I’m all about empowering young girls so that some day they can be the leaders of Corporate America. But the Girl Scouts of the USA are taking things a bit too far.
Summer camp is supposed to be a time for fun and total wackiness for kids. I just sent my kids off this morning for their first day of camp and you better believe they’ll be endless stories when they get home about the silly things they did and the old buddies they got to play with.
Imagine for a moment if during a day of swimming, rock climbing and digging up bugs, your poor kids were forced to sit down with executives from corporations to talk about team building. 
This is exactly what’s going to happen at some Girl Scout Camps around the country this summer.
I got this press release from the Girl Scouts about a program they’re launching this year called Camp CEO, and I couldn’t believe what I was reading:
At the Girl Scouts’ Camp CEO, being held in several regions across the country, girls still take part in traditional camping activities like swimming, hiking and crafts, but this familiar summer pastime comes with a twist – girls will also be meeting with the nation’s top female executives to learn about issues like career planning, personal finance and team-building.
This doesn’t mean the girls will be swapping their swimsuits for business suits, rather the Camp CEO© program brings together women professionals from a variety of industries and a diverse group of Girl Scouts with demonstrated leadership abilities, in a traditional camp setting. The women share their stories of how they succeeded and help girls develop the skills needed to become successful professional women.
I don’t know about you guys, but the last thing I want my daughter doing during camp is thinking about being a professional.
We’re so wrapped up today in wanting kids to grow up fast that even camp time is not immune.
I know the Girl Scouts’ intentions are good. I love that they’re thinking about giving our daughters ammunition for their future professional lives. But people, this is summer camp.
We need to give kids a break already and let them laugh out loud and scream at the top of their lungs. 
We also need to stop constantly telling them how tough the world is going to be and how they should be ready for it now. Kids don’t ride their bikes around the block because we’re worried they might be abducted. They wear protective gear on every limb because they may fall. And this summer there will be some Girl Scouts networking with executive women instead of networking with nature.
Is this the only way to finally shatter the glass ceiling? I guess it cuts down on their risk of getting poison ivy.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I’m a father with children in both the Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations. My eldest daughter has long lamented that the program (and I know many program decisions are made locally by each troop and service unit) does not focus on camping and being outdoors (and my daughter is no tomboy by any measure). She’s actually been looking forward to being old enough to be part of a Venture Crew (Venturing is a co-ed program operated by the Boy Scouts of America) so she can spend more time outdoors.
My wife and I read about the CEO/business leader exposure, and our sentiments reflect your own. To us, the girls would be better off developing their confidence through the traditional program and their camp activities. Exposure to women in leadership should come through other avenues–either special events, or through everyday association.
I am more familiar with the Boy Scouts of America (in part, because I’m male and was a Scout myself, and in part because I have three sons who are Boy Scouts right now). One of the methods the Boy Scouts have long emphasized for achieving the aims of the program (character development, citizenship, and personal fitness) is association with adults. It is assumed, however, that this association is fostered through leadership in the local Boy Scout troops, and through connecting with the many merit badge counselors who serve as subject-matter-experts for the boys who want to learn more about specific activities. It goes back to the old saying that, with kids, “more is caught than is taught”.
Let the girls be girls, help them develop a fun and interesting set of activities, and let them develop relationships with their leaders and others who can help them with their activities. Then their learning about the work world will seem to be a natural part of their lives, and not the subject of some special session at summer camp.
I feel sorry for the speakers they have coming in to the camp sessions. They’ll be competing with the sights and sounds of nature, and with the freedom that comes with a week at camp. That’s some fierce competition.
[We now return to Career Diva’s blog…]
June 15th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Amen, sister. If my daughter comes home from camp talking about how to team build rather than how to catch a frog, I’m changing camps!
June 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Maybe they should be teaching the women executives how to catch frogs!
June 15th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
As a ‘team building’ provider and an outdoor instructor, I am of two minds about the benefit of offering a program such as the ‘Camp CEO’ that you described. I work with Girl Scout Troops all the time, both on my ropes course and out in the woods for rock climbing, caving, mountain biking and wilderness skills instruction. The benefits of facilitated team building improve exponentially when they are done in a wilderness, multiple-day, camp setting. However, the team building should be done by professional team building facilitators, rather than CEO’s. Just because you can successfully run an organization, doesn’t mean you can build a great team - if it did, I wouldn’t have such a successful corporate team building program!
June 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
It’s odd that people consider CEOs and other executives experts in team building. Corporate America has traditionally been very bad at this type of collaborative effort. I was covering the auto industry when GM and Chrysler finally got on the team-building bandwagon that the Japanese had mastered in their auto factories. Alas, the U.S. auto giants never quite got it. I remember interviewing the plant manager of a GM plant in Delaware who touted how much he wanted to empower the workers. All along he was secretly spying on workers to see if they were engaged in any illegal activity. So much for trust or team building.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
How old are these kids? Unless they’re 17, this is crazy.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
They start as Daisy’s in kindergarten all the way up to 17.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:20 am
You know what’s great about the Girl Scouts? It’s that they offer a huge variety of programs and activities and offer endless opportunities for a girl to grow in any field she desires. Being a Girl Scout of 9 years now, I know that if all a girl wants to do is catch frogs all day, they have a camp for that. You can go to camp to learn how to canoe or study marine biology, pitch a tent or learn about architecture, make the perfect s’more or the perfect crème brulee. We’re all different, we have different interests and goals, and that’s perfectly fine. But there are plenty of girls just like me who took the initiative on their own to apply for this camp (there is a selective application process), and who wanted to learn from these women because this is what they’re interested in. At camp, which is open to girls 15 & older, we weren’t sitting around listening all day; we had time to talk with the CEOs, (and attorneys, doctors, authors etc.), but we also bonded with them as they went canoeing, singing, doing archery, or geocaching WITH us. After this camp, I was still the same goofy, fun-loving girl scout—but I see things in a different light. School was a great experience because I had learned to step up as a leader and speak for myself as I grew involved in the school community, captured the opportunities that arose as a result of doing so, and cultivated my own personal interests. I made amazing connections with both my fellow Camp CEO girls and the women there that will last a lifetime. Camp CEO is NOT boring—it is anything but. The wonderful women that attended this camp didn’t really focus on business or their own lives and careers- they show us how to be strong and follow our own dreams. And having someone who’s never been to Camp CEO try to explain it is like having a blind person try to describe a rainbow: you can’t see how amazing it really is until you open your eyes and experience it for yourself.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:32 am
The Girl Scouts must be doing something right if girls like you Joanne are emerging from their programs.
I do have egg on my face a bit. It’s true, I have never attended Camp CEO, and maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on the idea. I’m glad to hear it wasn’t a boring, faux, boardroom meeting, and you all enjoyed each others company and traditional camp experiences.
Basically my point was that we shouldn’t be pushing our kids to grow up too fast. Girls do need to understand the real world of work, but they also have to enjoy being girls.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us. I think we all learned an important lesson from a smart, gracious 15 year old, especially me.