Starting from age 10 through my Junior year in High School, I went to summer camp, camp Wawayanda in the Catskill mountains. It was a YMCA camp, back when the C meant Christian. We had other religions there, too, of course -- it was the Catskills! But I mention this because there was a Christian emphasis at the camp, however small. I was a camper for four years, and then a Trailblazer for two more. The Trailblazer program took a dozen or so young men of high school age up to Canada for four weeks. Three of those were camping and canoeing around the lakes of Quebec, the fourth was for preparation and travel time.
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My last year at camp, I was a
Junior Counsellor. Now, the way the camp
was set up, we had 5 “villages” of 5 cabins each, with eight campers in a cabin
and a counsellor. And each village had
one or two Junior Counsellors. The
campers would come for a two week period, arriving on Sunday and leaving two
weeks later on Saturday. The counsellors
would have two days off during the two week session, and it was the job of the
Junior Counsellor to substitute for whoever was taking their days off.
My first cabin, I was really
really green. The kids were wild, and
the counsellor didn’t do a very good job of keeping them in line. I dreaded the thought of having to take these
kids on myself. But the time came for
him to have his days off, and I was stuck with them. They didn’t do anything I asked, no matter
how I asked. They’d talk, wander off,
not stand in line straight at the dining hall, not clean the cabin. I was a failure as a counsellor, and it was
driving me crazy. After two days, I had
reached my limit. During an activity
period when the kids were occupied elsewhere, I walked up the mountain behind
the rifle range, where there was a large, sunny field of ferns, and just bawled
my heart out to God. I told him how hard
this was, and asked for His help. And
when I got back to the cabin, all of a sudden I had peace. And I decided I wasn’t going to stress out
over whether I was a failure or not, I wasn’t going to try to control these uncontrollable
kids. And, miraculously, they started
behaving.
I had been eyeing my next cabin
of kids, “Doug’s” cabin. When we went to
the dining hall, the routine was for all the kids to line up in a straight,
quiet line at the porch, and then we could proceed inside. Doug’s kids were always moving, and he was
constantly yelling at them to line up, stand straight, quit talking!!!! I was
not looking forward to that cabin. But
what a shock when I got there. I told
them to line up, and they lined up. I
told them to stop moving, and they stopped.
I never had to repeat myself. I
didn’t understand what was going on, and the mystery deepened when one camper
came up to me and said “We like you lots more than Doug”. I asked why.
He said “You don’t yell at us like he does.” I had discovered the principle of respect
reciprocity, by accident. If people,
kids or adults, don’t think or feel that they’re getting sufficient respect,
they won’t give it back, but if they perceive they are respected, they have no
problem reciprocating that respect. And
somehow, we had gotten off on the right foot.
From that time on, my camp experiences were trouble free. I was the counsellor, they were the kids, and
we were all here to have fun.
