Sleepaway at 7
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Anonymous
| I grew up in a European country and we had trips at age 8 but with teachers we knew and parents trusted. I wouldn’t send my 7 year old to a camp where they didn’t know any adults. |
Anonymous
| I sent my sons at 6 years old. Sure there was crying. But they cry at home about stuff too. Camp is about growing up a bit. |
Anonymous
Not the same. Your kid is off on their own 24 hours a day with no real way to contact anyone outside of camp. |
Anonymous
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My kids all went to sleep away camp when they were 7. None of them took a friend. They all really loved it. My younger two started going to four week camps when they were 10, and my oldest is a CIT this year.
They’ve all been to day camps too, but they don’t love them the way they do sleepaway camp. |
Anonymous
The camp will contact you if there is an issue, and you can contact them as well. You can also go and get your kid if you need to for whatever reason. It’s your kid. The camp isn’t kidnapping them. |
Anonymous
This and BTW I think it’s fantastic my kid is on their own for 24 hours a day. It fosters a sense of independence, being responsible on their own, no mom to tell them what to do. Our camp doesn’t allow screens of any kind (no watch, phone, ipad) and makes a point of telling parents not to call the camp or contact them unless an emergency. You can write a letter and your kid can do the same, that’s it. We get 1 letter in 2weeks, lucky if we get 2. I also suspect the counselors ask the kids to write home or else we would get no letters. Having too much fun to miss mom and dad. This is a big reason I send my kid to sleep away since he was 7 is to foster independence and confidence, especially since he is an only. He likes it when I give him more independence. You have got to cut the cord sometime. Some kids are ready earlier than others. |
Anonymous
Non-responsive. The potential risk here includes people employed at the camp. Do you think they are going to call you and tell you about the inappropriate things they did to your child? Or are they going to tell your child not to talk about it? |
Anonymous
My younger son just turned 8 and was begging all year to go off to sleep away camp with his 10 yo brother. We agreed and sent him. Had he not been so persistent, we would have waited until he turned 9. Anyways…He’s doing great and having the time of his life by all accounts. |
Anonymous
OMG are you for real and that paranoid? Hundreds of thousands of kids do sleepaway every summer and it is fine. Sleepaway is definitely not for you if that is how you think. |
Anonymous
| My kid is at day camp at seven that has a sleepover option. She’s begging to sleep over, but she’s never even had a sleepover. I gave her a list of challenges for the next year that if she succeeds in, she can sleep away at 8. There are five year olds sleeping away at the camp, but I just think seven is too young. Some of the things on the list are parenting fails of mine (she needs to learn how to comb and deal with her own long hair, get in and out of her bathing suits easily) and some of these are language related since this is a camp in a heritage language she studies in school/we speak at home. |
Anonymous
| My 7 year old daughter just came back from 2 weeks of sleep away camp for the first time. She didn't know anyone and had a great time. She wanted to stay longer! |
Anonymous
At what age did you send your son to this camp for the first time? Kids can go and have a lot of fun at 7 years old, even if they don't know anyone else in their bunk. It just depends on the kid. Almost all of the camps we looked at for our daughter had a checklist of things they should be able to do independently before they are ready for camp (showering, dressing themselves, making their own bed, stuff like that). I would ask your camp for their advice and then spend the next year working on those skills, so your daughter feels prepared to go. Most camps we looked at also had a "camper care" person whose job it was to reach out to the parents in advance and talk about their kid. We talked about our daughter's anxiety and what helps to calm her down, about the questions she had about camp, and about her food allergies. We talked extensively with our daughter about what camp would be like - the fun activities and the more mundane things. By the time we actually dropped her off, she felt so ready that she barely said goodbye to us before skipping away with the counselor she had just met. She went at 7 (rising 2nd grade), but most of the girls at the camp start at 8 (as rising 3rd graders), because their parents didn't feel they were ready at 7. Again, it depends on the kid. |
Anonymous
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I think 9 or 10 is a better age to start camp than 7 or 8. My oldest went at 10, but had been asking since she was 8. My current 8 year old is not interested at all, we'll see if that changes.
I do think desire to go is a good first step. But I'd wait until age 9. |
Anonymous
Which camp? |
Anonymous
| A week is totally fine! Even two weeks if she has an older sibling there and is wanting to go. |