Personal Narrative: My Experience At The Hand-In-Hand Summer Camp

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It was the summer going into my freshman year of high school. It was a hot, humid summer day in June, on a Sunday afternoon where I first got notice of the Hand-In-Hand Summer Camp for children. My mother informed me that I would be a camp counselor for the week at the Hand-In-Hand Summer Camp for special needs children. To clarify what Hand-In-Hand is, it was started by one of my family’s great friends, Joanie Stiel. Mrs. Stiel had a special needs child, who was this beautiful,bright little girl that was diagnosed with Down Syndrome at birth. At a very young age this young girl's life was taken from her, and Mrs. Stiel wanted to do something about it. So, she started the organization Hand-In-Hand, which is a program for special needs children…show more content…
Heard and said everyday by thousands of people in the world is have the bad news first, then the good news after. In this case, let’s do the same and talk about the bad doings during the week of camp then the good. Now, the reason why I want to talk about the negatives during the week is simply because I believe I created a lot more positives that week to negatives. I mention the negatives in the paper because I want to let the reader know that I did make mistakes at the summer camp, but I learned and gained so much from the problems I created. The major negative in the week of the camp was getting so frustrated with the children. I can remember certain situations when I was just a jerk to kids that couldn’t help it. One in particular still stands out, when a little boy was not listening to my directions at all. I got so mad and angry that I just lost it. I yelled at that boy and it crushed him. Writing about it just makes me want to punch myself in the face. I apologized and felt horrible, but I knew he was scared of me and wanted to go home after that. I got so frustrated and angry over something dumb, and the end result of my bad doing was ruining a boy’s summer camp. It’s easy to get mad or angry at special needs children, but why should we when they can’t control it? Yes, it’s hard, but it’s something everyone should think about. Luckily, I was able to reunite with Luke (the young boy I yelled at, at summer camp). Luke and I are very good friend’s…show more content…
There are tons of positives I had throughout the summer camp Hand-In-Hand that I could talk about forever, but truly only four really stick out to me in a strong way. A main benefit from the camp was interaction with the children in my group. I was able to get to know the kids, each by name and be able to state something about each of them. The interaction part falls in with judging a special needs child because certain people judge these children before they even know them. So interaction I find is in an important key for a good relationship between two or more people. The interaction skills I learned at the camp grew my maturity, confidence, and social skills. The main benefit and positive I gained from the week was to be positive with the children. A positive attitude is crucial for anyone who works with special needs children. An individual will get absolutely nowhere with a bad attitude towards a special needs child. When another person is positive, kind, and encouraging to a special needs child, it really makes a big difference. People like myself are role models that these children look up too, so a positive attitude makes that much of a difference. A positive for the week I thought was showing respect to my group and their parents. They deserve my out most respect because they are letting me be able to teach and watch out for their child for a week. It’s a
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