PP here - agree, by age 13 or so the choices will be different. My child will start being a camp counselor at about age 12 at one camp, and will still be able to go to another one but be in a different skill level.

A difference in the DC area compared to where I grew up is that a lot of families have two parents working outside the home, and thus at age 11 the kid still needs camps or some type of child care. I also found that even though I was a SAHP for a while, beyond age 4 or so there weren't tons of kids who *weren't* in camps for my child to play with during the day.

That said, there are tons of great choices, depending on your child's interests. My kid has done a lot of arts-related day camps - music, theatre, dance, art, etc. There are tons of sports camps, outdoor camps, museum-based camps, coding and technology camps, just about anything you can think of. Some people do sleep-away camps such as Girl Scouts or others. We usually do a combination of day camps, plus a week or two of family vacation, with maybe a week of just hanging out around town if I can swing it with my work schedule. Camps often fill up when registration opens in January or so, but there are always some that are flexible that you can add on later.

I don't know where you're living now, but my child has some expat friends who describe idyllic summers visiting relatives abroad, playing and hanging out with similar age kids with no particular schedule in what sounds like a wonderful time warp back to my childhood. I wish that was the case in DC!

By 13 you will need different answers than those here for 11 year olds

Anonymous wrote:There is a swim team culture here, led by pool membership.

What I'm sure this person meant is that lots of kids do swim team, many (mine included) do not. We join the pool for the community.

We do several weeks of camps, usually a week of vacation, then on off weeks we do down time with play dates, concerts, playing with kids in the neighborhood. When smaller, we had a nanny. Now, I TW and kids are older.

OP again. We won't be in DC this summer, but I'm looking for ways we can consider mirroring our child's SUMMER and generally ACTIVITIES during the school year so that when we eventually return to the US the shock will be mitigated.

I'm thus wondering what TYPES of activities do kids this age do, how long are kids expected to "stick" to them, how scheduled children are, if kids are tracked toward certain activities from a young age.... all this is my impression about the DC area. Is that true? If so, what does all that looks like?

Hi there, Thanks for all the responses so far. We're not moving back to the US for another couple of years, but I do want to have a sense of what kids in the US are doing now to minimize the shock and difference when we do move back.

I am particularly mindful of this as I plan our child's summer here overseas.

Op where will you be based?

Camps....maybe 2 weeks of sleep away, some sports/other activities.

DD did a day camp through our synagogue at 10 and 11. At 12 she started sleep away camp.

Lots of camps are already filled up.

There is a swim team culture here, led by pool membership.

Camps, sports, days at the pool are the norm. It will be nice to be home with the endless opportunities that this area offers to children. You really need to do a lot of research right now# on what your child's interests are so that you may quickly sign up and pay deposits on the right camps. Commuting to camps during the summer isn't so bad. Several camps offer bus service.

Personally, I got so sick of the annual summer expat schlep to the US with drained wallets, couch-surfing, bored kids and annoying in-laws. No one was around in our host country during the summers and there were virtually no activities for children available.

We are from the US but have lived out of the country almost of our 11 year old daughter's life. Trying to get a sense of what is normal in the DC area.