Fall is a time for change, summer is fading into winter, the air is cooling and many plants become dormant. And if Fall is a time for change, November is a time to give thanks. We would like to thank the TLC Family of Camp members for its continued support in our endeavors to give back to our various camp communities.

This past summer our camp community came together and swam close to 7,000 laps, 6,872 to be exact, in one afternoon, for our annual Morry’s Camp Swim-A-Thon. Our swim-a-thon helps provide a fabulous summer camp experience for children who would not otherwise be able to attend a camp like Timber Lake West. It is your support that makes this event so successful for us. Thank you!

Our first Annual TLC Family Fall Festival was a raging success! Families from our three day camps: Hampton Country Day Camp, North Shore Day Camp, Southampton Club and Camp and our three sleep-away camps: Timber Lake Camp, Timber Lake West and Tyler Hill, along with our North Shore Day School families enjoyed a great day of rides, face painting, magic, a bar-b-que lunch, hayrides and a pick your own pumpkin patch. As part of this event we had a charitable component, in keeping with our STARFISH Values Program, the TLC Family of Camps donated $25 per family that registered for the event to one of these three charities: Autism Speaks, Crohns and Colitis or SCOPE, of the family’s choosing. We had 266 families select a charity and our TLC Foundation donated almost $7,000 on their behalf. Thank you!

It is exciting to be able to build upon our existing relationships and give back to the local community. Our organization has been working with three food pantries, the East Northport Food Pantry, Human Resources of the Hamptons and the East Hampton Food Pantry.

Every December, the TLC Family of Camps in conjunction with our Day School hosts a holiday drive. Most recently we have worked to collect a large variety of items for the East Northport Food Pantry who feed over 150 families a week. This all volunteer organization has no overhead and everything that comes into the pantry, is given back to those in families in need.

Southampton Club and Camp’s Gives Back Community Service Initiative was a summer food drive to the Human Resources of the Hamptons which operates one of the largest food distribution program on eastern Long Island with over 350 families enrolled.

For the past five summers, as part of Hampton Country Day Camp’s Helping Hands Community Service Initiative, HCDC families donated an unbelievable number of items to the East Hampton Food Pantry in their annual Food Drive.  This winter HCDC is providing a temporary, off-season “home-base” to the Food Pantry which delivers food to 300-400 families weekly in the winter!  Check out the Newsday article for more information!

From the TLC Family of Camps, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season and thank you for all of your support. May the warm memories of camp keep you smiling throughout the winter months.

An essential piece in the development of every child is the process by which they come to feel good about themselves: building positive self-esteem. Parents start the process on a baby’s first day and continue throughout their child’s growing years. At their earliest age, children get used to the effusive praise of parents and other adults. Neil Armstrong’s first step on the face of the moon was nothing compared to your child’s first step on the living room carpet.

Praising our children seems so logical and natural that it just doesn’t seem possible that there is a right way to do it – and a wrong way. In a recent article by Katy Waldman, published by The Slate Group, the author points to recent studies that distinguish between positive and negative praise, effective and ineffective praise. One of the key findings is that the effect of praise depends “on the characteristics of the kid receiving it.”

Children with already high self-esteem and confidence respond to effusive praise, with a willingness to take more risks to earn more of the same praise. However, children with lower self-esteem tend to avoid taking greater risks, in the face of over-the-top praise because they “fear revealing their deficiencies.” What is also interesting is that adults (parents in particular) tend to ratchet the praise level up the lower they think a child’s self-esteem is – exactly the opposite of what is best.
“With good intentions, we’re more likely to over-praise the very kids who suffer when they’re over-praised – to paralyze them with implied expectations.”

Children can also get “addicted” to highly effusive praise. “Compliments, like sex or drugs, activate reward circuits in the brain.” Too much praise can leave children “hungering for (their) next payload of applause.” The result is a “dependence on praise” that “correlates negatively with persistence.” Children who are addicted to praise give up quicker when it is no longer forthcoming.

Waldman points out that often “parents use praise not to accurately describe a kid’s isolated achievement but to show affection.” Children are smart. It doesn’t take long before they catch on. Over time, the impact of parental praise wears thin both because children begin to expect it, but they correctly write it off for what it is: the efforts of loving parents that are directed more at making them feel valued, rather than accurately assessing their specific achievements. In short, children begin to grow somewhat immune from the effects of parental excessive praise.

That’s where places like camp come in. At camp, the staff is trained in the techniques of properly building self-esteem and self-confidence. Appropriate praise for best efforts and true accomplishments work to promote confidence and continued risk-taking. The compliments bestowed by coaches and counselors, never mind the unsolicited positive, feedback from a child’s peers, all operate to build self-esteem. As a child gets older, the impact is far greater than the praise from home because of from where it comes: independent, unconnected adults and friends. The compliments from coaches and counselors and peers are, simply, just more credible. That’s why places like camp can make such a positive impact – and do.

So what is a parent to do?

• Keep praise truthful – remember: overly effusive praise lacks credibility.
• Do not praise for minor tasks or abilities – it’s a sign of a lack of confidence.
• Be specific – praise should specify WHY you think the outcome is so good.
• Praise children for just trying and for trying hard – regardless of the outcome.
• Use praise to build self-esteem and confidence – not to demonstrate affection.

We want our children to grow into self-confident, balanced adults with appropriate self-awareness. We want them to exhibit strength and an ability to accept the risks inherent in life’s challenges with both persistence and the resilience to bounce back when things don’t go as hoped for or planned. We want them to like themselves without becoming narcissistic.

Helping our children develop into successful, self-assured adults ready to tackle the world’s challenges requires just the right kind of positive motivation as they grow to maturity. At camp, the feedback and encouragement of a properly trained staff committed to that end, compliments the balanced praise children get at home. It is how we work together to produce just the right outcome for every child.

Written by Jay Jacobs who is the owner/operator of three sleep-away camps, Timber Lake Camp, Timber Lake West and Tyler Hill Camp and four day camps and a Day School, North Shore Day Camp & School, Hampton Country Day Camp, along with Hampton Sports and Arts and Southampton Racquet Club and Camp. Some of his past professional affiliations include serving on the New York State Camp Health and Safety Council, President of ACA’s NY section, and President of the New York State Camp Directors Association. He is the founder of SCOPE (Summer Camp Opportunities Promote Education), a program that sends inner city children to not for profit camps. In 2001, Jay founded and currently serves as Chairman of Project Heal the Children, an ACA program that provides free summer camp experiences for the children of victims of the 9/11 tragedy.

Katy Waldman was born in Washington, DC, and received a BA in English literature from Yale University. She won a Gordon Barber Memorial Prize for poetry in 2008 and Yale’s Theron Rockwell Field Prize in 2010. In addition, her first published poem, “Afterword,” won First Place in Narrative’s Second Annual Poetry Contest. She is a Slate Assistant Editor and lives in Washington, D.C. (Read the full article here.)