When your teen mentions an upcoming camp or expedition, you might feel your own worry surface. What if they can’t cope? What if it’s too much?

Here’s what we’ve learned from over 65 years of Adventure Camping at Baptist Care SA: the greatest gift we can give our young people isn’t protection from worry – it’s the chance to discover they can meet it.

 

The challenge for parents

We often hear from teachers and program coordinators about parents preventing their teens from attending outdoor education experiences out of concern they won’t cope. It comes from love but underestimates your teen’s capacity to rise to challenges and your own powerful role in helping them navigate worry rather than avoid it.

When your teen worries about a high ropes course, sleeping in a tent, or a multi-day expedition, that’s not a warning sign – it’s a growth sign. It means they’re about to do something genuinely meaningful.

 

How to support them

Listen without rescuing. Resist offering an escape route. Help them name their feelings: “It sounds like you’re worried about keeping up with the group.” Being heard reduces anxiety.

Reframe worry. “That nervous feeling tells me this matters to you. That’s a good sign.”

Trust the partnership. Schools and outdoor education providers invest significantly in training their staff to understand adolescent development and create meaningful challenges. These trained facilitators are building genuine connections with your teen and see your young person in ways you might not. When schools, parents, and outdoor educators work in alignment, that’s when the real growth happens.

Communicate confidence. Avoid giving “permission” to skip if it gets hard. Instead: “This will be challenging, and I believe you can do hard things.”

 

The transformation

A solo experience on camp is carefully designed as a threshold experience where lessons about resilience become real. Parents consistently tell us they see something shift afterward – their teens learn that worry doesn’t have to stop them and that they have inner resources they didn’t know existed.

Your teen can only cross this threshold if you hold space for them. Supporting them requires you to trust their capacity, tolerate your own worry, and let them discover they’re more capable than you’ve been protecting them from becoming.

While your teen crosses this threshold, we handle all logistics. Your job is simply to hold space and believe in them.

Baptist Care SA has been delivering outdoor education experiences for over 65 years and is the preferred service provider of TRJ Abyss expeditions in South Australia, supporting thousands of young people through transformative challenges. To learn more about our programs, visit: Adventure Camping – Baptist Care SA

If you’re a TRJ school looking for the right partner, contact our Adventure Services team on (08) 8388 5234 or adventure@baptistcaresa.org.au. We’re here to support schools and families through this meaningful threshold.

Click to view our latest Abyss video and download a copy of our TRJ flyer.