The Importance of Culture Processing with Kids - with Andy Shlensky - The A-Parently Podcast #29

Getting your kid to have an "intercultural experience" may feel like one of those things that would be great to be able to do, but that in reality, is hard to make time for.What if you didn't have to hop on a plane to help your kids get some of the benefits that come with an experience like that?It turns out, that you can do just that!Kids are exposed to new cultures all the time - especially in their younger years. As parents, our job is to make the space to process these micro-cultural exposures with our kids and help them unlock the transferrable skills of resilience and curiosity that they learned through experience!Not only does Andy Shlensky make space for this processing at Northstar Camp for Boys, but he lives and breathes it every winter when he and his daughter pick up and live abroad! Tune in to this episode not just for some incredible travel stories, but for some fantastically practical ways to help the kiddo in your life better process even the smallest cultural encounter.-Guest Bio:Andy Shlensky is the owner and director of North Star Camp in Hayward, Wisconsin, as well as the co-owner and managing partner of The Road Less Traveled, a service and adventure travel company for teens, and Bubbles Academy, an early childhood arts-integrated education center in Chicago. He decided to pursue a career in youth development and camping when he was a Counselor-in-Training at North Star. After graduating from Northwestern University, he became the boys camp director at a co-ed camp in Western Massachusetts before returning to North Star in 2010 to run the camp he grew up loving. Andy believes strongly in using experiential and outdoor education to endow future generations with the confidence, character, and life skills to go out and make a difference in the world. Andy is on the National Board of the American Camp Association and the board of the Midwest Association of Independent Camps. He works closely with several non-profit organizations including the Camp for All Kids Foundation, 4-Star Fellowship and Whole Child Arts. When not at camp or traveling, Andy lives in Chicago with his daughter Laney.