Hey y’all! Welcome to Fast Facts for Gen Z. I’m your host, Callie, and I don’t know anything about anything. Come with me on my exploration of the world, and I’ll tell you everything you ever (and never) wanted to know, through the eyes of Gen Z.
Today’s episode: Summer camp, taking feedback, and overcoming fears.
I’ve never been to sleep-away camp. Canoeing across a lake, late-night whispers in cabin bunks, waking up at sunrise while a bugle calls Reveille. Isn’t that what you do? The closest I’ve ever come to sleep-away camp is reading the American Girl books about Molly, and all I really remember from that is that she got poison ivy playing capture the flag. So clearly, not the most favorable opinion. But while I never got that all-american experience, I did attend more than my fair share of day camps.
The unstructured camp at a goat farm always had my parents on edge with its lack of rules, though the calculated risk ended up with some solid memories. I probably won’t ever forget climbing too high into trees and feeling a little scared to come down, or sneaking into shabby old farm buildings, or paddling around a pond in an old boat without life jackets or supervision. It was weird! But it was fun too, of course. Kids like nothing more than a little rebellion.
My go-to favorite camp as a kid was this week-long acting camp in a little theater near my house. My sister and I started when we were probably like five; I’m pretty sure it’s the first camp we ever went to. Our first play was The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and we were ducks, and I think we did a little dance and each had one line, and maybe got chased by the wolves. We did that camp for YEARS. It taught me to be okay with people watching me, and maybe judging me, and to not be too wrapped up in what they might be thinking. I was just having fun, performing, doing what I wanted to do.
As my sister and I got older, we got bigger roles and made better friends, the kind you only see one week out of the year but you love anyway. We once performed some fables interspersed with Elvis songs, and now I can’t listen to Hound Dog without picturing that kid dressed up as a dog. Another time, we rewrote that chain gang song from O Brother Where Art Thou to be mouse-themed. Yeah. I don’t know either.
By the time I turned 13, I had aged out of all the really fun camps I used to do. Gone were the days of my favorite theater camp and little kid piano lessons. It didn’t help that I live kind of in the middle of nowhere, so anything I was interested in was potentially hours away. 13 was also the age when I was going through the phase of thinking that it wasn’t cool to like things, so I was reeeeeally stubborn when finding something to do. Sorry, Mom! Anyway, a friend on the board of this one outdoorsy camp recommended their Counselor-in-Training program, so we signed up for two weeks, and my mind was BLOWN.
I had never been to a camp where I was outside all day, every day. I had also never been to a camp where I was supposed to be learning and helping, since I was now a CIT. In short, it was very intimidating. It was also absolutely incredible. The first week, for me, was filled with disasters: I got lost in the woods, I fell in a hole and scraped up my leg, and I made countless mistakes that tossed me from embarrassment to embarrassment. But somehow, everything in between those moments were filled with friendly, supportive people, awesome games and activities, a routine that appeased my young anxious brain, and above it all, the very clear sense that I was helpful and valuable. I was in love.
One thing about this camp is that it held a lot of things that I was scared of. First of all, criticism. I was in a learning position, which meant I had to be open to feedback and criticism from people who were both good and bad at giving it. Fortunately, most of the counselors were there for a reason and had been trained in good, empathetic communication. But at first, I was scared and took everything way too personally, which left little room for improvement.
What changed it for me was having a mentor I really respected who pointed me towards more experienced peers to learn from. I learned by observation and eventually got to a place where I was confident enough to accept feedback and learn from it. But it was a fear I really struggled to consciously overcome. I had a mental block against it, against accepting my mistakes and asking for ways to be better. It was especially challenging when I was told to ask for feedback, but the feedback I received wasn’t detailed or helpful. What I didn’t know is that asking for feedback is as much a skill as giving and receiving it.
The other person has to know you’re going to want feedback, so they have time to watch and think. So before you do something, you’ll want to let your mentor or authority figure know that you’d like their feedback later so that they can pay attention. Then, if they’re only giving you unhelpful answers, like “You did fine,” help them. Ask detailed questions that invite kind but helpful answers. Ask if you needed to be louder or your tone needed to be different, or if you could have phrased something differently. Ask about your body language, or if you could have made a more informed decision.
Most importantly, some people just aren’t going to be good at giving feedback. That’s an important thing to notice. Try not to be frustrated with the lack of answers, and just keep paying attention to yourself and watching others. Eventually, you’ll learn to give yourself constructive feedback instead of tearing yourself down. My only advice for that is to try and focus on working towards what you want to do instead of hating what you’ve already done.
I believe I mentioned earlier how kids love calculated risk and get a kick out of rebellion. This camp does a pretty great job of that. Besides being off trails in the woods for 10 hours a day, the camp also provides older kids with daily opportunities for activities like whittling with pocket knives, fire building, and my personal favorite, snake handling.
Important disclaimer! I’m seventeen and just a normal person. I am absolutely NOT an authority on snakes, so pleeeeeeeease don’t just go outside and pick up the first snake you see. Besides potentially being dangerous, they are also wild animals who deserve to be respected from a distance.
I always admired the counselors who knew everything about snakes. They could identify one within a second, without fail. After identification, they showed no fear in scooping them up out of the water, from under rocks or logs, and right from trees. They watched body language to tell how long you could hold a snake, and could make snap judgments to keep both people and the reptiles safe. Despite this, I never wanted to do it until my mentor challenged me to go through all the steps so I could handle snakes too. I was terrified.
I wasn’t necessarily afraid of the snakes themselves. I knew bites would hurt some, but I was okay with that. I think I was mostly afraid of failing. That whole week was a classic fake-it-till-you-make it situation. I was scared, so I pretended I wasn’t. Obviously, if you’re scared because your boundaries are being crossed, don’t fake it. In this situation, though, I was just stepping out of my comfort zone, where I had stayed for a long time.
I had more knowledgeable peers to support me and show me what my new comfort zone could be, and by the end of the week, I had learned to identify nearly all the snakes in the park, hold one properly and hand it to other people, and I had caught my first big one. It felt so good to overcome that fear and to be able to show it to campers and teach them what I had learned. It felt so good to release the animal back into the water or the forest floor and watch it slither away so smoothly. It’s really cool.
I now own a pet corn snake whose name is a nod to the mentor who encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone into a world I like a lot more. You can find him on Instagram @fred_the_snek.
I’m still a person full of fears. I’m anxious about conflict, about the future, about my abilities. But there are times when I’m reminded of when I rose to a challenge, knowing that failure was okay, and I could grow, no matter what happened. That’s a sentiment I try to hold onto, when I can.
Thank you for listening to Fast Facts for Gen Z. You can subscribe to this podcast for more episodes, or follow me on Twitter @FastFactsPod to tweet me your ideas of things I should talk about. This is Callie, signing off.
Comments