only receive these trinkets from counselors, but they are also invited to honor other campers too. The girls of Marimeta are asked to look for the little things that people do or say that have made an impact on them. Our campers are awarded for being brave hearted or helping with a tour. They are bestowed beads for their strength of character and for taking initiative. Our campers receive beads for being a loyal friend or sharing their things. Marimeta girls earn baubles for going outside their comfort zone and for connecting to nature. On Banquet night, the elusive E.T. Beads are presented to campers and counselors, whom have truly embraced the Marimeta Morals and have exemplified what it means to be a Marimeta girl. May your week be full of fun, sunshine but most of all laughter! Love, Terry