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Summer camp is an adventure for all parties involved, especially the camp counselors who spend the days with parents' wild little ones, who they were more than happy to pay you to get rid of for a week. With summer underway, and in conjunction with the premiere of NBC's "Camp" on July 10, here are a few things for counselors to consider while trying to keep a leash on these kids and also maintain their happiness and yours.
Their Parents Will Return Soon Enough
So please refrain from killing them. They're only your problem/responsibility for a brief, exciting period of time, one which allows you the opportunity to teach them new and exciting things about the beauty of nature, the harm of having cable and Internet at all times and inspiration for the future. Then, their folks will arrive to relieve you of their soiled sheets and alleviate your migraines. Later, you'll laugh because you almost smacked one particularly irritating brat, forgetting that parents have that to deal with this crap for at least 18 years, sometimes 40.-
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Exploit Arts and Crafts Time
With enough devotion to arts and crafts, there is no doubt you can open your own Etsy shop with fairly low overhead. Child labor, you say? Sweat shops? No, this is simply taking the hard work of an overly zealous group of children, all under the age of 16, and using their sweat and tears to turn a mighty profit through your latest online bazaar of leather and hemp goods for the everyday Internet craft hoarder. Use their little fingers to your advantage, and feel free to turn it into a lesson in economics that they will assuredly thank you for later.
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No Soda After Sundown
No matter what you do, your camp kids can and will pee the bed. So it's a matter of containment. Soda, juice boxes or whatever tooth-decaying rot they put in their empty little heads is what will keep you up all night while they scream, pillow fight and give each other wedgies, especially if you let 'em consume it like the sugar-sucking vampires they are when the parents leave.
The best thing you can do, counselor, is monitor the intake. Make it known that he who stays up the longest will sleep outside with the bears. And practice getting everyone interested in the silent game; otherwise you'll have no hair left to rip out by the end of this blissful summer.
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Boys Learn About Girls at Camp
It's not enough to scare them straight though, only pique their interest. They learn about cooties, bikinis, makeout parties and best of all, older girls and their boobs. The job of a counselor is to somewhat sedate the hormones of the raging teenager and to keep every boy from having an earthquake in his trousers, a truly tragic scene at any campground.
Although girls are the best part of any wet, hot summer and historically as much a part of any good camp film, know that if those kids sneak out in the dark hours of night for a moonlight coed rendezvous, there's no telling the dollar amount in medical bills their parents will send you before that girl even hits her third trimester.
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Watch Out for Hot Tub Shenanigans
It's not a talk you'd ever expect to give your own child, let alone a strange youngster, but you inherited the responsibility when you took the job, troop master. It's as simple as this: Soap dispensers are for the cleaning of hands in, and only in, the confines of the bathroom.
Simply taking the soap bags out of said dispensers, shoving them in your pockets and hopping into the hot tub for a good laugh will only result in a suspension from these hot tubs, along with ruining a casually sudsy good time for everyone else. There are plenty of suds in the hot tub already, not enough room for the suds of another kind.
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If They Don't Shower, Hose 'Em Down
Campers are not required, by any means, to bathe themselves throughout their stay at Camp Boogerbutt, but that doesn't mean camp leaders can't come up with a good excuse to remove some of the stagnant filth from their bodies.
Hikes through the freshwater streams, rainy day games of Capture the Flag and a good old fashion water balloon fight are just small ideas in an otherwise abusive attempt to avoid sleeping with the stench of a hundred pubescent teenagers every humid night of your summer stay. You better be getting paid for this.
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They're Not Yours, So Be Honest
It's a parent's duty to indulge their kid's every whim without so much as a sigh, so long as the child doesn't commit murder or burn the house down. As camp counselor, the parents assume you own that just the same while their kids are under your watch, but in actuality, you can straighten that nose-picking, unpolished turd out if you so choose.
The trick is usually sensibility, using the appropriate manner in which to teach kids they're about two swings of the bat away from ending up in juvy with a bright future in janitorial work. Although it may be best to stay out of others' affairs, sometimes it doesn't hurt to tell a kid to quit sniffing his own farts and eating those boogers after a big breakfast.
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A Guitar Settles Children Down, But So Does Tylenol PM
Kids feel little else other than the need to be constantly entertained; otherwise, it's just the loud noises of them trying to entertain themselves. So entertain them and save your humanity. And we're not saying to drug the kids, but it is definitely a physical possibility that accidents like that do take place.
If you know a few songs on the guitar or ukulele, crack it out and shut them up. Sing-alongs are good because it keeps them focused, but odds are they aren't a bunch of little choir kids, so be wary. If you don't know how to play an instrument, go a capella, make up some camp stories, steal others' stories or learn a freaking magic trick. If you don't, it's your funeral, counselor.
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Get Those Waivers Signed
When you take a group of kids zip-lining, hiking over large rocks or catapulting them into large bodies of water, it might be best to know your ass is covered. Even in soft water activities, when you see the big kid of the group coming full speed at the skinny Buckwheat character wearing little protective gear, you better strap in for a quick trip to the camp nurse.
Remember that she faints at the sight of blood and has probably never had to reattach limbs before, so squash the foul play, bullying and rough-housing before someone is physically squashed and you have to use a metal rod to pry them from the Earth.
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You'll Regret Being a Prick
Kids love to pull pranks on each other, but even more so on adults, making camp counselors the perfect targets. It's in your best interest to be a cool, cautious counselor and not a stick-in-the-mud like most people with any certain amount of authority.
Instead of being an adult bully and bossing children around, befriend the kids and watch out for the ones who might get picked on. Chances are you were that kid once in your life, plus it'll help keep bear shit and fox piss out of your shoes, and you can yuck it up with the kids when they inevitably prey on the troop master with the biggest mouth who you don't like either. That's what camp is really all about!
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