If you really want the campers to listen to you, kids enjoy boundaries. If there are no boundaries the campers do not know where the line is and they try hard to find it. In doing this they could cause a lot of problems and hassle trying to find the line. The best thing is to set the bar and then stick to it. If you make a threat and then do not follow through the campers will see that and you lose all credibility with them and they will not listen to you. Once they know that you mean business then you can give them freedoms and good times.

You need to be the leader before you are their friend. Once you are their leader, then they will respect you. The way that I did this was the first night I would be very hard on them during devotions and evening clean up. I would not give the campers any freedoms. We would go to brush our teeth as a cabin they would make a line and we would go back to the cabin all together. Before we left I would tell them what would happen if they got out of line, if they got out of line then they got the punishment. The first night sucked for everyone. Then the next day if they listened to me I would give them little freedoms and as they respected me I gave the more and more freedoms. However if they ever abused that freedom they lost it all and then it was no fun again.

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