Thug Life Meets Camp Life

The nuns that send kids from the inner city each summer also send teens to be part of our leader-in-training and counselor-in-training programs.

Carlo has come to camp for many years and was in the leader-in-training program for the last two weeks. A few years ago, when Carlo was a middle school aged camper, I wanted to shake him. He had an attitude and was "too cool" for everything. I asked myself, "why is this kid even here?"

And then I realized perhaps HE wasn't the problem. Perhaps the problem is that 14 year old boys don't want to make a craft project out of paper plates or whatever it is that we were asking them to do. So I started doing a better job of meeting kids where they are. Instead of yelling at the to behave, I asked the cabin of teenage boys what they would rather do. They had some actual ideas and when I gave them more of a say in what they were doing, their behavior improved.

From then on, that group of boys (including Carlo) and I have had a connection. They are loud, obnoxious, teenage boys from the hood, but they LOVE camp, they love me and they are FABULOUS campers. They look intimidating, they sound like thugs, but they are the most well behaved, devoted campers we have.

I was thrilled to have Carlo return to camp this year as a LIT. He is a strong leader, connected with the campers and impressed me so much. At the end of the second week, he looked so sad. He didn't want to leave. He said, "Ima come back next week." To which I replied, "ok!" to which he replied, "no, like seriously, I'm just gonna get on the bus and show up on Sunday and you'll be stuck with me." to which I said, "ok!"We were both smiling and I appreciated how much he seemed to enjoy his time at camp but didn't think he was really being serious.

I was a little surprised by the voicemail I got on Saturday morning from Carlo's mom. She said that the first thing he said when he got home was that he was going back to camp on Sunday and she just wanted to check to make sure that was really true before she brought him back on Sunday. I called her back and told her how impressed I'd been by Carlo and what a great job he'd done and yes, I would be thrilled to have him back to camp this week. So Carlo is coming back today to be a volunteer. 17 year old, too cool for words, Mexican gangster thug/ wannabe camp counselor. I guess we all have multiple sides to our personalities.