How do you think a camping experience can benefit a child?

Kids are so often put in situations where they are shown the correct and proper way to do something. So often are their limitations pointed out. Whether it is through rules at school dictating to them exactly what they should learn, commercials and TV programs showing them what they should want and the way they should act, or just the restraints of the status quo showing them, where they belong. Camp is place where these restraints are removed and kids instead of being confined by rules and norms are able to learn the things they want in a way they want. Camp is a place for kids to experience things that they may otherwise never be exposed to. Camp is a place where it does not matter where a kid came from, or how much money their parents make. Camp is a place where everyone is treated the same and gets the same opportunities. Kids come to camp unsure of themselves, unsure of how they should act, and unsure of how to make friends. They are being thrown into a new and potentially very uncomfortable situation, but it works out because all the kids find themselves in the same situation. At camp kids are pushed to challenge themselves in ways they never before have had to, they learn skills they never knew they could have, and they make friends they can keep forever. I was always a pretty awkward kid and Im kind of an awkward adult, but at camp I was never awkward and will never be awkward. I fit in by being myself, always felt acceptance, and reinforcement in the decision to continue to be myself. Camp gave me the confidence, that I use to tone down the awkwardness and succeed. I know camp for me was instrumental in becoming the person I am today, which is a pretty good person, and I know that the experience of camp can and does do the same thing for many others. Children develop confidence at camp that they can get no where else. Confidence in not just what they are able to try and do, but confidence in who they are. It is a confidence I feel can be gained no where else in life.