What age did you stop making g your kids go to camp?
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Anonymous
| DS just turned 13 and had announced no camps. He’s too young to get a job but I told him he has to do volunteer work, no way I’m going to have him playing video games all summer. It’s going to be a miserable summer for me, his sister did this last year- watched movies, social media, shopped- gained 15 lbs. we fought constantly, now my son? |
Anonymous
| Reached a compromise with my 13yo - a few weeks of camp with 11yo sibling, a few weeks of specialty camp of choice, a few weeks of nothing scheduled. |
Anonymous
| Sleepaway camp, 6 weeks |
Anonymous
| Age 6 |
Anonymous
|
Drop the rope on the fighting by getting ahead of it. Sit down with them and make a loose schedule of things to get done.
The first few weeks, let them loaf. After July 4th, tighten up ship a bit. But also have reasonable expectations that they may just need the downtime. Ideas: -cleaning areas of the house (one a day) -prepping dinner -organizing a closet -make a family photo album -sign up for a class or activity -exercise each day (walk, gym, class, pool, whatever makes sense for them) -reading 2-3 paper novels (not on a screen) It's good for them to have some down time and lazy summer days. But I'd try to balance that with chores and helping the family. If they don't want to do that, they need to find something ELSE to do. |
Anonymous
|
12 |
Anonymous
You stopped sending your kid to sleep away camp at 6 weeks? And before that you did send them? |
Anonymous
| My kid had always done a variety of day camps because of our work schedule and he likes to be busy. The summer he was 13 turning 14 was when Covid stopped all that and I was worried about how things would go. He ended up having a rather magical summer actually he and his buddies spend a lot of time biking in the woods, around town, down to the beach etc. etc. Obviously all the possible in a small town but he loved the independence. And he was pretty much outside all summer. |
Anonymous
| I’m having a hard time coming up with a full summer for my 12 year old. He did sleep away camp last year but doesn’t want to return. He is signed up for some baseball training and I’ll probably send him to flag football for a week but the rest of the time he’s going to just read and do chores and hopefully we’ll be able to use the public pools more this summer. I’m a big believer in downtime and boredom aka 70’s summer. He’s also been riding the bus on his own this year so he can make plans with friends and go places with them. |
Anonymous
| Send him to a teen oriented sleepaway camp. |
Anonymous
|
My kids stopped doing all-day summer camp when she was old enough to stay home w/o supervision, but they still did a few camps over the summer. Some half day for a week, some all day. Worked out to be about half of the summer was in sports camps (their thing).
When summer camps were announced, we’d sit down and together pick some and create the schedule. Their no-camp weeks were certainly filled with lots od screen time, but they also had a list of chores to complete every day. |
Anonymous
Not the OP. This is good. I will try to do something similar. |
Anonymous
| When they were able to get a job for the bulk of each weekday. Not quite 40 hours a week, but close to it. |
Anonymous
Sorry, fragmented thought... I meant, said he to sleep away camp for 6 weeks. My 12 and 10 yr old go and love it. The camps run up to 15-16 and I expect they will still want to go until then. |
Anonymous
Hugs, OP. Sounds like his older sister was a role model for this situation. Can I ask: - which social media platforms are your kids on? |