‘Unplugged, unharried, and delightfully unhinged’: The case for rewilding your child at Camp Ondessonk
When I was 10 1/2, I shared a tiny cabin for a week with one friend, four strangers, and about a bajillion wolf spiders, which I was certain were going to eat me as soon as I closed my eyes.
Well, maybe there were only one or two. But they felt big and numerous and hungry. And by night three, I was ready to call my mom and go home.
Except, there was no way to call her. This was back in the days before cellphones, when even the staff had to share one landline. The best I could do was send a postcard.
By the time that postcard arrived, though, it was four days later and I was back home, flush with stories of my adventures and new friends’ photos, and annoying my parents with the constant chanting of Ahatsistari’s unit cheers.
I hadn’t just survived; I had thrived. And I wanted more.
More time outdoors. More craft time. More canoeing. More trust from adults that I could keep myself safe. More hikes led by confident, quirky, quick-witted women who became my new heroes. More silliness and spontaneous singing. More frog sounds from the lake at night. More freedom.
That was 34 years ago, and I still go back to Camp Ondessonk for a week each summer now that my three sons are old enough to be campers or staff. One of my favorite volunteer assignments is to tag along on all-day explorations as a unit follows a nature crew member out into the Shawnee National Forest. I love to watch the “nature reset” process play out.
When we stop for an extended rest, first, the kids sit and sigh. They drink water. They look around. They may wait for someone of authority to tell them what to do now. No one does.
They get up. They shuffle their feet a bit. They kick up something interesting: a rock, a bug, pointy stick, a long blade of grass to split or shred. They turn to their neighbor and start up a conversation. They play hand-clap games like the ones their parents played at recess. Someone starts a pinecone war or a game of pinecone baseball.
They wade into the water fully clothed. They paint with mud: arms, legs, even hair, and they are told how amazing they look. They string up hammocks and swing from trees, breathing, moving with the treetops, letting go of all the stresses they carried into this week in the woods.
They become carefree kids again: unplugged, unharried, and, at times, delightfully unhinged.
I know my children need this time each summer. Even though we live in the woods, we don’t get enough days and hours away from screens and schedules. Life is different than when I was a kid, and that’s not all bad.
The kids I bring home after a week at Camp are not the ones I dropped off—and not just because they smell worse. They’ve sweated buckets and might not have slept well. They might not have brushed their teeth all week or taken a real shower. They probably have heat rash, legs full of bug bites, and someone else’s underwear. But they survived, they thrived, and they want more.
Once again, I see that beautiful spark of glee in their eyes that they used to have as toddlers. They’ve just spent six days running, shouting, laughing, skipping, hooting, hugging, and quite literally howling at the moon.
They’ve been rewilded. They are thankful. And I am thankful, too, because I’ve missed these dirty, exuberant, delightful messes of people. I don’t get to see them that way much anymore.
Camp allows them to remember that it’s OK, even aspirational, to get dirty; to get silly; to try hard or new things and to laugh about the results; to be nervous about meeting people but to try it anyway; to show up as yourself and be applauded for it—not because of something you did to deserve it, but because you, YOU, are enough as you are. Camp provides opportunities to learn these lessons naturally in ways that no structured sport or job-prep program can. Camp shows kids they are capable; they are strong; they are part of a unit, and that unit needs them to do whatever it is they do best, no matter how weird it might seem to some people. Camp loves them for it.
Everyone needs a place like that: a home away from home; a place where you belong.
If you and your children already know these things about Camp, thank you. Thank you for helping it continue its mission to provide “exceptional outdoor and spiritual adventures empowering kids of all ages” and for spreading news of it to others.
If you haven’t experienced it yet, please have faith in Camp’s leaders to keep your child safe and supported for a week away from home. And please trust your child to spread his or her wings a little in the Shawnee woods, buoyed by a community of love. They can do it; they just might not know it yet. Your faith could change their life.
Heepwah.
Sara (Bell) Clifford
Camper, CIT, staff and administration member, 1990-2002
Camper/staff parent, donor, and volunteer, 2015-present
Click here to learn more about Camp Ondessonk’s Summer Camp Programs.