To call camp or not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would stop by the camp and hang out. Have lunch there or watch the activities. It will give you a much better idea of the whole picture -- how other shildren behave, how your child behaves, and how the counselors react. I know it is frusterating to take time out of your day when you paid for childcare, but that hour or two may give you more information than a whole lot of telephone calls.

This sounds good in theory but if the mom does this, the kids picking on the DD are just going to have more ammo about what a baby she is, her mom has to come to day camp to hang out with her, etc. This is how kids work.

[Anonymous]

I would just call the camp. The counselors are prob. teens that aren't used to handling this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would stop by the camp and hang out. Have lunch there or watch the activities. It will give you a much better idea of the whole picture -- how other shildren behave, how your child behaves, and how the counselors react. I know it is frusterating to take time out of your day when you paid for childcare, but that hour or two may give you more information than a whole lot of telephone calls.

No. Do not do this! The girl is 10 years old, not 4. That is the most embarrassing thing you could do to your child, and will cause more harm than good. I agree that you should call the office just to get the "other" side of the story. I am sure that her counselor has explained everything to the head counselor, and some kids perceive things differently. My dd has a pain in the butt in her camp group too, but the kids tend to ignore him. Anyway, call the camp.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone, OP here. My husband called to follow up and actually found out some more about the situation. Apparently, the situation was more intense for my daughter than she let on to us. He spoke to one of the head counselors who filled in some gaps for us and confirmed that our daughter downplayed how bad the teasing and taunting was for her. The young man my husband spoke to was terrific. He met with my daughter as soon as the problem became known. He met with the boy who was causing the problem and told him to stop the behavior. And he also checks in with my daughter's counselor about how she is doing once per day. He let my husband know during their call that our daughter accomplished something she has been working on for weeks today so he really had checked in on her.

[Anonymous]

Maybe your daughter would like to switch to a single-sex camp? Valley Mill has a boys camp and a girls camp---might be a more comfortable environment for your daughter. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that's it. Make the girl switch from a camp she likes becauses she's being bullied by a brat. Sounds fair. NOT!

[Anonymous]

Glad Dad called and all is well, OP!

[Anonymous]

OP: I'm glad the camp followed up, but the real solution would have been a few warnings to this boy, a talk with his parents and if did not let up, a goodbye with a partial refund. Why should one child be allowed to make someone else miserable and have to be so closely supervised by the counseling staff

[Anonymous]

OP, my suggestion would have been to have your husband call! Glad he did!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: I'm glad the camp followed up, but the real solution would have been a few warnings to this boy, a talk with his parents and if did not let up, a goodbye with a partial refund. Why should one child be allowed to make someone else miserable and have to be so closely supervised by the counseling staff

This camp sounds similar to the one my dd goes to. The sessions are two weeks, so by the time warnings and calls are made, the session is basically over. I am sure that parents were called, but that is a whole other story.