By Jennifer Goen, Current BLC Parent

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Brown Ledge Camp, and that milestone feels like a fitting moment to ask a deeper question:

Why has this place mattered so much to so many girls for so long?

What is it about Brown Ledge that makes it feel not just fun or memorable, but genuinely transformative?

As both a BLC parent and an 20 year veteran educator, I’ve found myself thinking about that a lot. I’m a teacher and researcher who writes about self-governance, student agency, and self-directed learning, so I spend a great deal of time thinking about the kinds of environments that help young people grow into confident, capable, connected human beings.

That’s part of why Brown Ledge feels so significant to me.

My older daughter found Brown Ledge herself when she was just 11 years old. She watched promo videos from dozens of camps. Finally she resorted to a Google search: “chill, laid back, and non-programmed camp for teenage girls”, and Brown Ledge was the first hit. Even then, she seemed to know something important about herself: she needed freedom. She has now spent five summers at BLC and will return this year as a Junior Counselor. This summer, my younger daughter, also 11, will go for the first time.

Watching one daughter be shaped by this place, and another now step into it, has made me think more deeply about what Brown Ledge actually offers girls, and why it seems to stay with them long after the summer ends.

One of the clearest ways I’ve found to understand it is through Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a well-established psychological theory of motivation, well-being, and human flourishing. At its core, SDT suggests that people thrive when three basic psychological needs are supported:

• autonomy: the need to feel choice and volition 
• competence: the need to grow, improve, and feel capable 
• relatedness: the need to feel connected, valued, and known 

What strikes me is that Brown Ledge seems to have been built around these principles for a century, long before research gave us language for why they matter so much.

Autonomy: The Freedom to Become Yourself

The defining feature of Brown Ledge is its Freedom of Choice philosophy.

Campers are not moved through a tightly programmed schedule or assigned a pre-planned path through camp. Instead, they choose how to spend their time, which activities to pursue, and how deeply to invest in them.

That may sound simple, but it is actually profound.

In Self-Determination Theory, autonomy does not mean a lack of adults, expectations, or boundaries. It means that a person experiences their actions as self-endorsed. 

The structure of Brown Ledge seems to understand the basic need for personal autonomy.

In the camp’s program video, one camper describes the feeling of waking up to an “endless possibility” of what the day might hold. That phrase captures something powerful: not just freedom in a casual sense, but the experience of being able to organize your life around your own interests, curiosities, and emerging identity.

That kind of freedom is increasingly rare for kids.

At Brown Ledge, girls are constantly practicing decision-making:
Where do I want to go?
What do I want to work on?
What am I curious about?
What kind of day do I want to have?

Those are not small questions. They are the building blocks of self-direction.

My daughter did not go to Brown Ledge because someone told her it would be good for her. She wanted a place where she would not be over-programmed, and over time, that freedom has done something bigger than simply help her enjoy camp.

It has helped her trust herself.

She has spent whole summers becoming a master archer, she has tried riflery, she has spent many years horseback riding, she has joined the dance team, she has learned to sew, weave, and create art, and she has worked backstage in the theater. But she has not spent much time in the water, though I suspect my younger daughter may spend most of her summer there. That contrast is part of the point.

Brown Ledge does not force girls into a version of what camp is supposed to look like. It gives them room to discover what kind of camper, learner, and person they want to be.

But importantly, this freedom is not random or unsupported. It exists within a camp environment that is clearly designed with care, expertise, and high expectations. Girls are trusted to choose, but what they are choosing from is rich, serious, and thoughtfully structured.

Because when girls are given the freedom to follow what genuinely interests them, within an environment that takes their growth seriously, they begin to develop something deeper than preference. They begin to develop a stronger internal sense of self.

Competence: The Confidence That Comes from Being Taken Seriously

Freedom, of course, is only part of the story. Girls also need opportunities to grow.

And Brown Ledge does not just offer girls the freedom to sample experiences. It offers them the chance to build real skill, pursue meaningful challenges, and feel the satisfaction of getting better at something that matters to them.

One of the things that makes Brown Ledge distinctive is that it does not treat activities as filler or entertainment. It treats them as worthy of real engagement. Girls are not just casually exposed to tennis, riding, theater, archery, sailing, riflery, or dance. They are given the chance to actually learn. And that learning is supported by expert adults who know their craft and know how to teach it.

Brown Ledge hires counselors and staff with genuine expertise in the areas they lead, and I think that is a huge part of why the camp experience is so powerful. Girls are not simply being supervised. They are being taught by people who can help them move from curiosity to skill, from participation to mastery.

That matters enormously in terms of competence, one of the three basic psychological needs in Self-Determination Theory.

Competence is the human need to feel effective, capable, and increasingly skillful in the world. It is what develops when a child is challenged in the right ways, supported by clear guidance, and given the chance to improve through effort.

Brown Ledge understand that competence does not grow through empty praise or low-stakes participation alone. It grows when girls are invited into something real and are trusted to rise to it.

The badge system is vital in helping the girls build competence.

At Brown Ledge, campers can work toward Basic, Intermediate, and Vanguard badges in different activities. These are not casual participation awards. They represent sustained effort, serious skill development, and a clear sense of accomplishment.

What I find so compelling about this system is that it reflects something many schools and programs still struggle to get right: children need structure, but they do not need control.

Self-Determination Theory makes an important distinction between the two. Control pressures children from the outside. Structure helps them grow.

Brown Ledge seems to offer structure in one of the healthiest possible ways.

The badge system provides a clear developmental path. It gives girls a way to see what growth looks like and what it might take to move from beginner to highly skilled participant. It creates a kind of developmental lattice: enough scaffolding to support growth, but not so much pressure that the process becomes externally driven.

And because there is no rigid schedule and no forced participation, that growth remains volitional. A girl works toward a badge because she wants to, not because she is being pushed through a system of evaluation from above.

My older daughter’s clearest example of this has been archery. Over the years, she has grown steadily in that area, and this summer she will go for her Vanguard badge. That represents much more than a camp milestone. It reflects years of self-directed practice, persistence, and personal investment.

Part of what makes Brown Ledge’s model so powerful is that girls are free to explore broadly, but they are also able to go deep.

They can discover a new interest on Tuesday and pursue a long-term passion over the course of five summers.

And because the pursuit of mastery at Brown Ledge is not framed as competition against others, it seems to create a healthier kind of confidence.

Girls are not chasing status.
They are not trying to outperform each other.
They are trying to grow, which creates the kind of confidence that lasts.

Not the fragile kind built on praise alone, but the sturdier kind that says:

I chose this. I worked at this. I can do hard things.

I have seen that confidence carry over far beyond camp.

When my daughter started middle school, she wanted to try stage directing in theater. At Back-to-School Night, she sought out the theater teacher, introduced herself, and told him all about her experience stage directing at Brown Ledge. For the first time in a school setting, I took the back seat. She knew what she wanted and led her own learning.

That was not a huge moment in the grand scheme of life, but it was a deeply important one for me as a mom. 

Camp had helped her become the kind of person who could walk up to an adult, advocate for herself, and step into a new opportunity with confidence. She went on to do stage directing throughout middle school, and I can trace a direct line between the person she became at camp and the person she was able to become at school and at home.

Relatedness: The Belonging That Makes Growth Possible

If autonomy gives girls freedom, and competence gives them confidence, relatedness gives them the emotional safety to grow.

This may be the part of Brown Ledge people feel most immediately, even if they do not have language for it.

So many campers and alumni describe Brown Ledge in terms of safety, acceptance, belonging, and unconditional love. In the camp video, girls talk about it as a place where there is “no judgment” and where they feel free to push their limits and discover who they are.

That aligns closely with what Self-Determination Theory tells us about relatedness: people flourish when they feel securely connected to others, cared for, and important within a community.

Girls are far more likely to try new things, risk being beginners, recover from mistakes, and stretch into unfamiliar parts of themselves when they feel securely held by the people around them.

Brown Ledge seems to create exactly that kind of environment.

The camp’s culture appears to communicate, over and over:
You belong here.
You matter here.
You can try here.
You can become here.

And what I love is that this belonging does not just come from being included. It also comes from being able to contribute.

My daughter has told me stories over the years about the entrepreneurial energy that emerges when girls are given enough freedom to act on an idea. One example that has stayed with me is the bus note delivery system one camper created to help organize the exchange of end-of-camp notes so everyone would receive their letters before leaving for home or the airport.

In many settings, children are simply managed by adults. At Brown Ledge, girls seem to be trusted as people who can notice needs, solve problems, and contribute meaningfully to community life and this is part of what makes the place feel so alive.

It is not just that girls are cared for there.
It is that they also get to matter there.

Why Brown Ledge Still Feels So Different

One of the most striking things about Brown Ledge is that it feels, in many ways, ahead of its time.

This is a 100-year-old camp, and yet so much of what makes it work aligns with what contemporary research increasingly tells us about healthy human development.

Research is only now catching up to what Brown Ledge seems to have understood all along:

Girls flourish when they have:

• meaningful freedom 
• real opportunities for mastery 
• and a strong web of belonging 

They flourish when adults trust them.
They flourish when they are not over-controlled.
They flourish when they are allowed to discover who they are by actually living.

That may be why Brown Ledge seems to stay with girls so powerfully.

It is not simply fun.
It is not simply nostalgic.
It is not simply a beloved tradition.

It is an environment that appears to be built, intentionally or intuitively, around some of the deepest psychological conditions for growth.

More Than a Summer

As a parent, what I keep coming back to is this:

Brown Ledge has given my daughter more than memories.

It has given her confidence to try new things.
It has given her opportunities to grow on her own terms.
It has given her experiences that changed how she saw herself long after camp ended.

And that, to me, is what makes a place truly special.

Girls arrive at Brown Ledge with curiosity, uncertainty, energy, and possibility.

And when the environment is right, they leave with something more:
more confidence,
more self-knowledge,
more courage,
more connection,
and often, a clearer sense of who they are.

That is not just a successful summer.

That is human development at its best.

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1449618

Ryan, R. M. (Ed.). (2023). The Oxford handbook of self-determination theory. Oxford University Press.

Ryan, R. M., Reeve, J., Kaplan, H., & Cheon, S. H. (2023). Education as flourishing: Self-determination theory in schools as they are and as they might be. In R. M. Ryan (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of self-determination theory (pp. 591–618). Oxford University Press.