Life Skills Camps for Teens

By Matt Scheer, eHow Contributor

Source: ehow.com

Life skills camps focus on improving the wellness of a young teen in a fun group setting. Frustrated teens who are not living up to their potential may benefit from the guidance a life skills camp can offer. These camps may specialize in different areas of life, including drug rehabilitation, confidence, physical fitness, self-discipline, and social skills, while others encompass a more holistic approach.

Academic Camps

Academic camps, such as Super Camp, focus on improving the academic excellence of the participating teens. Because the skills for succeeding academically overlap with those that are needed to succeed in other areas of life, academic camps provide training that can help a teenager after his or academic career is through. Improving teens' self-confidence, for example, can improve their ability to take tests, though before, they may have struggled out of anxiety.

Outdoor Camps

Outdoor camps help teens practice life skills through outdoor activities, such as hiking, camping, tennis, and more. Camp Hillside, the summer program of Hillside School in Massachusetts, for example, features leadership training programs that develop a teen's leadership skills in outdoor obstacle courses. Caring for one's own health is a crucial life skill that many teens may fail to learn; an outdoor camp doesn't just teach a teen how to play a sport or row a boat, commonly offered activities, but how to care for his or her own health and fitness.

Drug Recovery Camps

Drug rehabilitation camps specialize in helping teens who have or are struggling with drug abuse. The Camp Recovery Center, for example, treats drug addiction, in part, by immersing the teenage participant in a new lifestyle and teaching new life skills, such as accurate self-assessments and exercise to build courage. These camps feature the experience and expertise to deal with a teenager who has been or is addicted to drugs, whereas other camps that do not focus on this niche may not.

Multicultural Camps

Multicultural camps teach teenage attendees important life skills in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural setting. Learning how to treat people who come from different backgrounds or hold different beliefs from your own is an important life skill that teens can use and cultivate throughout life. Camp Kupugani, for example, allows diverse group of teenagers to participate together in many fun and challenging group activities, like rock climbing, which help the teens form bonds they may not otherwise have been able to form.