<p>Sent my D to camp for ten days, with TWO packs of day of the week underwear, figuring that was about right</p>
<p>Tueday through Saturday came home still in the pack. She said she just wore her swim suit bottoms. </p>
<p>Phones can be a real pain for counselors at camp, kids will ignore roommates because they are texting friends, or each other, talking about other campers. it can get ugly.</p>
<p>The best approach, if a parents want their child to have a cell phone, is to turn it in at the beginning of camp, and if there is an emergecny, the phone is there, but not accessible all the time.</p>
<p>98percent of the time, the kids don’t need a phone, especially at camp. So maybe compromising by putting the phones in a cabinet would be a good solution.</p>
<p>D went to Girl Scout camp several elementary school summers for 2 week sessions in the incredible south Texas heat. They slept on mesquito net covered cots in 4 person tents on wooden platforms. The first summer we took my parents with us to bring her home. My retired Air Force dad walked through the trees into the clearing where her section of tents was set up and said aloud “Oh my God, it’s Boot Camp.”</p>
<p>Definitely not $10,000 camp and she always had a blast! I still have the letter she wrote that stated “Dear Mommy & Daddy - I am not homesick.”</p>
<p>Never borrow your younger brother’s sleeping bag after he’s been to Boy Scout camp- or at least open it fully and remove that pair of underpants he changed out of for Parent’s Day midway through the week (the rest of the underwear came back clean/untouched). At least I discovered it in our backyard with the neighborhood girls instead of away…</p>
<p>My kids both went to one of those “exclusive” camps – close to $10K/summer NOW… not when they went! No cells phones allowed. 3 phone calls per summer. I won’t get into the hows/whys of their enjoyment now… , it was a good experience for S1, a mixed bag for S2.</p>
<p>BUT! this is interesting. S1 (age 20) now works at a mid-range camp (cost wise) … run by Hadassah… and of course, he has his cell phone. THIS CAMP IS NOT IN A REMOTE AREA AT ALL! – and there’s virtually NO cell service. When he arrives back after a day off (as he did a midnight last night) he knows the precise spot on a hill without interference where he can make a brief call to me to let me know he’s arrived back safely. </p>
<p>By the way S1 is Director of Communication/Executive Producer at this camp – he is the person who is responsible for the daily web photos and the web video clips highlighting the kids in activities . He also does weekly video recaps & end of session videos that are shown only to the kids.</p>
<p>You’d think parents would be happy with him. Excuse me for boasting, but he does a great job, and, thanks to him they get to see their kids. Its a small camp, only about 200 kids per session, so he’s able to get everyone’s photo on the web every couple of days. Yet parents really do call the office and say, "i saw my kid in a photo/video and he was wearing 2 different sneakers. Why aren’t the counselors watching him (this is a camp for grades 2-8)? Or, my kid didn’t look happy, or I saw kid “A” 5 times, and my kid only once. He says the complaints are endless! The camp directors approves every video before he posts it to the web, to try to weed out any potential sore spots before they happen.</p>
<p>My kids just got back from their $1,000 two-week YMCA camp and it may be their last year (Apparently we didn’t pay enough to expect even the basic of services.) They were allowed 1 shower per week and the camp made sure one of those showers was the night before they left camp. During the first week, sewer water came out of the shower, sending girls screaming. For the next 3 days, they got their water from jugs that were brought into camp. They are not allowed to have cell phones, but can send letters. Parents can send e-mail messages, but only 1 of the 2 messages I sent, made it to one of my campers during her two weeks there.
I didn’t get a call for her bee sting and she brought home some Adderall capsules, meaning she didn’t take it every day. Four days were spent in tents and some of the tarps they used under the tents had holes in them, so some kids woke up with soaked sleeping bags after it rained. Son’s cabin had mosquitoes and a trail of ants coming through the walls. His counselor bragged about not taking a shower for 10 days or getting his hair cut since 3rd grade. All of this is a little to “rustic”, IMHO.</p>
<p>Well, two of my sons are currently away at a performing arts camp. This is a “high end” camp in that they have serious musicians, theater directors, etc. All of the counselors are older (no high school kids) and are there to be teaching some performance or studio craft. </p>
<p>Cell phones are strictly prohibited, and this is enforced-if they are seen, they are confiscated. (There’s basically no reception anyway.) Candy, gum, etc. is strictly prohibited-every package is opened in front of the camper and if there is any “contraband” it is dumped out. No emails and the kids are allowed to call home once a week for 5 minutes after the first week. No web cast from the camp. Personally, I just don’t “get it” with web coverage, emailing, etc.
It seems to me to be helicoptering to an extreme. It’s summer CAMP!</p>
<p>I remember when our then 7-year old son came back from sleep away camp. He had a terrific time and couldn’t have been filthier! First thing I did when we got home was to send him to the shower, where he discovered that something was missing (soap maybe?). I pulled back the shower curtain to hand whatever it was to him and saw that a mud slide had started at his hairline and was heading to his eyebrows! I grabbed a cloth, wiped his forehead, and suggested he wash his hair twice.</p>
<p>I threw away his socks, figuring they would break my washing machine if I washed them.</p>
<p>^^Lol, my kids always hoped for a day of rain at camp so the the big hill/mtn. would turn to mud. Mud sliding was camp lore that went from one year to the next. They always came home disapointed it they had a week with no rain! I always sent clothes to camp that I didn’t care if they never came back again. We threw away lots of socks and t-shirts after camp week.</p>
<p>Luckily for the parents who call, the Assistant Director fields their complaints. I know my son, and he’d be far less diplomatic and polite than the directors would expect. She just passes the “comments” on to him, and he makes a mental note that all sneakers should match!</p>
<p>I love this story! I wonder if the obnoxious parents will see how obnoxious they are. Probably not.</p>
<p>The first year S1 went away to a three-week camp I was a basketcase when he didn’t call. He was always so responsible. We’d set up for him to call each Sunday night. Not that intrusive, I thought. But when that week passed and he didn’t call, I was so upset with worry and anger. Of course, it was all fine (I finally got an e-mail from him saying he’d call the next day, and he did), but I sure didn’t call the director or her assistant. I knew this was MY problem, not theirs! :)</p>
<p>I wonder what’s wrong with this generation of parents that we’re so obsessive. It started before 9/11, so we can’t blame that. I was just at my parents’ house, and we were reminiscing about life on/off base housing as an Air Force family. We did things than that parents today couldn’t imagine their kids doing. It was great! Another post in the parents forum asks whether we’re sending kids to college who are unprepared. Is it because we haven’t let them take any risks?</p>
<p>We were out of town because we were picking s2 up from a camp, the same camp his older brother went to. He had a blast but didn’t think his roommate has as great a time. Later, he remarked that the roommate’s parents make him call home every day, and that made me wonder whether the feeling he was still tethered played into his lack of fun.</p>
<p>Sleepover camp is a training camp for dorm life. You have to learn to live with others. You have to pick up after yourself (sort of) and just learning to leave mom and dad behind is okay. The last couple of years, my son’s camp put tons of pictures up on the website during the summer (digital camera gone wild). I had so much fun looking at every picture even though I didn’t know the kids. Boys girls white black and everything in between. And they got along and had a great time.</p>
<p>My kid still goes to Scout Camp with his BSA Troop. Boy Scouts usually attend BSA camps for one week with their troop. Although they do whatever merit badges they want, they do eat with the troop and tent with boys from the troop. It works out well and the price is not bad ($255 +$35 for roundtrip transportation). I have never received a call from him or his troop’s SMICs except the one time he spent in the infirmary overnight with a fever that wouldn’t go down below 100 despite Tylenol. Then his SMIC did call.</p>
<p>This is a funny thread. I went to camp my entire childhood from age 7 on, and was a counselor for 6 years once I was old enough. I saw the gamut of camps from 4-H, which I attended, to the swanky camp, circa 1979, where I was a counselor, and many still send their kids (complete with water skiing and golf course.) By far the parents at the expensive camp made their presence known, even in those pre email and cell phone days, much more than at 4-H camp.</p>
<p>Regarding funny shower stories, at 4-H camp a shower was required every day, including the washing of hair. My sister, who is four years younger than I attended just one two week session at age 10. She refused to shower in the “rustic” shower house. She ended up with impetigo (boy was my mom mad.) Years later, as a counselor, I picked up one of those 3 inch red multi legged things that occasionally crawled out of the drains by a leg, and in an animal friendly mode, threw it out the door into the woods, much to the applause of the girls in the shower house.</p>
<p>Personally, we are not a sleep away camp family today, although many different day camps and other camps have been part of our summers. I grew up with the no phones etc. during my years at camp, and we like the idea that the cell phone has been available, though not used too often. However, I am a rule follower by nature and always am amazed at the audacity of some people who tell their kids that the rules are not for them, but for someone else.</p>
<p>Hmm. We did actually visit our daughter for a couple of nights at her summer job in the State 1000 miles away - slept on air mattresses in a classroom at the abandoned school they are living in. But **she **asked us if we would come so we could see what her job entails (I was dying to go but was resisting suggesting it because I did not want to intrude as I felt it is her first real independent venture - her college is quite close by - so I was excited when she actually asked us to come without even any hints from us).</p>
<p>Oh. my. I love that no matter how nuts I think I am there’s always someone out there to make me look reasonable. Like the kids’ parents in my son’s calling-home story – asking for a call once a week while at camp compared to the other kid’s mandatory daily call makes me look downright negligent!!!</p>
<p>Yeah, my neighbor is about to visit her 22yo dd in the Chicago area and sleeping on her couch. I don’t think that’s THAT crazy. But sleeping in your kid’s dorm room. Uh, no comment …</p>