Do you remember when we went to summer camp and ate candy from the same bag with the whole group? And who remembers the “blankets” to leave a mess on the bed in a shared room? Today, at summer camps and camps, everyone thinks about themselves.
– At the camp, there was a buffet. Whoever got to the canteen first ate. No limits. For some, there was no longer enough bread or butter. It turned out that the children went down to dinner and someone had already eaten the chops, says the teacher. – I asked them if they didn’t feel sorry for their friends? Shouldn’t they leave something on their plates? Especially since sometimes the students who had some obligations were late. The teenagers didn’t understand, why wait? First come, first served, they said. When I made a big fuss about it, the kids were surprised. Eventually, it was the cooks who started saving some of the food for potential latecomers, never for their classmates, she says.
It was similar with the seating area. – There were common benches, but no one guaranteed that everyone could fit on them. If someone arrived last, he had to stand up. My classmates didn’t mind that. I had to ask them to move. They were very surprised that this had occurred to me, says the teacher.
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Teenagers on trips behave like customers. They are not prepared for any inconvenience, and conditions, even if slightly different from what they expected, trigger protests.
Like during a trip with high school students from Gdańsk to Italy. In a hotel near Rome, Joanna, a history teacher, waited until dusk for the students to choose their rooms. “They looked at all the beds and were picky. One didn’t like the bathroom, another didn’t like the carpet. After a whole day of sightseeing, I couldn’t rest. I was standing in the hallway with the keys because every now and then a teenager would reject a room,” the teacher says. Eventually, parents from Poland also started calling. “They received photos of their children, I heard, for example, ‘This shower doesn’t meet our son’s standards.’ The shower worked, but it was a bit rocky. I switched rooms with this student, that’s the only way we could all sleep,” the teacher says.
The trip was budgetary, approx. PLN per person. Three-star hotel, double rooms. – I’ve been going on school trips for years and have never encountered such demands. Their expectations are high and they are not prepared for minor inconveniences, says Joanna. And he swears: – I will never travel with my class again!
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– These are not some “bad kids”. They are simply taught to care primarily about their own well-being. They don’t know that they can think and act in a group perspective, says Tomasz Sikora. By day he is a scientist. This year he joined one of the sailing schools as a chemistry teacher. – I have been to many camps, both as a participant and as an educator. But the difference in the approach of young people in the past and today is very noticeable. We looked at each other. It was like: do you have something to do? Then I will help you. We worked together, built tents together and felt responsible for the group. If someone was missing, we looked for and took care of each other. I don’t see that among today’s teenagers, he admits.
In her opinion, the biggest problem is that young people don’t feel like they belong to the group. – They are mainly implementing their plan. Ten people are waiting and he needs to change his socks right now or go to the bathroom right now. He won’t wait, he won’t try to fit in with the rest, the needs of others don’t matter to him, says the teacher.
It’s similar with the following orders. – We rebelled, we argued, but the orders were carried out. This is especially important when sailing, when the fate of everyone depends on the work of one person. Someone showed us what to do on the boat, and then we tried to do it ourselves. It was known, for example, that the boat could not be lowered until the sails were released. Today? Every time you have to shout and convince them that this must be done. And explain why it is necessary and why you and not someone else. Young people treat orders as an option, guidelines rather than obligations, says Sikora.
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This summer, 12-year-old Janek wanted to go on his first Boy Scout camping trip. He had been preparing for it for months, going on two overnight camping trips to see if he could handle the harsh conditions in the woods. He returned from each trip happy but with a cold. This put a question mark on the summer camp – after all, it involved three weeks in a tent. “What if I pick up a tick?” Janek’s mother is worried. Every day he makes sure that doesn’t happen. “Who will check for that at camp?”
She tried to negotiate a shorter stay with the staff, but the organizers wouldn’t agree. That’s why Janek won’t go to the camp. He’ll spend the summer with his grandparents.
Many parents feel the same way. After all, all holiday guides warn about ticks and more. And how can you allow a child to camp in the woods?
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– Almost all parents ask about ticks. However, there is always a nurse in our camps who takes special care of this issue, says Mateusz Głuch from Wrocław. He is a teacher, scout instructor and survivalist, and has been organising survival camps for years. He admits that he has seen a change in the children’s mentality even in recent years. – There is always a group of campers who adapt more easily and others who have difficulty. The fact is that the proportions have changed recently and the latter group is becoming more and more numerous, says Głuch.
Camping in the woods is a drastic change in conditions for anyone, especially compared to today’s home comforts. There are no soft mattresses, it can be cold, there is dust everywhere. The food is also different, with no favorite dishes.
– In the past, it took a big storm to make children cry. Now, all it takes is a little disturbance. They’ll feel a bit cold at night, it’ll rain and they’ll want to call their parents – says Głuch. He has drawn up rules regarding telephones. The children only get a mobile phone at lunchtime and for the first two days only the caregivers have contact with the parents. – Previously, the children would call their parents after the first night, before they got used to the conditions. Emotions ran high, the parents panicked because the camp was dangerous, which caused chaos. Now I talk to them, he says.
In the early days, he receives a hundred calls a day. “When parents decide that everything is okay, they give up. And we have time to help the children adapt,” says Głuch.
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Today’s teenagers, or Generation Alpha, are the children of millennials, born after 2010, and are often the younger siblings of Generation Z. They are the ones who shape social networks, are the future consumers, and have the greatest influence on the image of many brands in the global market. Surrounded by technology since childhood, they have the opportunity to be the most educated generation in history and perhaps also the richest. According to scientists, Generation Alpha should be characterized by: tenacity and courage, as well as perseverance.
– I don’t see this perseverance, on the contrary – admits Tomasz Sikora. – If they don’t find a solution to the task on the first try, they think it’s done: they tried, but it didn’t work. And that’s it.
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– I see how the subsequent generations are less and less able to cope with difficulties – says Mateusz Głuch. And he admits that the camps are a big challenge. – They don’t want to get up to keep watch at night, they don’t know how to cook, they need to be taught how to peel potatoes. In the past, it was enough to show children how to build, for example, a fence, and they would try it themselves. Now you have to be with them non-stop and give them orders at every stage of the work: now you bring the pole and the saw, etc.
“They speak three languages, are great with computers, but they can’t cooperate and probably wouldn’t change a light bulb,” says Patryk Hałajczak, a psychologist, therapist and school psychologist. He admits that the problem affects not only upper-middle-class families, but also less wealthy ones. “Only the parents clean the house or you come and clean the house, the children never wash or iron, they don’t make their own breakfast, not even school breakfast. Librus is operated by the father’s or mother’s assistant. It’s no wonder that they lose their responsibilities already in high school,” says the psychologist.
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Anna Turula, a teacher and English teacher, has just returned from sailing school. She talks about how difficult it was to motivate her students to work on board and study every day. “They are painfully assertive, they treat their teachers as peers, and even worse. For example, one student said to a Polish teacher: ‘You have a problem, you dictate too fast.’ Or to me, when I was having breakfast: ‘You sat in my seat.’ Assertiveness among today’s teenagers sometimes means insisting on trivial matters with a tenacity worthy of a better cause.”
But, as the teacher says, today’s teenagers are second to none when it comes to games and fun. “Those who are reluctant and unable to mobilize themselves suddenly accept the challenge and rise to the occasion. The officer on our sailboat bet that he would take over the night watch and stand at the helm for an hour in his bathing suit if each of them did the same during the day. It worked. And it was actually quite a feat, because it wasn’t at all hot. If you tried to get the same from them by talking about duty and responsibility, they would run away or pretend not to hear,” the teacher jokes.
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Dorota Minta, a psychologist and therapist, starts a conversation with parents of teenagers with a question: what does the child do at home? Most often she hears: he cleans his room. “He’s doing it for himself,” she tells parents. Does he do anything for other family members?
– There is silence in response. It would never occur to them that a child could do something for them. That would be oppressive! – says Minta. And she asks: – Why should only parents take care of their child: feed him, clothe him and educate him, and the child cannot reciprocate? It is not about responsibilities. The point is that it is worth doing something for others. We forget this. And the natural egocentrism typical of a 5-6 year old child has passed into adolescence, leaving us with self-centered and helpless teenagers. What will happen when they grow up like this?
