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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It depends on how truly stressed she’s been, OP.  I also have an eight year old daughter, and she was so, so miserable for the first 7 weeks of the pandemic, [b]before we started socially distant interactions at our local field.  [/b]She has two younger brothers, but truly needs true peer interaction, at least IMO.  She went from multiple meltdowns/day to typical mood variability; the difference was night and day.

I’d be inclined to let her go, and probably split things up as PP suggested (with one parent going back with her).  Mental health absolutely matters, and I think it’s important to consider that Fall won’t provide significant play opportunities for her.  [/quote]

DP. "Socially distant interactions at our local field" is a world apart from OP taking the DD all the way back home to attend a camp that will surely not be anywhere near as socially distanced as your child playing in a field with a few others. A field that's local to you. You're not uprooting the plans and going elsewhere for weeks to make the interactions happen. It's nice that your kid can do that, and too bad that OP's can't get to camp, but these are not "essential" things, mental health claims or not.

[/quote]

And if I could have sent my eight year old back to camp, as OP proposes, I absolutely would.  If her camp opens this summer, she'll go back.  I sure as hell wouldn't continue to isolate a kid who is unhappy that way (recognizing that not all kids are).

Also, yes.  Social interaction is, for many kids, absolutely essential to healthy development.  You can stick your head in the sand all you want, or think that mental health isn't a thing, or whatever, but you are incorrect on that one.[/quote]

One summer of living with the grandparents in the country where things are not very exciting and other kids aren't local  -- which is what OP describes, look it up above in the thread -- is not going to damage her child irrevocably. Why do you think that is the case? Do you think no child has ever spent a boring summer like that? Or that children who did are somehow damaged?

OP did not say her child is somehow emotionally fragile or ill. Her child is disappointed and mad that she cannot do what she had looked forward to doing this summer. That's sad. It is not something to pathologize as a mental health issue. Doing so cheapens real mental health issues.

And don't presume you know that I or anyone thinks "mental health isn't a thing." Wow. Presumptious of you. Like I said: You are cheapening the idea of actual mental health when you and other parents try to make boredom into a mental health problem. OP and her family can step it up to do more AS a family and I'm sure they will. Like people have forever.

[/quote]

Actually, the OP just said her kid is really missing her friends, which was why, in the first sentence of my response, I said that the decision depends on how stressed her child is.

You then read into the OP disappointment, anger, boredom, etc.  All of that is likely there AND there may be more to it.  I never even used the word boredom in my post, and I absolutely don't consider it a mental health issue.  When my kids tell me they're bored, I tell them to go find something to do.  *You* decided that's what I meant.  So, who's the presumptuous one, again?[/quote]

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