Ages 12 – 14

 

Developmental Stages

 

Cognitive:

• Interest slight develop in reason, morality, religion, love, sympathy, appreciation

• Self-consciousness grows

• Mostly interested in present and near future

• Greater ability to work

• Shyness, blushing and modesty

• Show-off qualities

• Capacity for abstract thought

• Struggle with sense of identity

• Improved abilities to use speech to express oneself

• Realization that parents are not perfect; identification of their faults

• Increase vocabulary to 40,000 words (nearly double from ages 8-9

 

Activity:

Egg Drop – Working as a team to set up a device that will protect an egg as it drops 15 feet. This activity not only allows participants to enhance leadership skills and teambuilding skills, but it helps their capacity for abstract thought. If the egg survives, they learn a valuable lesson on creativity and teamwork. If the egg breaks, they learn how to not be self-conscious and realize that things go wrong, but you have a support team around you that is probably going through the same thing. You are not alone.

 

 

Social:

• Wants approval of own age group

• Interest outside home

• Same-sex friends and group activities

• Greater interest in privacy

• Rule and limit testing

• Occasional experimentation with cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol

• Close friendships gain importance

• Less attention shown to parents, with occasional rudeness

• Tendency to return to childish behavior, fought off by excessive activity

• Peer group influence interests and clothing styles

• Choose friends based on common interests, rather than parent selection

• Classify or categorize each other, such as "smart," "sporty," "nerdy," etc.

• Feel misunderstood by adults, especially parents

 

Activity:

Cooking Class – Teaching pre-teens how to cook helps them increase their independence and confidence while teaching them ways to eat healthy to maintain weight in the right way. They can take these skills home to strengthen their relationships with their parents by cooking for the family or with their parents.

 

 

 

Emotional:

• Lacks confidence in self    

• Some reach "gang age"

• Wish to dress alike

• Hero worship

• Share in group decisions

• Worries about being normal

• Moodiness

• More likely to express feelings by action than by words

• Search for new people to love in addition to parents

 

Activity:

“Stage Night” – Skits and “talent” shows are a great way to get kids to come out of their shell. In order to do this, I recommend that staff participate first. When program staff show their willingness to be silly, embarrass themselves, and just have fun, it gives kids the permission to do the same. It re-aligns the “norms” that they had previously established for themselves. Working as a group to create a skit, helps them be silly in a context of being safe because “everyone is doing it.” There are also many roles to putting on a skit – including costume design, directing, music selection, script writing, etc. So every personality type can be involved.

 

Physical:

• Metabolism approaches adult

• Increased strength, endurance, coordination

• Some reach puberty

• Girls ahead of boys

• Experimentation with body (masturbation)

 

Activity:

Festivus! – Festivus is a series of physical and silly activities that range in difficulty. Extremely athletic and active participants can sign up to complete the relay races, while kids that aren’t as physically active can help brainstorm the creative parts of the event, coming up with cheers, creating team handshakes and dance moves, etc.

 

Examples of Festivus Events:

 

Wet T shirt Relay – Each team lines up 15 feet from a bucket of water with a wet t shirt in it. Kids must run to the bucket, place the wet t shirt on, and run back to the next person in line, give the wet shirt to them, and that person then runs to the bucket, dunks the shirt in water, puts in on and repeats the process.

 

Team Dance Moves – Select a few members of the team to demonstrate a new made up dance move.

 

Watermelon Scoop – Select one team member to clean out half a watermelon with their bare hands. First team member to clean out the watermelon, place the shell on their head and sing the ABCs wins.

 

 

Ages 15 – 17

 

Developmental Stages

 

Cognitive:

• Self-involvement, alternating between unrealistically high expectations and poor self-concept

• Examination of inner experiences, which may include writing a diary

• Development of ideals and selection of role models

• More consistent evidence of conscience

• Greater capacity for setting goals

• Interest in moral reasoning

• Movement towards heterosexuality with fears of homosexuality

• Increase their hypothetical reasoning abilities

• Exhibit greater complexity of moral reasoning, including abstract principles such as unselfishness and altruism

 

Activity:

Program Reflection Activity: “I rock because” books or “beautiful” books. Each day teens are asked to reflect on how they have grown. They are given a “book” or paper to make a book, and asked to complete one page a day with the only guideline that they finish the sentence: “I rock because…” They can write a journal entry, draw a picture, or just write words. It is a constant reminder to them and helps their self awareness.

 

 

Social:

• Complaints that parents interfere with independence

• Intellectual interests gain importance

• Some sexual and aggressive energies directed into creative and career interests

• Frequently changing relationships

• Tenderness and fears shown towards opposite sex

• Concerns about sexual attractiveness

• Conduct increasing future planning

• Spend majority of time with friends, less time with parents

 

Activity:

Cooking Class – Teaching teens how to cook helps them increase their independence and confidence while teaching them ways to eat healthy to maintain weight in the right way.

 

 

Emotional:

• Extremely concerned with appearance and with one's own body

• Feelings of strangeness about one's self and body

• Lowered opinion of parents, withdrawal of emotions from them

• Effort to make new friends

• Strong emphasis on the new peer group with the group identity of selectivity, superiority and competitiveness

• Periods of sadness as the psychological loss of the parents takes place

 

Activity:

Taps – This is a game lead by an adult facilitator. All participants are asked to close their eyes. The adult chooses 3-5 teens to stand up and asks them to tap one person on the head that….(fill in the blank). Once they tapped that person, they are asked to sit down. The person they tapped must then stand and repeat the process. This helps build self-esteem, and shows that everyone has qualities that maybe they didn’t know that their peers even noticed.

 

Examples of (fill in the blanks) –

…inspired you today

…has the best smile

…makes you want to dance

…is beautiful

…you look up to

Physical:

• Increased strength, endurance, coordination

• Experimentation with body (masturbation)

• Experience further sexual maturation and explore issues of sexual identity

 

Activity:

Festivus! – Festivus is a series of physical and silly activities that range in difficulty. Extremely athletic and active participants can sign up to complete the relay races, while kids that aren’t as physically active can help brainstorm the creative parts of the event, coming up with cheers, creating team handshakes and dance moves, etc. Older teens can also be paired and put into teams with younger participants. This allows the teens to impart wisdom on the next generation and lose the competitive edge because they are learning to help another age group.

 

Examples of Festivus Events:

 

Wet T shirt Relay – Each team lines up 15 feet from a bucket of water with a wet t shirt in it. Kids must run to the bucket, place the wet t shirt on, and run back to the next person in line, give the wet shirt to them, and that person then runs to the bucket, dunks the shirt in water, puts in on and repeats the process.

 

Team Dance Moves – Select a few members of the team to demonstrate a new made up dance move.

 

Watermelon Scoop – Select one team member to clean out half a watermelon with their bare hands. First team member to clean out the watermelon, place the shell on their head and sing the ABCs wins.

 

 

Works Cited

 

American Camp Association (N.d.). Early Adolescence – Ages 11-13. Retrieved from http://www.campparents.org/11-13.

 

American Camp Association (N.d.). Middle Adolescence – Ages 14-16. Retrieved from http://www.campparents.org/14-16.

 

Arthritis Foundation. (2013). Camp Cruz Staff Manual (3rd ed.). Phoenix, Arizona: Allie Avishai and Jennifer Ziegler

 

Arthritis Foundation. (2013). Camp Cruz Schedule. Phoenix, Arizona: Allie Avishai