Reply to What the heck are our kids going to do this summer with no camps and no pools?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Stay at home, watch TV, read, play in the yard, and play games like we did in the old days... especially if we were poor or middle class.

They will survive, and maybe become more creative. [/quote]

But the difference was in the old days there was usually a parent home in the house or at least neighborhood kids and some neighbor parents home.
We made mistake of not signing up our rising 7th grader for camp. They complained they were too old and it was boring and to be honest the camps that were going to be best for that age group were either sleep away or very expensive day camps and we couldn't really afford those.
Here is what happened -

Day 1-3 - were ok, lots of calls and texts on first day especially as the day wound down, by day 3 the novelty had definitely worn off
Day 4 - onward lots of complaining before we left in the mornings, calls and texts and more and more days of accompanying us to work

what we discovered - most kids in our neighborhood were either at camp, on vacation or with relatives seriously limiting anyone close by to hang out with, also parents aren't keen to send their similar age child over to a house with no parents around for 10 hours a day and you as a parent don't want that either and we didn't want our kid roaming the neighborhood too far or alone for too long either

our pool changed their policies so kids under 15 couldn't enter the pool without an adult so no pool alone during the day and neighbors who had nannies or babysitters didn't want to burden them on a daily basis so that only panned out a couple of times but was costly for us because we ended up giving some cash to the caregiver to "cover expenses"

loneliness was a big problem, If we managed to work from home, then our kid could get absorbed in a project but when all alone they wouldn't do it

boredom and being stuck inside most of the day meant they wanted to go out and do things once we got home but we were often too tried

We finally bit the bullet and paid for a very expensive area day camp for 2 weeks  that had a specific focus, and then begged a friend to let our kid be a nanny help for her nanny for her preschool twins, and then we ended up having to take vacation time for most of August. We were lucky our workplaces were flexible.

That summer was bad but it was a lesson learned for sure. 
 [/quote]

Your kid is lonely and bored because you have spoon fed him/her entertainment his/her entire life up to this point. [/quote]

What are you talking about? that makes no sense.  Loneliness and boredom was a product of being alone in the house for 10 hours a day for days in a row.  That's what kids that age face if they are not going to camp and there is no adult or sibling in the house.  [/quote]

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