A “Real World” Summer Camp?

Chicago mom Kristin Howard wanted middle school kids, including her own, to learn how to do things in the real world, like read maps and cook dinner, to build independence, confidence, and life skills.

SOLUTION: Create “Going Up Summer Camp,” a day camp inspired by The Let Grow Experience homework assignment: “Do something new on your own, with your parents’ permission but not their help.” Campers spend a week or two learning how to do laundry, shop for groceries, take public transit – and more.

BACKGROUND: After 20 years in corporate America, Kristin was burnt out. “I wanted to do something hands-on, but I wouldn’t have even come up with the idea of trying out this camp if it hadn’t been for my obsessive following of Let Grow over the years,” she says. She now offers her Going Up Camp three times a summer: One two-week session and two one-week sessions. Middle-school  kids – about a dozen at a time – go around Chicago doing real things. Kristin tries to stay in the background after giving them their task for the day.

HOW THE CAMP WORKS: In the morning, the kids meet up in a public place, like a coffee shop or park. The first day, Kristin takes them to a local cemetery so huge that it has streets. She gives each pair of campers a location to find using a paper map. Once they get to, say, the tombstone shaped like a pyramid, they have to leave a challenge there for the next pair of campers – for instance, “When you get here do 10 push-ups” – and then find their way back. The kids then exchange their maps and find the other kids’ instructions.

THE POINT? The point is to jump right in and start building skills. The kids have to find their way around a new place. Work as a team. Deal with the jitters. “I’m actually pushing them to do stuff they’re a little nervous about doing,” Kristin says. How do the kids feel about that? “I get rave reviews on cemetery day.”

OTHER ACTIVITIES: “I pulled ideas from your website,” says Kristin – specifically, she uses the (free!) Let Grow Independence Kit list of independence activities. So she has the kids go to the store with a shopping list, and then cook. Another day they help out at a senior citizen drop-in center, serving food and chatting with the diners. (A retired teacher who volunteers there told Kristin she had never seen kids that age as ENGAGED as her campers.) Another day the kids are told to bring a backpack full of dirty laundry. Then they go to the laundromat and wash their clothes. One time, a camper who was accustomed to doing this with his family helped the other kids walk through it, turning his chore history into a point of pride. That day, he was the leader!

WHAT IS THE SECRET SAUCE? “They’re on their own, doing everything,” says Kristin. “I try to be invisible. I give them the framework: ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and then get them to lead it.”

ANY DISASTERS? “When we were in the kitchen my oldest daughter got disinfectant in her eye.” They washed it out.

ANY KIDS GET LOST? One girl who told Kristin she had “major stranger anxiety” did indeed get lost with her buddy on the cemetery excursion. That was Day One! With no phone or parents to turn to, “She went up to a stranger and asked, ‘Can I borrow your phone? I’m part of a camp and I need to call the director,’” says Kristin.

In therapy, that is called a breakthrough. At camp it’s just figuring something out.

SURPRISING CROWD-PLEASER: “For the first time this summer I had them do a ‘speed run’ on Chicago Transit – the train system. I told them to ride to as many train stations as they could. They had a checklist for the Blue Line, the Red Line, the Green Line, and they had to meet back in two hours. They were very, very nervous ahead of time,” says Kristin. And then? “That was everyone’s favorite thing about the two-week camp.”

ARE THERE ANY FREE DAYS? There are. And on them, the kids vote on what they want to do: Go bowling? See a movie? Explore Chinatown?

ANY FREE PLAY? “Sometimes there will be time in the middle of the day, or an activity finished up a little early, and we just have an hour or two to spare, we’ll go to a park,” says Kristin. “They’re at that age when they like to strut. But put them on a playground and they just play, which is so lovely.”

ANY COUNTER-INTUITIVE PROGRAMMING? Kristin plans to start giving the kids conversational prompts to help them initiate friendly chats with strangers.  

PHONE POLICY: No phones or screens are allowed during camp. “It’s an opportunity for them to practice without them.”

WHAT’S INVOLVED IN SETTING UP THE CAMP? Kristin got camp insurance and created an LLC.

FINDING CAMPERS: The first summer, she simply alerted her WhatsApp groups. After that, word spread, says Kristin, because for parents, “This is the perfect opportunity to give their kids the skills they need to be able to have more independence. The kids love it. They say, ‘I’ve never had that freedom before.’ So it up-levels them and sort of opens up new opportunities for letting your kids do things that you never knew they could do.”

DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR: On days when there’s no school, Kristin offers one-day experiences, like learning how to mend things, or find a part-time summer job.

DID KRISTIN GET ANY OTHER IDEAS FROM LET GROW? She did! Every morning, the campers have a “Let Grow Circle” where they discuss what they tried and how it went. On the last day of camp, they look at the Let Grow ideas list again and plan what they want to complete in the next month, year, and even beyond. They either write a letter to their parents about their hopes for independence and actually mail it (!), or parents come in for a last-day celebration and have that conversation right then with their children. 

HOW DO PARENTS FEEL ABOUT THE CAMP? Kristin did a survey and found: 

90% of parents agree their child “gained skills related to growing up and being out in the world.”

81% said camp instigated discussions at home about independence and trying new things.

And here’s a typical letter from one parent:

“After attending camp for 2 days, Dylan expressed how much more mature he felt. He even made us dinner that night! We will continue to foster this independence now that camp is over.”

What a great Let Grow adventure!

PARENTS, TEACHERS: If you start a camp or plan some “real world” excursions like this, please let us know here!

Below are some wonderful photos of the camp and Kristin!