Vent - Camp not what she thought it would be

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She's 1 week in, OP. That's PRIME homesickness time. I am betting you $5 that by the end of week 3 she will be loving it. The first week is ALWAYS hard, especially for new campers who haven't been there before. That's why a lot of camps suggest 3+ weeks for first timers -- because they know there's a curve of homesickness, settling in, bonding etc.

Give it time.

I'll see that bet and raise you $1000000.

As my mother always said, "You cried when I dropped you off at the start of camp, and you cried harder when I picked you up at the end."

I'd raise you another $1000000 but I spent all of my money on camp.

OP, it's good you got this off of your chest just like your child did. Now let go and allow time, your daughter, and the camp staff to resolve it. Remember that kids catastrophize when they communicate, particularly when they're stressed out. Remember that they perceive unfairness, bragging, being left out or singled out very acutely and -- even more than the rest of us-- have an exaggerated sense of how much people are judging them or even thinking of them.

Don't try to fix it. Worst case scenario she doesn't like camp but she gets through it and she has something to be proud of and a sense of her own character.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask her if she wants to come home and make up some family excuse and bring her home.

Just curious PP, but what kind of message do you think this would send to this child?

No the PP but to me it sends the message that when people are enjoying a place or activity that is totally optional, they leave.

Really there is not gold medal for staying at summer camp. Its supposed to be fun. If it's not, why stay? Come home, try another camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask her if she wants to come home and make up some family excuse and bring her home.

Just curious PP, but what kind of message do you think this would send to this child?

No the PP but to me it sends the message that when people are enjoying a place or activity that is totally optional, they leave.

Really there is not gold medal for staying at summer camp. Its supposed to be fun. If it's not, why stay? Come home, try another camp.

It sends a message that the child can't handle anything without mom and dad. It sends a message you don't believe she can succeed in a social situation where maturity and adjustment is necessary. It sends a message that she was right to doubt whether she really belonged with her friends. That will not help her and will probably make her feel bad about herself when she sees those peers again outside of camp. Not helping at all.

There is no medal for staying but there is a reward she can win- learning to navigate a new situation and enjoying the activities once an adjustment begins.

Better now than her first week of college.

[Anonymous]

It also sends a message that when she's not getting along with people someone else is to blame.

[Anonymous]

No you're wrong, it tells her that her parents are always there to catch her when she falls and that she can rely on them when she feels like she cannot rely on anyone else.

This is not a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

Looks more like catching her before she even commits to taking a first step.

[Anonymous]

So let me tell you my story.

When my son was 10 he went to this camp and had the time of his life -- in fact he had so much fun that he begged us to send him for longer the following year. When the next summer rolled around he was, for some reason, homesick and not too happy. We talked to him, talked to the counselors and the Director, and did our best to encourage him as best we could. He stuck it out the remaining weeks but decided he didn't like the camp enough to return the next summer. He denied there was anything that bad going on, but he just didn't have fun the way he had the prior summer.

Our son is 19 now and I recently reminded him of this camp experience. To my astonishment, he said "Yeah, I really have no idea why I didn't like it. I think it was just a phase I might have been going through and nothing really was wrong with the place."

This was such a revelation to DH and me. I guess the moral of the story is we were more traumatized by that camp summer than our son was.

[Anonymous]

Really there is not gold medal for staying at summer camp. Its supposed to be fun. If it's not, why stay? Come home, try another camp.



It sends a message that the child can't handle anything without mom and dad. It sends a message you don't believe she can succeed in a social situation where maturity and adjustment is necessary. It sends a message that she was right to doubt whether she really belonged with her friends. That will not help her and will probably make her feel bad about herself when she sees those peers again outside of camp. Not helping at all.

There is no medal for staying but there is a reward she can win- learning to navigate a new situation and enjoying the activities once an adjustment begins.

Better now than her first week of college.

I agree. It also sends the message that if you say you want to try something and mom and dad pay for you to try it, you're going to have to give it your best shot, and find a way to make it work out, absent some compelling circumstance. I don't feel like it is my job to fix everything that is wrong in my kids' lives, they're getting old enough to start figuring some of it out and taking responsibility for their choices and happiness themselves. It's two more weeks out of her life, it doesn't sound like an awful place, just a bad fit, and you say that she has good friends there. She'll be fine. Not every experience in life is going to be great, not every moment is going to be happy. If nothing else, she'll learn some things about herself and why the place was a bad fit for her that may help her figure out what she would prefer to do instead in the future.

[Anonymous]

OP: I would give a call to the Camp director and just put him/her in the picture (without making a huge deal about it) The director probably has 100 ways to make a few small moves to help - like inviting your DD and another newcomer to help on a project - sometimes it just takes a little bit to get the ball rolling, and our kids don't always know how to do that themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD returned to her camp this summer. Last year she had a great time. This year it was a rough start. The first 10 days were hard. Letters to home were full of sadness and longing to come home.

We're now 6 weeks in and the letters are starting to come saying she's sad that camp is ending soon and please make sure I sign her up for next summer.

When the first wave of please come get me letters came, my instinct was to go get her. As a parent, we all want our kids to be happy. My kid was unhappy and I have the power to fix that.

But I talked to parents whose kids have been at camp for many years, the director called me every day to give me updates, and ultimately, my daughter worked it out within herself. That's the growth that should be happening at camp. I'm proud of both of us--to her for allowing other people than mom and dad to help her and for her resolving her own issues and to me for not running up there at the first sign of unhappiness.

6 weeks in? You send her away all summer? That is awful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask her if she wants to come home and make up some family excuse and bring her home.

Just curious PP, but what kind of message do you think this would send to this child?

No the PP but to me it sends the message that when people are enjoying a place or activity that is totally optional, they leave.

Really there is not gold medal for staying at summer camp. Its supposed to be fun. If it's not, why stay? Come home, try another camp.

It sends a message that the child can't handle anything without mom and dad. It sends a message you don't believe she can succeed in a social situation where maturity and adjustment is necessary. It sends a message that she was right to doubt whether she really belonged with her friends. That will not help her and will probably make her feel bad about herself when she sees those peers again outside of camp. Not helping at all.

There is no medal for staying but there is a reward she can win- learning to navigate a new situation and enjoying the activities once an adjustment begins.

Better now than her first week of college.

But she isn't college age yet, she might not even be a teen yet. I am not saying to go in and get her but please don't think kids should be treated like college kids at the age of 12.

OP, 3 weeks is a long time for a first time camp. And yes, my daughter had the same thing at one camp. Some parents ship their kids off all summer starting at 8yrs old and those camps have to make those kids feel loved and wanted. They want them to come back. They are their bread and butter. Guaranteed money prepaid by January. The history, competition, and years attended add to that. A newbie that is older than 10yrs old will always feel left out a little. Let her finish out and decide what to do next year.

[Anonymous]

Ok. Some camps are just a bad fit. DD went to a super popular girls camp - that many kids, including friends, from here go to and love so much they repeat every year. She didn't complain at the time ... Or even when they promptly sent the email to sign up for next year. She let me sign up. Then she came to me and said she really didn't like it. Turns out the counselors were all British and German students, over on some visa, and the basic activities were makeup, hairdos, and crafts, none of which our DD is interested in for more than 20 minutes a day. She said she tried to get kids to run around or do other things (hide and seek on the wonderful property? Or capture the flag, for example ...) but the counselors found it a lot easier to paint nails and faces and style hair. So she was also shunned by the counselors. She didn't even raise this until after so it wasn't some ploy to get attention. And we've never complained to the camp - I figure that's just the vibe. But it does support that OP's kid could be having a bad time without being an unreasonable complainer...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD returned to her camp this summer. Last year she had a great time. This year it was a rough start. The first 10 days were hard. Letters to home were full of sadness and longing to come home.

We're now 6 weeks in and the letters are starting to come saying she's sad that camp is ending soon and please make sure I sign her up for next summer.

When the first wave of please come get me letters came, my instinct was to go get her. As a parent, we all want our kids to be happy. My kid was unhappy and I have the power to fix that.

But I talked to parents whose kids have been at camp for many years, the director called me every day to give me updates, and ultimately, my daughter worked it out within herself. That's the growth that should be happening at camp. I'm proud of both of us--to her for allowing other people than mom and dad to help her and for her resolving her own issues and to me for not running up there at the first sign of unhappiness.

6 weeks in? You send her away all summer? That is awful

Yes, sleepaway camp is pretty much like exiling your child. We do it just to make our kids feel "sent away."


I went to 8-week sleepaway camp starting at age 7 and loved it, as did my brother and the other 200 kids there.

I still remember running to the camp bus (in a mall parking lot on Long Island) to hug camp friends who I hadn't seen all year (different schools, no cell phones or email in the 70s).

Whatever you think of OP's situation (I think the kid is having new kid adjustment problems and feeling sorry for herself and he should ask the camp director to discretely find a way to help her find her niche), camp isn't some awful exile. For many kids, camp is paradise.

[Anonymous]

Could she have been bullied?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD returned to her camp this summer. Last year she had a great time. This year it was a rough start. The first 10 days were hard. Letters to home were full of sadness and longing to come home.

We're now 6 weeks in and the letters are starting to come saying she's sad that camp is ending soon and please make sure I sign her up for next summer.

When the first wave of please come get me letters came, my instinct was to go get her. As a parent, we all want our kids to be happy. My kid was unhappy and I have the power to fix that.

But I talked to parents whose kids have been at camp for many years, the director called me every day to give me updates, and ultimately, my daughter worked it out within herself. That's the growth that should be happening at camp. I'm proud of both of us--to her for allowing other people than mom and dad to help her and for her resolving her own issues and to me for not running up there at the first sign of unhappiness.

6 weeks in? You send her away all summer? That is awful

Yes, sleepaway camp is pretty much like exiling your child. We do it just to make our kids feel "sent away."


I went to 8-week sleepaway camp starting at age 7 and loved it, as did my brother and the other 200 kids there.

I still remember running to the camp bus (in a mall parking lot on Long Island) to hug camp friends who I hadn't seen all year (different schools, no cell phones or email in the 70s).

Whatever you think of OP's situation (I think the kid is having new kid adjustment problems and feeling sorry for herself and he should ask the camp director to discretely find a way to help her find her niche), camp isn't some awful exile. For many kids, camp is paradise.

With parents that don't want to spend time with their kids over the summer, I bet it is.