How Mom and I Grew in Self-Confidence Through My Summer Camp Experience

Young person in a swimming pool holding onto the edge.

How Mom and I Grew in Self-Confidence Through My Summer Camp Experience

Here are snippets of my mother’s published writings between 1956 and 1958 about how we both grew in self-confidence (she as a mother and I as a child) through my summer camp experiences.

“… I was the mother of one of those wonderful, but baffling, noisemakers called a boy. Jim seemed well-rounded and secure as long as he was at home. The moment he was taken away to visit, or found himself involved in a party, he became oversensitive, shy, and cowered at the sight of strangers. The halo he wore so well at home slipped when he was exposed to the social side. He became weepy, unsure, and just wanted to go home. In spite of all of our efforts, I could see that Jim was growing ill at ease among people. Even though he was involved in a classroom situation within a “special” school for children with disabilities, he was missing out on the social side of school. We had to face it. In spite of having frequent, small groups of guests in our home, our seven-year-old was not becoming socially adapted. So we sent him to camp …”

”Through our Easter Seals clinic, we arranged to have Jim spend a two-week period at Camp Wawbeek, Wisconsin Dells, WI.… When I looked ahead at the two weeks of camp life for Jim, I wondered how I would survive without him during that period. Then I realized my greatest fault: I had a tendency to become over-protective. I was molly-coddling Jim into fearsome insecurity. Jim was becoming the person who might have trouble adjusting to the hard world…I had to do it – send him to camp”.

“… Camp experience proved to be stimulating for both of us. Sometimes parents are so close to their son that they cannot see him.

To get an overall picture of your child and his challenges, you must get away.”

50 years later, these are the highlights I now recall from my camping experience:

DISABILITY CULTURE: One of our camp counselors helped us discuss whether we liked being called “handicapped”. We found ourselves brainstorming about alternative terms after learning about the historical context of “handicapped”.
GRATITUDE: I learned how to write a “thank you” note to my sponsor.
EXPANDED INTERESTS: In addition to pool time, picnics and hikes, I dabbled in ceramics and photography – activities not available at home or school.
ACCEPTANCE: My roommate, who also had CP, believed in flying saucers (which I thought was a little strange), but he became my best buddy outside of grade school.
FREEDOM: I felt free for the first time to function within an accepting community without the stigma of being disabled or the structured routine of the classroom.
CONFICT RESOLUTION: While working on the camp’s newsletter, when I was 15, I had to handle an accusation from a fellow volunteer that “I was not pulling my weight”.

I now believe my 10 years of camping experience between 1950 and 1960 turned out to be key stepping stones on my way to a meaningful career.

Jim Hasse, founder of cerebral-palsy-career-builders.com (the career-coaching guide for parents of CP youngsters) is an Accredited Business Communicator and Global Career Development Facilitator. He has CP. See http://www.cerebral-palsy-career-builders.com/self-confidence-quotes.html

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This post originally appeared on our March/April 2014 Magazine

How Mom and I Grew in Self-Confidence Through My Summer Camp Experience

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