<p>If your S can’t be moved to a new cabin, I’m for coming home. As others have said, the fact that the administration allowed the phone call home speaks to the seriousness of his bad experience.</p>
<p>Any news?</p>
<p>Re: “the fact that the administration allowed the phone call home” – Oh, please. The administration always allows the phone call home. </p>
<p>By the way, in the camps where I sent my kids, I would completely trust “the administration” on this. If they’re decent at all, they know what they’re doing, and can distinguish temporary unhappiness from a more serious problem. And they have absolutely no incentive to be dishonest – they would much rather give up a few dollars than have a parent running around badmouthing them, or a kid creating problems in a bunk that will affect the other kids. Their whole business depends on people trusting them and building communities.</p>
<p>So . . . ask the director what he thinks.</p>
<p>curiousmother,
You know your kid best of all. He sounds like a great kid who is being made miserable by the general “boorishness” of 13 year old boys. (I have been through this 3 times.) Let him understand that there really isn’t anything exciting going on at home that he’s missing and that if he comes home he may be a bit bored, and then trust your gut instinct. You will be able to hear it in his voice.</p>
<p>
Why? He doesn’t know cm’s son in remotely the same way that cm does.</p>
<p>I personally wouldn’t want someone else deciding for ME whether I were uncomfortable/miserable/unhappy. Kids need to be taught and encouraged to trust their own instincts and to be able to share their feelings with those close to them. This decision needs to be between cm, her dh, and their son.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>I also support coming home, but I am known for being a softie. My son went to stay with cousin for just one night! and we got called at 11 pm that he had a horrible stomach ache and had to come home. I understood immediately that stomach ache was psychosomatic, but I drove for an hour to get him. We didn’t get home until 1:30 a.m. (My husband, daughter and H’s cousin thought I was crazy. Everyone argued that he certainly could stick it out for one night. I presented this argument to him, and he assured me that he couldn’t.) That night is one of my fondest memories because I caught a tape of a live Grateful Dead concert on the radio and played it LOUD so I would stay awake while he slept.</p>
<p>To this day, I don’t know what the problem was. However, my reasoning was: I wanted him to kniow there were people he could turn to (i.e. me) if he were in an unbearable situation, and that if he were an adult he could have elft on his own steam. How frustrsting to be a child and have to rely on others to decide for us and rescue us.</p>
<p>BTW, He is now almost 18 and has been away to many programs, including one in Rome where he went at fourteen with a group of Latin students. Last summer he went to two summer programs, including one isolated in the hills of
Georgia. There has never been a repeat of that nught.</p>
<p>A half-way measure might be to spend a night in a nearby motel. Knowing you’re so close by might free him to come up with other options, like changing cabins.</p>
<p>Good luck. Follow your own instincts. You know him best.</p>
<p>Give it the 24 hrs, then leave it up to son. Once he knows he is in control of coming home or not, he may give it more time. Or he may choose to come home. But after the 24 hrs, tell him it is up to him, and that you will support this decision either way, and let him decide. He might surprise you and not come home right away.</p>
<p>mythmom~</p>
<p>Great post. I think that one of the things that parents fear about “caving” is that a precedent will be set and every subsequent experience will be similar. That has definitely NOT been my experience either. </p>
<p>Also, corona touches on an excellent point with this statement:
Perhaps just the knowledge that having a CHOICE in the matter will alter cm’s son’s perspective. If he still wants to come home, I think that is what he should do.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>My DD has attended residential camp since she was about 6, but didn’t do more than 3 weeks until she was CIT. Why such a length of stay? It seems to me if you haven’t adjusted by a week, the rest would just be “gutting it out”. Is that supposed to be the point? At (what I assume to be) those prices?</p>
<p>I’ve been a camper, a counselor and then sent my own kid to camp…from experience I can tell you there’s nothing worse than a homesick camper. Best to bring him home, even if he is 13 1/2.</p>
<p>berurah:</p>
<p>The camp director may not know a kid as well as his mother – I hope not! – but he knows a lot more about homesick or unhappy campers than any mother does. I didn’t mean to suggest following his guidance blindly – although I wasn’t too careful with the way I wrote it – but I would want to have an honest conversation with him, and I would respect his judgment.</p>
<p>The camp director I know best has a degree in child psychology and is one of the most sensitive, psychologically acute adults I have ever met in terms of dealing with children. In some ways, he may actually know my son better than I do – he knows my son differently than I do, that’s for sure, and he knows him well, too. Of course, he has known my son in a variety of capacities now for over 10 years, but he had a lot of insight after a couple weeks all those years ago.</p>
<p>13 year old boys should not be crying over a bad camp experience.</p>
<p>JHS, maybe in the camps you’ve been to or your kids have been to, the directors break the “no phone” rule. In my d’s camp, the purpose of the rule was specifically to reduce homesickness - they found that kids were more homesick after the calls. At that camp, they relaxed the “no calls” rule only for emergencies. Otherwise, the counselor or director would call, but not the child.</p>
<p>So please don’t be so quick to assume that you know how every camp is run.</p>
<p>The rule has been exactly the same at every camp I’ve every known. It gets relaxed if they think it will help calm the kid down, or help calm the parent down, and promote a better, quicker resolution of the problem. </p>
<p>Think about it for a moment. No one is saying “Oh, this is an emergency! We have to push the Eject button on the No-Phone Rule!” or “Things may be bad, but they’re not bad enough to relax something as important as the No-Phone Rule yet!” What they’re saying is “Is having the kid and his parents speak going to make life easier or harder for us?” The rule exists to let them make that judgment.</p>
<p>I agree with mstee
I have never really been to many camps myself- ( well once ) and my kids have attended coed camps for years and I rarely heard anything from them except ( mail me some cookies & my hairbrush)
FOr a kid- that normally would not tell an adult unless something was really wrong, it sounds like it has to be pretty overwhelming & uncomfortable.
Possibly even worse than he is letting on, but the counselors should be very aware of the situation, what is their impression?</p>
<p>( the camp where my kids have attended/worked, have counselors in the cabins or adjacent- D is complaining that as she is the lowest on the totem pole she is going to be the one that “gets” to sleep in the room with them)</p>
<p>13 year old boys should not be crying over a bad camp experience.</p>
<p>I agree barrons, thats why I am wondering if something worse than he is letting on- is going on.</p>
<p>My oldest went to sleep away camp from the time she was 9 and loved it from the start. When she was 12 she started a new camp and hated it for fair reasons. I brought her home.</p>
<p>
As others have said, I think the key is his knowing you support whichever decision he makes. </p>
<p>BTW, this type of thing can come up even as they are much older and even if they are not “the type” nor are the parents “the type” to have this kind of problem.</p>
<p>My S, as many of you know, was buffeted about by Katrina, attending three colleges in three semesters. He thrived in the first two, entirely different, places. He and we were sure that pretty much any school would fit him - he was that resilient and adaptable. When he landed at his “final” place - after a forced transfer due to elimination of his major and at one of his top two choices for said transfer - he wasn’t adapting, wasn’t happy and didn’t like it and talked of transferring yet again. Swallowing my major reservations, I told him we were behind him in whatever he decided. DH let him know that he had whatever option he could imagine - stay, transfer, take time off… I held my breath for three solid months. Left to making the decision himself and knowing he had our support, he decided to stay. I truly believe that the <em>only</em> contribution we made was leaving it to him and letting him know that we were by his side in whatever he chose.</p>
<p>It sounds like your bright, sensitive son has been dropped into an alternate universe of yuck-yuck knuckledraggers. They are not “his people” and most likely never will be. I’ve known enough of them to know I don’t like being around them either. Nothing wrong with that. Also nothing wrong with trusting him enough to make his own decision whether to leave or stay. Sometimes toughing out a bad situation is character-building, but it doesn’t sound like this is one of those times. I agree that I’d leave this decision up to him.</p>
<p>Given that he’s been at this camp before, I’d take him seriously. I do think 13 is a difficult age. </p>
<p>My youngest son had miserable time the first year at camp. He was in a different bunk from his best friend and didn’t connect with his bunk mates. However by the time we got his letters (he didn’t ask to call) there was only a week or so left of camp anyway. The funny thing was that he spent the rest of the summer singing camp songs and talking about all the fun activities. We realized the only problem had been the bunk. We made sure he was with his friend the next year. And from then on he loved camp. His camp had lots of returning campers so he looked forward to seeing old friends after that first year.</p>
<p>My first thought was, “don’t talk to him any more. He’ll be fine.” </p>
<p>Then I started thinking about the details. In August, I’ll be attending Boy Scout summer camp for the 8th straight year. In Scouts, a Troop attends camp together. Instead of being in a cabin with strangers, at Scout camp a boy is with his friends from his Troop, and they are sleeping in a tent or open wooden structure known as an adirondack shelter. Scouts don’t sleep indoors. Most activities are by unit – so Scouts spend their time with friends. Instead of cabin counselors, each Troop brings its own youth and adult leadership. The camp counselors run the program areas, but the Troop leadership is responsible for discipline and other behavior issues. It’s a very different environment than “going to camp.”</p>
<p>In the last seven years, I’ve only had to deal with one homesick camper who wasn’t 11 years old (the youngest age a Scout goes to camp). He was 15 and attending his fourth or fifth Scout summer camp. Mostly, homesick campers are 11-year-old first-timers who get weepy on the third or fourth day. Mr. WashDad’s sure-fire prescription for homesickness is to spend a few hours with the unhappy camper – walking around camp, eating ice cream (I spend a lot on ice cream at camp), and just showing him that someone cares. Then, I find a particularly sympathetic 16- or 17-year-old Scout to “adopt” the little guy for a day or two. The younger scouts generally worship the older boys and are impressed with the attention. Usually, the homesickness is gone by the following morning. (I still remember almost crying when a young Scout said through tears, “I know I’ll be OK, I just miss my Mom.” How cool was that?) I’ve never let a Scout talk to his parents from camp.</p>
<p>The difference is that in Scouts we bring along the whole support structure to camp. The boy knows he’s in his Patrol (6-8 boys) and with his Troop (usually 15-50 boys), and with adults he knows. It’s easier for me to understand terminal home sickness with kids who are alone – especially with those s/he doesn’t click with.</p>
<p>So – I don’t know what to recommend. I sure wish for your sake that there was a Troop leader you could talk to. This would be someone you already know, and whose judgment you could trust.</p>
<p>curiousmother~</p>
<p>Just wanted to check and see how things are going with your son. Hope he’s doing OK!</p>
<p>~b.</p>