I have spent a great deal of time working as a counselor, mentor, tutor, and leader for burgeoning youth. These positions required immense patience and understanding for the kids and for their parents. In many cases, the parents were significantly more difficult to deal with than the kids. I learned an incredible amount about working with people, and about working with customers from these kinds of experiences. Two positions stand out the most to me, and they would be my time as a counselor at Awosting Camp for Boys and my time as a prefect at my Private Boarding High School in Kent, Ct.

Camp Counselor – Awosting

Being a sleep away counselor for little kids definitely taught me the skill of patience. The lesson was learned mostly in the face of emotionally desperate young children who would creatively and continually conjure up ways to taunt and annoy whoever the adult was who was tasked with their care. While this seems annoying and believe me, it was, the job was more importantly, to accommodate the real needs and worries of children who were away from their parents for extended periods. Many of them for the firsts time ever.

When most parents send their kids away to camp, they take great care in providing lists which have many little details, stipulations, different medical needs, like inhalers and such along with rules that have to be remembered and applied to each child. When each camper called their parents for a particular week, they would tell them all about that list. If the person in charge of primary care for their child hadn’t listened to their special rules and requests, the parents might not feel satisfied or feel comfortable sending their child back to the same camp the following season.

The interesting part comes when you have three different counselors in the same cabin all with different ideas about how to work within the different boundaries set by each parent. It is then that you have to be creative and come up with quick solutions that make everyone happy.

At the end of that camper’s time there, the parents come back to pick them up, and the kids will point out their favorite counselors, and their least favorite for a variety of reasons. One counselor could be the campers least favorite but that camper had actually grown because of the experience. That is not lost on the parents though. Often both the least favorite and the most favorite will be given tips by the parents, depending on the reasons. The happier you make the parents, the more they tip you.

Prefect – Marvelwood

As a Prefect, I was tasked with the responsibility of enforcing regulations such as jobs, dorm rules, bedtimes, wake up times, and study hall. In addition to that, I acted as the first line of defense for the staff, dealing with minor fights, roommate issues, and bullying problems.

A Prefect’s job was to meet and greet with parents on move-in and move- out days. We represented the face of the school. I cannot count the number of times I have rearranged the furniture in a dorm room because somebody’s mom wanted to see it another way. Instead of getting impatient, however, I would just speak openly with each parent, working with them to help make all experiences better.

After doing this 50 times a day, 10 days a year, for 3 years, I learned in real time how to quickly assess and understand the parents and the students’ needs and desires, and to quickly and calmly deliver, making everyone involved happy whenever possible. These parents were leaving their child sometimes for the first time ever and vice versa. This is a potentially emotional circumstance for all involved, whether first time or 4th. The parent would also want to be strong for their child. This was all in the back of my mind during each of these days. These lessons stay with me and inform me as I move into new experiences.

These two places, Awosting and Marvelwood, are some of my favorite on earth. In each, I was given the opportunity to help people in their daily lives. This responsibility to help people solve everyday issues, big or small, helped me discover my passion for working with people and finding ways to help them.