Sent home from summer camp

[Anonymous]

NP. It seems the camp is concerned about two issues, threats or possibility of suicide and cutting/self-harm. Both of those are serious issues that can affect both the individual and everyone else at camp and sending a child home seems reasonable to me.

My DS has scratched himself causing red welts and it concerns me but I don't know what I need to be doing about it, as a parent. If a camp or school saw the marks and sent him home, I wouldn't object. I would take it seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t cutting. She was scratching herself with her other arm. It was very superficial, hardly noticeable. Cat scratches look much worse.

This is absurd OP the camp is corrrect here.

You are the problem.

It’s camp it’s not school big difference this is not a hill to die on.
Nor is it productive for your child.

You are not admitting your child needs more help .

Why are you disbelieving the OP? I can totally believe the scenario laid out here.

Not PP but OP is completely downplaying the situation. Being cleared with the recommendation of frequent check ins isn’t being cleared. It’s being cleared with accommodations that the camp was not prepared to handle - and that’s no surprise after a self harm incident.

I went through this with school, which is staffed with mostly professionals who are long out of HS and have a lot of life experience. When my child self harmed, medical clearance was required. When the medical clearance was with caveats, my child was not readmitted. A new placement was found. Camp is staffed with HS kids. They are not competent to handle this sort of evaluation and handling a situation where a check in results in a thumbs down.

But here it seems there was no self-harm at all. Many kids with autism have physical tics. My son pinches his skin a lot. I can believe OP when she explains that the scratches were not self-harm, but tics.

[Anonymous]

OP, I would think there's more to the story. If it's really true that she somehow scratched her arm with an arm, they wouldn't be reacting this way. Not saying your DD is lying, but there may be something she is unaware of or doesn't understand. I would call the camp and ask for more detail. Because the story doesn't make sense.

It would have been better to make a phone call and confirm that she can be readmitted before driving back. That's bad communication on both ends, it would have been much better to confirm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. It seems the camp is concerned about two issues, threats or possibility of suicide and cutting/self-harm. Both of those are serious issues that can affect both the individual and everyone else at camp and sending a child home seems reasonable to me.

My DS has scratched himself causing red welts and it concerns me but I don't know what I need to be doing about it, as a parent. If a camp or school saw the marks and sent him home, I wouldn't object. I would take it seriously.

That is exactly the problem here. Kids with SN often have OCD behaviors that are really difficult, if not impossible, to curb. So if scratching and skin-picking is perceived as self-harm, and there is not much the parent can do about the behavior, and it's not at all life-threatening...

How is a parent going to prove this to a camp who clearly seems to be using this reason to push a kid out because they can't deal with them? How if that parent is desperate to go to work so they can have money for a housing and food and caring for their SN kid, and therefore need that camp?

If it were me, I would get my child's psychologist from Stixrud, who knows them well, to write a letter explaining that the skin-picking is not a self-harming symptom, but a coping mechanism due to the autism. They would be the most persuasive, given the full neuros they've already conducted on my child. But I would be very annoyed at having to make an appointment (possibly months from now), and shell out significant money, to clear a symptom that the camp should be able to identify as something that's not a threat.

The school and camp procedures for perceived self-harm have gone way too far. And it's well known that institutions and camps create hoops for parents that are difficult to jump through, when they don't feel like welcoming their kid. It makes the lives of parents of children with special needs even more burdensome than they already are.

[Anonymous]

It's not just about the scratches, it's about her being "snappy" aka rude and uncooperative, and that she's in general struggling to cope. Clearly there's more going on here than scratching.

[Anonymous]

The frequent check-ins was a suggestion. It is a simple accommodation that teachers might do even for kids who do not have an IEP. They didn’t even bother to read the medical paperwork so it wasn’t a factor.


The draft is too long. There was some good advice about editing it. They shouldn’t have raised her hopes up by saying she could return if got clearance. If they know how this affected her, then they might do things, differently, next time there is a situation like this.

She really likes basketball so we will try to find her a basketball camp next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The frequent check-ins was a suggestion. It is a simple accommodation that teachers might do even for kids who do not have an IEP. They didn’t even bother to read the medical paperwork so it wasn’t a factor.


The draft is too long. There was some good advice about editing it. They shouldn’t have raised her hopes up by saying she could return if got clearance. If they know how this affected her, then they might do things, differently, next time there is a situation like this.

She really likes basketball so we will try to find her a basketball camp next year.

They should have been more specific about what kind of clearance. Like did it have to be an unconditional clearance, or a clearance with some conditions that you then share with them and they decide whether to accept.

[Anonymous]

I would focus it differently. They told you she could go back with medical clearance, you had that, you drove all the way back there, and they refused to allow her in after you did what they asked. I would stay clear of whether it was right or wrong to make the decision they did in terms of her safety. They set forth what she would need to do/get, and then did not honor it after you put yourself out getting her back there.

[Anonymous]

She’s a liability.

[Anonymous]

I work at a summer camp. My guess is that your daughter was having other behavioral problems besides this, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think that you should call the camp director and ask for a honest conversation about the whole camp experience and how your daughter behaved.

I had a girl at camp this summer who was very difficult and clearly told her mother a completely different story when she went home, and even though the mother forewarned us of her daughter’s issues, she seems to believe her child.

[Anonymous]

Think of it this way - your daughter has a year to get her anxiety under control. AND she has a year to find and get used to using other more acceptable coping habits when her anxiety flares. Like walking up to a counselor and saying "I'm anxious because ______________, can we talk and go for a walk?"

[Anonymous]

They need clarity in their policy and then they need better communication. They asked for a doctor's note and got one, but it wasn't enought? They should really communicate what the issue was.

Camps are required to accommodate kids w/ disabilities, as long as their fundamental programming is not altered. I'm guessing "frequent check ins" could be considered a fundamental alteration. (I am not a lawyer).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work at a summer camp. My guess is that your daughter was having other behavioral problems besides this, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think that you should call the camp director and ask for a honest conversation about the whole camp experience and how your daughter behaved.

I had a girl at camp this summer who was very difficult and clearly told her mother a completely different story when she went home, and even though the mother forewarned us of her daughter’s issues, she seems to believe her child.

+1. You can get more information to figure out how not to have it happen again. It is also a chance to give feedback about how your kid felt when she thought she was going to be allowed back at camp and then wasn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think your letter is way too long. You need to decide if it’s a letter to get a refund or a letter to express your frustrations. Right now it’s trying to do both, and not doing either very well.

For a refund, the focus is that you were told she could return with a medical clearance. You got a medical clearance, but we’re still not able to return. The camp is a financial challenge for you, and you respectfully request a refund of the cost of the missed time. If there’s any refund policy you can cite to support your request, add it.

Once the refund is issued, then write a letter expressing your concerns and frustrations about how your daughter was treated.

+1 This. Camp doesn’t care that she pared back her wardrobe or all the other extraneous details. Stick to the facts. You said we could come back with clearance, that didn’t happen. Why? Also, I’m not sure why you are going the email route. Why are you not talking on the phone?

[Anonymous]

I don’t see where op said her daughter has autism. I saw references to anxiety.

In any event, the camp observed something serious enough that they felt the need to call EMS. Think about that for a minute. EMS. DS just spent a month at sleepaway camp, and had a bunch of random things this year, including a cold, a fever and two “raging ear infections”. Last year, impetigo raged thru camp. Camps are staffed with doctors and nurses to handle regular stuff. If they called EMS, they must have seen behavior and/or physical symptoms that they deemed very serious. While EMS didn’t think a hospital visit was warranted, that probably meant they didn’t deem it an urgent emergency, ie they wasn’t an immediate risk of suicide or that the scratches needed hospital treatment. It doesn’t mean EMS thought she was fine. Someone somewhere thought she needed to see a medical doctor and counselor to confirm her health. This is all super serious. This is not the kind of scenario that a camp staffed by HS kids should be taking on.

Ops only potential claim against the camp is their initial feedback that ds could come back if she were cleared, which they apparently rescinded. If true, it is probably worth a short email to camp to express disappointment. But certainly not entitled to a refund (regardless of whether op paid full price or not). But ultimately I suspect there was more to this back and forth and I think it’s odd op wouldn’t call the camp to confirm re-entry procedure before bringing her daughter back. The whole thing seems to me that op is not taking this seriously enough.