We all have those people in our lives that come and go. There are connections with these people that will always be important, but I really do think that there are times and places when people enter your life for a purpose. I think ‘forever friends’ are something I want to believe in...but I am afraid that it is not something that I have (yet) experienced. There are some people I HOPE will always be part of my life...but really...that is just a side tangent to the reason I have decided to write today.
One of those people that played an important role in my life for years sent me a random email this morning. Now, I know that I could have worked harder to mend things...and I didn’t...but this email had no content and the subject line said “had to share...hope all is well” I was skeptical of the link included...honestly I thought it might be spam...but I clicked, risking virus and computer infiltration!
The link led me to a webpage titled “13 things your kid’s camp counselor won’t tell you” and it INFURIATED ME! There were some points that were spot-on...but most of this list was so contrary to the mutual camp experience we shared...as campers AND as staff members, I have become more and more irritated about it throughout the day...so, below...here are my thoughts on the 13 things. My comments are (I think) clearly noted...my comments are in blue!
13 Things Your Kid's Camp Counselor Won't Tell You
13 Things Your Kid’s Camp Counselor Won’t Tell You--IF YOU SEND THEM TO A SHODDY CAMP! (do your research parents!)
Sending the kids off to camp this summer? We granted anonymity to insiders from camps in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin so they'd share some of the secrets of their profession.
If you really want to find out the TRUTH about a summer camp experience, talk to someone that has grown up in the program...grew through camp and with camp and IS willing to share their name...well, I guess that is what I am doing now. I did not grow up at a camp in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont or Wisconsin...but I spent 18 summers at a camp in North Carolina...I hope that is acceptable...
Interviews by Adam Bluestein
From Reader's Digest
1. For the first week, the cries of the homesick are almost unbearable. After that: "Mom? Who's Mom?"
Here’s the truth...there are always one or two campers that are homesick. In the younger cabins it may even be one or two per bunk...but it is FAR from unbearable...and the reality of a camper that is homesick more than rest period and bedtime...when they stop to THINK about home...those campers are TRULY FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. When you are a summer camp counselor and you have a camper that cries a bit, there is something endearing and sweet when they wake you up in the middle of the night because they are scared, because they miss home, because they can’t sleep. When there is a good support system, there really isn’t anything that is unbearable. This one...truly debunked...NOT “the truth” about all summer camps.
2. Your kid is a lot less shy and a lot more competent than you think.
There might be some validity to this one. I recently found myself cleaning out a box of old notes and cards I had received at camp over the years. I found a letter from a parent whose daughter is now 18. I have been fortunate to stay in touch with this family for the past 10 years...as her daughter was in my cabin when she was 8. This was one of those kids that was a little weepy at camp the first week. She auditioned for the camp play, the Wizard of Oz. She was MAYOR of the muchkins...and she grew that summer. I could potentially argue that this is one isolated incident in one isolated cabin...but that group of girls grew together. The maturity of a group of 8 year olds is unbelievable when they are left to their own devices and given the guidance to move the right direction...but the opportunity to move at their own pace and make their own decisions. Bah, it is really incredible! I think the most exciting reality from my camp experience was the correspondence we had with parents during the summer away from home. The letters we send give insight into the growth the children are experiencing while away from home. Parents don’t always believe it while they are away...but as soon as they pick their children up, they see what we have been telling them. Summer camp helps children stand a little taller, walk a little straighter...and grow into even more dynamic individuals. So, while I agree with the assessment above that children are less shy and more competent than a parent might believe...I THINK, it is SUMMER CAMP that creates that strength...and brings out latent qualities children may not have tapped had they not spent a summer away from home!
3. Your son will shun clothing and may well go without showering for weeks. "It's like a frat you join when you're ten."
Now, I cannot fully speak about this as I have grown up at an all-girls summer camp...but, we do have a brother camp. There, 4 miles away by water and 7 miles away by land...I am fairly confident that my brothers, my best friends, and their little boy campers are in fact running around in little clothing, showering sparsely (well the campers, the counselors shower like 3 times a day to stay cool) and enjoying every single bare-footed moment on the river, in the swim late and at the Mess Hall.
At our girls camp, your children ARE wearing little clothing. They wear a bathing suit and shorts 85% of the time. Sometimes they wear shoes. When they are younger the shirts and shorts and yes, the shoes they choose in the morning often do not make it back to the cabin on their body (see 4 for more explanation) and they love it. What we do is make sure they are slathered in sunscreen. It is applied twice a day in the cabin, morning and afternoon...the activities keep stock to cover pinking shoulders and our international presence has reminded us to SLIP, SLAP, SLOP...slip into a shirt, slap on a hat and slop on some sunscreen...all to stay safe in the sun.
A number of years ago, the girls camp also underwent HUGE renovations in all of our cabins to make the shower more efficient in all of our cabins. Yes parents, our counselors make sure your children shower. When they are younger we also smell their breath to make sure they brushed their teeth...and we touch their hair to make sure it is not turning into a birds nest.
We care...and we want you to know we care. It is important to remember, it is also summer...and remember when you were little...you ran around the street barefooted as well! At camp, we just don’t have cars to worry about.
4. Don't bother with the labels--everything's going to get hopelessly mixed up anyway.
DISAGREE. Put a name label on every single thing your child brings to camp. Put it on their water bottle. Put it on their sunglasses (or the croakie attached to the sunglasses). Put it on their underwear, their towels, their shorts and if you can figure out a way to put it on their shoes so it will not rub off...put it on that.
These kids are living in cabins of 10-12 kids. I know that my favorite method of cleaning the cabin when the girls did not pick up their stuff was to have the TRASH MONSTER come in and sweep EVERYTHING into a trash bag and put it up high on the lockers where they couldn’t reach it. Example 1 of how important name labels are. You see, when we take that massive pile down and check to see what goes where and whose locker or laundry bag to sort things back into...that name is VITAL. ESPECIALLY when they are young.
Our camp also has a lost and found procedure where our camp center staff puts found clothes/shoes/water bottles with names on them in the cabin mail box to return to their owner. So, even if it was left across camp on an activity...it may take 2-3 days to make it back to cabin 17...but if it has a name on it, it will find your child. If you have two children at camp...Polly and Patricia say, and the item says P. Simon...and belongs to Polly...it may go back to Patricia...but it will get back to your house!
The best part about this for me is being 28 years old and occasionally pulling on a pair of shorts or a shirt or listening to a CD that has a bright and prominent LM, LLM or LMorgan on the tag...god bless! I love summer camp!
A FEW NAME AND LABEL HINTS--when you put a name in sharpie on plastic things...ie...water bottles, fans, brushes, bottles, etc...and a kid has sunscreen on their hands, the name smudges off. Invest in a great paint marker from a craft score. It will make the name stay while keeping your child sunscreened all summer! Additionally, the little iron on or sew in labels...NOT A GOOD INVESTMENT. They peel off. Especially when left in the sun or in the water...so then we find white little labels scattered all over the ground and clothing with no label attached. Here is the best strategy...first initial, last name. Just using initials will help in the cabin if things get lost INSIDE the living space...the chances of having duplicate initials in a cabin...slim...but when your child slips off their t-shirt and flops to go sailing...and leaves them at the pier...the SP you put in the tag may get that shirt back to Sarah Porter in cabin 3, Sasha Prince in cabin 22, Sam Potts in cabin 28, Sally Peters in cabin 43...and may never make it back to your precious Stephanie Phipps in cabin 9...get it?
5. As long as he or she is eventually found, we're not going to tell you about all the times we had to call a search-and-rescue for your child.
This might be the most disgusting phrasing for something that could happen to your child while they are out of your care. I know, this must be a parents biggest fear for sending their child away for the summer. Your child is your most precious gift and we need to treat every single child as if they were our own.
When you leave your child in a counselors care...you expect to know that your child is going to be safe and looked after at all times.
What is important to know as a parent is that we have incredible procedures in place to know where your child is...and if a moment arises when we do not know where they are...we quickly and efficiently find her.
When you are at a summer camp, surrounded by water and activities kids are bound to get excited and that is why we keep an eye on them the way we do!
We know where your children are...the idea that there is a mad-dash for search and rescue is an unfair image to present to ANY parent trusting counselors with the safety of their child! Sorry Readers Digest...this is disgusting!
6. Some of us are hung over every morning and rigidly enforce afternoon naptime not because the kids need the rest but because our heads hurt.
Maybe some camps have this problem. I am fortunate to have grown up at a camp with a zero tolerance policy for underage drinking. Our camp is in such a small town, when we leave camp...we scream camp all over us. Local restaurants, bars, shops and residents all know we are from ‘the camps.’ Even if our clothes don’t have a logo, our cars probably do...if not our sunglasses or our horrible tan lines!
Not only would a restaurant or bar call camp if someone underage was drinking...they would call if someone underage TRIED to order a drink. That right there, at our summer camp...is a bag packed for you and a one way ticket home.
We are really strict about our rest period too, but not because we are drunk...but because we are trying to keep them safe in the hot summer conditions. We wake up at 7:30 in the morning...clean the cabin...breakfast at 8, activities from 9:30-12:30, lunch at 1...and at 1:30 we cannot wait for rest period. You see, when it is 90-105 degrees in the sun...and the hottest time of the day is from 12-2...the most intelligent thing we can do to keep our kids safe is to GET THEM OUT OF THE SUN AT THE HOTTEST TIME OF THE DAY! That, is why Rest Period is so important! After rest period we head out at 2:30, activities until 5:30, dinner at 6, after supper hour from 7-8ish...and 8-9 or so in evening activities before devotions and bed as early as we can!
FAIL AGAIN Readers Digest...your kids DO need rest hour and it is to keep them healthy (and us healthy...) NOT because counselors were out late participating in illegal activities!
7. Even if it's not a coed camp, your teen is going to learn more about the opposite sex (accurate or not) than you want to know.
This is true...but it is not any more true then when they go to a sleepover! At an all-girls camp with a brother camp down the river, we get lots of little notes back and forth with the boys camp...but it is nice, so innocent, so old school, so traditional.
I love that we do skits about how to be nice to guys and that the guys are given guidance in how to ask a girl to dance, to complement her and to remember classic values.
Our girls cannot wear strapless dresses to dances. Their skirts have to be below their finger tip sand they have to bend to show appropriate top coverage and skirt coverage. It is just one more thing we do to keep your kids safe.
I know it is old-school...but I love it.
8. If they want to eat peanut butter and jelly for weeks in a row, there's really nothing we can do about it.
We can...and we do...Our meals are family style and we eat together every meal.
Kids try everything. They don’t have to eat it if they do not like it...but we ask them to try it.
IF and only if they try everything at the table and still won’t eat it, a counselor can get them a PB&J (IF there is nobody with a peanut allergy in the cabin)
9. We confiscate the "illegal" candy you send and eat it ourselves. For the kid's own good, of course.
Let me set the scene for you...it is somewhere between 85 and 100 degrees with 99% humidity! Cabins are wet places...they hang wet towels and wear bathing suits 90% of the time. Gone are the days of candy staying out in the cabin. Think about it, candy melts! So, some of my past campers would agree with this...that is when we had a ‘candy box’ in the cabin. It was a giant rubbermaid container where campers placed all of their candy sent by their parents...and once or twice a day the counselors would pull down that box and campers could go at it. We had a lot of sticky cubbies and lockers...and now...as much as I hated the idea of getting rid of the candy in packages...
we have finally succeeded...candy is no longer allowed into our cabins.
Find out the policy at the camp you are sending your child. If you follow the rules, and don’t send candy if it is not allowed. It will be removed and in our case...we donate it...we don’t break into camper candy stash...maybe some do...but we don’t...
10. Your kids will be plunged into icy water, submitted to exotic "tortures," and scared witless countless times--just because we think it's funny. ... Oh, and they'll love it.
This is where this article gets me...these counselors are lame. WHO WOULD EVER USE THIS LANGUAGE...knowing parents would read it and judge every summer camp based on these words.
“tortures” WHAT?!? We might live in a world that is overly critical of language...but I know, camps that are aware of where the world is...is very careful about what we do. We used to have “initiation” for our oldest campers...and now, we call it “induction” and it is a simple thing that makes our kids more safe.
We have lots of traditions, lots of things your kids will talk about that you might never understand...but they are far from “tortures” and yes, they will love it!
11. According to the American Camp Association, the typical camper return rate is about 60 percent, and 92 percent of campers surveyed say the people at camp "helped me feel good about myself."
AGREED...I didn’t just grow up at camp, I grew at camp...I kept going back year after year so I could help my campers succeed the way my counselors helped me reach the goals I had set for myself as a camper. This article may have a few merits...but it sure did take a LONG TIME TO GET HERE...
12. For weeks after coming home, your child is going to speak in incomprehensible camp slang and pine for people named Lunchmeat, Fuzzy, and Ratboy.
Okay, I agree with this one too. The entire drive home, the weeks to come, really, the entire year until returning to camp again inside jokes and stories that require MUCH more detail and backstory than worthwhile will flow out of their mouth. The stories will be about people and skits, songs and dances, cabin nights and more...I suggest taking the time to invest one afternoon in getting ALL of the lingo down...so every night, when they want to share a new story...you don’t have to get the 4-1-1 on every detail...it will make the story flow much more smoothly...consider learning these terms...they are pretty universal to most camps...
THE BLOB
CABIN/BUNK (mate)
learn the names of buildings on the campground
what are the activities your kids do daily/weekly...what are they called?
Cabin Night
Camp Night
Activity (including activities, rotations, ranks, books, etc.)
popular skits
EXAMPLE: my summer camp does skits every day for the evening program that night. At dinner we hear about “night life” and a skit follows. If you know WAY ahead of a story that night life is the skit to tell kids whey they are going to do after supper...every story about “the night life skit” gets much quicker.
You, as parents need to listen to the stories the kids want to tell...but also know, it is okay to not know what they are talking about. Just smile and nod if you have to...ask questions to clarify if you have to. Your camper (child) has hundreds of memories and stories to tell...let them share...when they will...but also, let them sleep for the requisite 48 hours or so once they get home.
13. We actually do this because we love your kids--and we'll probably do it again next year. (According to the ACA, the average return rate for staff is 40 to 60 percent.) Camp is worlds more fun as a counselor than it is as a camper.
Number 13 was really the saving grace of this article. It is true, most summer camp counselors are there because camp means the world to them too. It is not only your children that learn from camp...counselors learn from camp too. They learn from your kids. We cannot that YOU enough for sharing them with us. There are hard days and tough days and GREAT days...Either way, we would not do what we did for the summer if your kids were not so great!
Thanks for sharing them, but also know that this list posted by Readers Digest, a supposed “reputable” magazine is such an unfair representation of “camp” and what summer camp really CAN be for your kids...
Sorry for being a bit soapbox-y
for now
LM
Love your rebuttals! You go.
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