Unsupervised 12/13 year olds overnight camp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. It is not a self contained camp and it is on the GSCNC website.

It moved this year to this new location and I did not ask the right questions. I know better now. I am still not a helicopter but I also know my own child and her limitations on feeling comfortable on own. Which are what the state guidelines are on children being left on own after the age of 12. Not what GS dictates to me without my knowledge. Thanks all for your feedback. It helped me remember this place is a haven for all who have nothing else to do than to pick on another parent.

She’s ***not*** “on her own” in this situation. It’s fine that you’re not
Comfortable, but don’t rationalize this minority stance with state guidelines for something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, can you confirm, are you in the DC area? Is your daughter in a summer sleep-away camp run by Girl Scouts of the Nation's Capital council?

It's clearly not a GSCNC camp, if they're sharing the camp with non-GS campers and randomly sending the girls home in the middle of the week to shower. GSCNC tend to run a pretty tight ship, safety-wise, and would never do either of those things. For one thing, many of the girls ride the camp buses for several hours to get there, and the camps are fairly large, so the logistics of drop-off and pickup are pretty complex. There's no way they could just randomly decide to send hundreds of girls home for a night in the middle of the week.

I'm not affiliated with the Council or even a troop leader, but my daughter is a GS and has been going to the various GSCNC camps for years. I'd really hate for nervous parents about to send their girls off to Winona or Potomac Woods for the first time to read OP's post and think that anything like that might happen!

Not the OP but someone who knows things. This is definitely a GSNC camp.

It's a GSCNC sleepaway/overnight camp? Or a day camp? Something doesn't make sense.

It’s a day camp where the PA’s stay overnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Girl Scouts of the Nations Capital sleep away camps are self contained spaces

So, was a rule violated?
That's serious

or just sloppy troop leadership?

No, we have no idea what is going on at OP's daughter's camp.

But the four overnight camps in our Council are all self contained camps with no one but Girl Scouts there. They have units with glen shelters and counselors on duty in each unit.

This has nothing to do with troop leadership. Troop leaders don't organize summer sleep away camps run by the council. Girls don't camp with their troops.

I checked the GSCNC Website and only saw the four GS camps I mentioned listed for sleep away camp. There are also day camps listed.

[Anonymous]

Oh, your daughter is a Program Assistant at a day camp?

That is something completely different.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I meant Program Aide

[Anonymous]

OK, OP. If your daughter were a PA at one of the established GSCNC overnight camps, I'd say it was fine for the girls to be in their own glen shelters with adults very close by.

But they are not. They are working as Aides at an open to the public campsite during the day. Then the day campers go home, and the middle school aides and high school aides stick around all evening and sleep at night in a cabin that locks from the inside with no adults around; in . a location where the general public is there also using the same showers and bathroom facilities. Many girls your daughter's age would be a little uncomfortable with that set up without their own families present.

I think girls who are 12 years old assisting at such a day camp should also go home at night with the day campers.

[Anonymous]

You’re correct. She’s a PA at a day camp. Run by the same organization that provides direction to the other overnight camps. Not sure it’s all that different TBH.

[Anonymous]

Thank you 21:14. - OP

[Anonymous]

As an attendee and counselor at girl scout camp not *that* long ago, this was totally normal. The adults had their cabin, girls had theirs, counselors had theirs. At your DD's age I think the worst we got into was staying up all night listening to music and talking about boys. Although we were on a closed campsite, where everyone there was associated with the girl scouts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re correct. She’s a PA at a day camp. Run by the same organization that provides direction to the other overnight camps. Not sure it’s all that different TBH.

The difference to me is that the day camp location being used is not a private, secluded camp but is open to the general public.

(by comparison at my daughter's school, no one is allowed in the building without showing ID. )

It's not a great location for a day camp IMO but you can make it work. But I don't fault parents for being not quite ready to have their 12 year olds sleep in a dwelling (not a tent) on their own over night with no adults close by.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an attendee and counselor at girl scout camp not *that* long ago, this was totally normal. The adults had their cabin, girls had theirs, counselors had theirs. At your DD's age I think the worst we got into was staying up all night listening to music and talking about boys. Although we were on a closed campsite, where everyone there was associated with the girl scouts.

That's the big difference.

Imagine these girls are here:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG you are a nut. When I went Girl Scout camping 50 years ago the setup was girls in their own tentss, leaders in another.

Leaders cannot sleep with the girls.

Change this to 25 years ago for me, and same.

Same.

Whenever we did a camping trip, we never had adults in our tent. And I gave up GS after 5th grade, so we were younger than the girls you described.

[Anonymous]

The particular set of circumstances here indicate a certain "looseness" regarding the safety of these children. When we take our all-girl Scouts BSA Troop camping every month we always stay at secure, private Scouting or Church camps where our girls are not exposed to the potential hazards of the general public -- with their pit bulls, loud partying and other things that sometimes go with state or county parks, for instance. Seems like the OP could have easily known about the rather-alternative circumstances of her daughter's sleeping arrangements in advance, but glad she caught on to this situation.

[Anonymous]

When I was a younger GS, we camped in tents (and there were no adults in our tent).

When I was an older GS (12-13), we completed camping badges that allowed us to camp in tents on sites without adult supervision (so we'd do a couple of nights in a (private) campground with the nearest adults a few hundred yards away, but those adults were not "with" us in any sense -- they were available for emergencies but otherwise we did not interact with them.

When I was in my mid teens, (14-15) we did unaccompanied back country hiking. Our parents dropped us off Friday night and picked us up 30-40 miles away on Sunday afternoon.

So an 11 yo unaccompanied in a cabin doesn't raise alarm bells for me at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. It is not a self contained camp and it is on the GSCNC website.

It moved this year to this new location and I did not ask the right questions. I know better now. I am still not a helicopter but I also know my own child and her limitations on feeling comfortable on own. Which are what the state guidelines are on children being left on own after the age of 12. Not what GS dictates to me without my knowledge. Thanks all for your feedback. It helped me remember this place is a haven for all who have nothing else to do than to pick on another parent.

OP, she's NOT on her own.

You get to feel comfortable with whatever you feel comfortable about, and so does she - people's feelings are people's feelings - but you don't get to establish your own facts.