ADDISON, Texas – Summer camps exist for most everything these days, but a behavior therapist launched a new camp for children intended to teach kids how to keep their cool.
“There’s a need to help kids learn how to develop coping skills to stress,” said Rusty Lozano, Center for Biofeedback and Behavior Therapy.
In stress camp, participants must climb through hanging obstacles in a padded gym while carrying a balloon, under strobe lights, through fog without touching the ground in under four minutes. “I give up,” said a 9-year-old participant named Ethan.
Children who don’t complete the course in time or touch the ground must return to the beginning. It’s more stressful than it appears. “You always make it too difficult. You never help me,” Ethan continued, clearly stressed out at the difficulty of accomplishing it.
“It’s impossible,” he added. “Pay attention to what’s going on with you right now,” Lozano intervened. “Think about how you’re feeling right now. How are you feeling?” “Nobody helps us,” Ethan said.
“We’re not supposed to. It’s stress lab. But how could you help yourself though,” said Lozano.The camp runs twice a week and is designed to desensitize children to stress.
“It’s gamey. We’re not trying to terrify somebody or make them super angry,” explained Lozano. “There are very specific treatment and coping mechanisms that these kids are learning.” Among them, are breathing exercises to calm down and focus.
“When they leave, our hope is these kids will be tempered to stress. How to cope with losing or unfair situations that don’t work out in their favor without getting too emotional that they can’t recover,” Lozano added.
The course in the stress camp is a lot harder than it looks. Graduates have returned to teach new students. Parents enrolled their children here – like at any camp – to teach them new skills this summer.
“The truth is most of the time when Jesse is stressed out, Rusty is not there,” said Marci Serota, mother of a participant. “So, it made sense to me to put him in a lab where he’s inducing the stress and troubleshoot and work it out.”
The camp has helped Jesse to identify stress and rely on breathing exercises he learned here. “It has helped. It has helped,” said Serota. “I’m able to remind him ‘Hey, use the breathing techniques that Rusty taught you.’”
“What’s happening with all the over stimulation is these kids are learning to be desensitized to stress,” Lozano said. “They’re being tempered to not getting their way, to losing.” It’s a unique concept – and a rare one taught outside the home.