What to do when you get call from camp “I want to come home”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Director should have called you. It was irresponsible for a counselor to put your daughter on the phone when she was hysterical without an adult to talk with you after.

+1

The director should have talked to you, and given you more information. Had your daughter been generally happy, or had she been miserable the whole time? Had she been participating in activities? Getting along with the other kids? Had anything happened that day? Just handing her the phone is unhelpful and irresponsible. If it's just general homesickness, I'd probably not pick her up early, but if she had been unhappy the whole time, but different circumstances might be a different result. It's important to be there for our kids, but sometimes that means demonstrating that you have confidence in their ability to handle adversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s good training for college.

She needs to learn how to be away.

5 days is a super short sleep away camp.

Besides pick me up did she say why?

Call today when she is calm.

I'm a huge advocate of sleep-away camps and I did them young and expect that my daughters will as well, but OP's daughter is ELEVEN! She does not need to be "training" for college.

[Anonymous]

Call the director. Honestly, the fact that the counselor put your daughter on the phone is not a good sign.

It probably means that the counselor thinks you should come get your daughter.

Which means you should go get your daughter if you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would call and talk to the Director. It could be that she called you during a really bad moment but that outside of that, things have been okay or even good.

If the Director tells you she has been sobbing while rocking in a corner for days, I would go get her. Otherwise I would talk to her again at a time when she isn't sobbing (not at night) and talk about strategies to manage one more day. Hopefully the Director or a counselor could also taker her under their wing a little more

+1

+1

[Anonymous]

So what happened op?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s good training for college.

She needs to learn how to be away.

5 days is a super short sleep away camp.

Besides pick me up did she say why?

Call today when she is calm.

I'm a huge advocate of sleep-away camps and I did them young and expect that my daughters will as well, but OP's daughter is ELEVEN! She does not need to be "training" for college.

It's not training for the daughter, it's training for the mother.

Her daughter will also call her all stressed out from college and guess what... it's normal. You don't go pick her up and bring her home. You listen, empathize... and go to bed. You can't fix everything for you kids.

Also, the daughter is in 6th grade... or going into 6th... 5 nights away at that age is nothing.

[Anonymous]

I would get her because it's about to be over anyway. If she were staying longer, I'd think there is time to recover and I'd be talking to the directors. At this late stage, her image of the experience will end on a bad note.

I think it might be better for some personalities (kids who were a little reluctant/anxious to go in the first place) to wait until older to go to sleep away camp and (counterintuitively) have it be for a longer time so kids have a chance to get over being homesick and enjoy the camp.

[Anonymous]

What I personally don't understand is why parents feel the need to send their children on overnight camps. My parents never forced this on me. I asked to go to a violin camp at 14 - it went beautifully, and I grew up to be a functioning adult. My husband, on the other hand, was sent to overnight camps regularly with his brothers when he was little and wrote intense letters to his Mother every time, describing how hungry and tired he was. To this day, he remembers how awful he felt, and is still bitter no one did anything about it.

Just because others are doing it, it doesn't mean it's right for your or your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would call and talk to the Director. It could be that she called you during a really bad moment but that outside of that, things have been okay or even good.

If the Director tells you she has been sobbing while rocking in a corner for days, I would go get her. Otherwise I would talk to her again at a time when she isn't sobbing (not at night) and talk about strategies to manage one more day. Hopefully the Director or a counselor could also taker her under their wing a little more

+1

+1

This. You need more information, OP, but were probably dealing with an inexperienced counselor who shouldn't have let her use her phone but hope you could calm her down.

[Anonymous]

Wait a few days until homesickness is over.

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[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What I personally don't understand is why parents feel the need to send their children on overnight camps. My parents never forced this on me. I asked to go to a violin camp at 14 - it went beautifully, and I grew up to be a functioning adult. My husband, on the other hand, was sent to overnight camps regularly with his brothers when he was little and wrote intense letters to his Mother every time, describing how hungry and tired he was. To this day, he remembers how awful he felt, and is still bitter no one did anything about it.

Just because others are doing it, it doesn't mean it's right for your or your child.

My parents didn't force it on anyone. My parents offered each of us, 4 in total, the chance to go if we wanted to. I was the only one who went, loved it, and kept going. My older brothers really liked some of the advanced academic academies that they went to that were over night.

The OPs daughter wanted to go. She was excited about attending when they made the decision and it sounds like she was fine, if not interested, with going all the way up to going. The OP did not force her daughter to go.

I wanted to go and wanted to go for a longer period of time then my parents let me go. I would have been a full summer camper if I could have been. We will offer the chance to go to our son when he is a bit older. we'll probably start with Cub Scout camp and see how it goes. It will be his choice but I hope he likes it as much as I did. Lots of fond memories from overnight camp.

Your DHs parents did not make a good choice for him. I wonder if that was a time that they went on a special vacation themselves. But it was not a good choice.

I suspect that the young lady in this case will not go to overnight camp next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s good training for college.

She needs to learn how to be away.

5 days is a super short sleep away camp.

Besides pick me up did she say why?

Call today when she is calm.

Lol. I'm not really in either camp here as I think it depends on the kid and situation and I don't think we have enough info, but the idea that she needs to learn how to be away to train for college?? She's 11. Just because she doesn't like sleep away camps now has no bearing on how she will do being away from college when she is a full fledged teenager, budding adult after many years of maturity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Director should have called you. It was irresponsible for a counselor to put your daughter on the phone when she was hysterical without an adult to talk with you after.

+1

The director should have talked to you, and given you more information. Had your daughter been generally happy, or had she been miserable the whole time? Had she been participating in activities? Getting along with the other kids? Had anything happened that day? Just handing her the phone is unhelpful and irresponsible. If it's just general homesickness, I'd probably not pick her up early, but if she had been unhappy the whole time, but different circumstances might be a different result. It's important to be there for our kids, but sometimes that means demonstrating that you have confidence in their ability to handle adversity.

yes I really thinking talking to someone at the camp is what's most important here. They can help you determine how your daughter is doing to make a decision and talk to her again today on the phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would go get my kid. I want her to trust me and know that I have her back.
If she is hysterical something has happened, she may not want to tell you on the phone.

THIS. I would pick her up. Twice my DCs have called (years apart) and both times very legitimate reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Call the director. Honestly, the fact that the counselor put your daughter on the phone is not a good sign.

It probably means that the counselor thinks you should come get your daughter.

Which means you should go get your daughter if you can.

+1