Reply to Has anyone sent their nervous uptight indoorsy child to an outdoor 6 week camp?

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Reply to "Has anyone sent their nervous uptight indoorsy child to an outdoor 6 week camp?"

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[quote=Anonymous]The past five summers I've been a challenge course instructor at a camp.

From that experience, I want to say: Please do NOT start him off with a solid six weeks or month of sleep-away camp. That is a recipe for disaster. He will feel like there's no end in sight.

Listen to your gut and to those posting on here to start him gradually. There are surely one-week day or sleep-away camps with outdoor adventure aspects. I would sign him up for one AND also let him pick another camp -- a computer programming camp, or an arts camp or anything like that. Yes, reward him with one camp he picks and then he goes on a one-week day camp, maybe, with outdoor stuff.

Meanwhile, before next summer hits and during this summer too, why not do family things on weekends that are more adventurous? Your family can go kayaking very easily -- go to an LL Bean store and sign up for a kayaking package; you go to the store, a van takes you and instructors to a nearby park (usually within 20 minutes of the store) and you all get basic instruction and then kayak on an easy local pond or lake (Lake Accotink is one that is used by the Tysons LL Bean store for these outings, for instance). It's not very expensive and requires only a few hours start to finish. Or you can drive as close by as Great Falls and as far as Harpers Ferry for walks and hikes (and hiking does not have to mean scaling mountains!). You can look up tubing and easy-level rafting right in this area. There are challenge courses for various levels. Rock-climbing walls indoors at local gyms are often opened to the public for sessions. Look online. Have him take different friends with him. Give him some simple experiences with your family there to do it alongside him and he may find he likes spending a morning doing kayaking and can still have computer time that afternoon, or he can finish his homework in the a.m. and go do rock climbing indoors in the p.m.

That's what I'd do. If he is balky, it is harder for him to say no if you all are going or if a parent is going to do the activity right alongside him, or if he gets to take a friend along. It's harder for him to say he can't do it if there's an experienced and fun instructor right there showing him and encouraging him. In our area we're very fortunate to have heaps of these kinds of opportunities if you just look them up and make the effort to arrange to go. It costs money, but six or four weeks of sleep-away camp is a fortune --put that money toward these experiences throughout the year, and THEN send him to a shorter camp in summer.

By the way, check that wherever he goes, he's going someplace where the attitude is cooperative and not competitive. On our challenge course, it's all about cooperation (on team elements) and encouragement (with kids supporting and cheering each other on as they individual elements).

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