The premise of the book is great and the author really delivers. Great read. Highly recommended. .

Nicely complied list that screams summer time fun. I don't necessarily feel there is much new information contained inside that differs enough from our current collection to purchase.

If you've seen my other recent posts, then you know that we just sent my 11-year old son to overnight camp for the first time. It was quite the learning experience for all of us so I was extremely interested in reading Happy Campers by Audrey Monke. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect...was she going to recommend that we canoe every day and sing campfire songs every night? I must say, however, that I was absolutely delighted with this book. I read the entire thing with a highlighter and took away so many great parenting tips that I know I'll need to keep this book on hand for a good number of years going forward!

Monke begins her book by establishing her credibility as a parenting expert. She has 4-5 kids herself but her real qualifiction comes in the form of having owned a summer camp since she was right out of college. First, I can't imagine trying to own and run anything at that age...but I certainly wouldn't have had the wherewithal to take on the business aspect of a summer camp at 22 (let alone responsibility for hundreds of other people's children!) Her story is incredibly interesting and really establishes her as someone with incredible foresight and an amazing head on her shoulders!

As I said, I read this book with a highlighter...I got about 1/8 of the way through it and realized that I was going to want to keep track of a number of pieces of parenting advice that Monke was providing. Her book is broken into 9 primary chapters...9 seperate areas of advice that she recommends we focus on with our children. Each area feels distinct and important...she covers such topics as fostering independence and building grit. She also breaks each chapter down into the following sections:

One Simple Thing - Identifies a small tweak that, as a parent, I can make to my own behavior.
The Sticky Note Solution - One or two simple things I can do with a sticky note to drive home the lesson of the chapter for my child
Make it Fun - Ways to bring fun into introducing the chapter topic to your family
Around the Campfire - Suggestions for daily family sharing
Family Meeting Topic - Ways to implement formal communication for the whole family on a given topic
Diving Deeper - Ideas for creating substantive shifts in family culture

I really appreciated the way the book was broken up because it gave me a number of different ways to approach Monke's suggestions. On some topics, I'm ready to make wholesale changes to the way my family handles certain things...one others, one simple thing is just about all I can handle. Either way, I feel like I have strategies for taking on the suggestions that I value right now. Give me a solution that is going to take weeks to implement and you might as well forget it, I'll never get back to it!

Monke's book is peppered with both solid advice and compelling stories. As a busy mom, it's much easier for me to internalize her advice if I'm given a concrete example of how it applies. She not only provides examples of how she learned the importance of each of the areas she promotes at camp, she gives us practical examples of how to apply them at home. Monke has the advantage of having known thousands of kids over her years as a camp owner but also being the mom in a relatively large family. She can give objective positive and negative growth examples from camp but also explain how she has applied those learnings (for better or worse) to her own children.

One of the things I really appreciated about Monke's writing style is that it is very personal. This is not a textbook. It's also not judgy or mom-shaming. Monke is very open about where, as a camp owner <em>and</em> as a mom, she has succeeded and failed. Even in situations where she's illustrating mistakes that she believes were made by parents of her campers, she takes the time to empathize with their decision making process and explain the rationale that might have led them to their thought process.

All in all, I walked away from reading Happy Campers with tons of food for thought and several pages of notes! I've already implemented one of Monke's ideas: as a family, we share our daily high point and low point every night before bed. It's been an easy way to learn more about what my son is experiencing day in and day out and to teach him that it's important to ask and learn about other's experiences as well! Happy Campers is applicable for parents of children of all ages (truly, I wish I had ready many of Monke's suggestions earlier) and I highly recommend it as an easy-to-read, highly digestible way to evaluate some important parenting topics!

Audrey Monke, the mother of five and owner of Golden Arrow Camp in Sierra National Forest in CA, has shared with us what she has learned in her 30 years of kids, camp, and campers that we can implement in our everyday world to ease the lives of our youngsters. Her positive attitude and willingness to accept youngsters at their own self-recognized level are telling. It is so easy to lose the connections we share with our kids in the day-to-day hassles of life by forgetting that they also have opinions and thoughts and dreams that we might overlook when the trash doesn't get taken out and no one can even see the floor of their rooms and bills need to be paid and the laundry is piled neck high. Ms. Monke's suggestions are spot on and ones we all need to re-enforce in our everyday lives. Even her chapter titles will spur you on to looking at life a little differently - and her words will inspire you as they have me. This is a book I will gift to my great nieces, the new mothers of the world of tomorrow. I wish it had been written many years ago.

I think the most important information is in how to recognize and handle bullying from the point of view of the Bullier and the bullied. But also the chapter on recognizing the growth and capability of children as they mature is essential. And the knowledge that 'grit is grown outside the comfort zone.' And 'make it cool to be kind.' All parents and grandparents need to read this book. And send a kid to camp...

I received a free electronic copy of this self-help book from Netgalley, Audrey Monke, and Center Street Publishers. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this book of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.

HAPPY CAMPERS

“A ship is safe in harbor,
But that’s not what ships were built for”

-attributed to John A. Shedd

I really, really enjoyed this book. It gave me all the “happy feelings” of summer camp, days full of joy and long summer nights!

Written by Audrey “Sunshine” Monke, mother of five children and owner-director of Gold Arrow Camp, it is based on the author’s extensive experience on the skills that our children need to thrive as adults.
She uses 9 Camp Secrets proven again and again to help children to cultivate important life skills for them to have a happy life.

Connection Comes First
Catch Them Doing Something Right
Positive Practices Produce Optimistic Kids
All Kids Can Be More Independent
Grit Is Grown Outside the Comfort Zone
Kids Are More Capable Than Parents Think They Are
Kids Thrive with Structure
Make it Cool to Be Kind
Coach Kids to Better Friendships

Every chapter presents a lot of different strategies to implement the “camp secret”. At the end of each chapter there are concrete ideas and steps that you can use in your own home! These are: One Simple Thing (basic advice), the Sticky Note Solution, How to Make it Fun, Around the Campfire (how to discuss that particular challenge during dinnertime / bedtime), a Family Meeting Topic and Diving Deeper (a more detailed approach).

At the end of the book, there is a Ready for Adulthood Checklist which is an extensive list of all skills that an adult needs to thrive in our world.

An excellent book on parenting written in an easy and relatable language that is full of practical advice on raising happy kids!