Anyone ever been to camp?
I have a friend whose oldest child (7) went to sleep away camp for the first time, she asked, begged and pleaded...one of her very best little friends was going to this camp. Now the camp itself doesn't really fit her personality, she's a quiet, artsy little girl, not the outdoorsy hanging in the dirt type of kid, she lives with a lot of structure and thrives in it.
So she goes.
They get a card today, written the first day she arrived, saying "Mom, I want to come home. Me"
Well Mom wants to drop all and go get her NOW, Dad says No, she needs to know she can do it, she wrote the card the day she arrived, she's probably having fun by now...you see the argument here really.
So what do you do? As a child of 6 I went away for a month with my next oldest sister she was 7, to another state entirely, on a plane, we hated it the first week really...then we got in a routine, we had fun, we made friends and they are some of my earliest real memories of things, where I remember it all, not just snippets or a feeling, I remember it all. I'm glad I stayed, now it wasn't a camp per se, it was the Florida home of my great Aunts, we were pretty much left to do what we wanted and we played with the cuban children that lived next store most of the time and went out to eat at early bird specials and swam with the neighborhood kids and boiled in the heat of Florida in the summertime. The Aunties were old, good people, but old and they smoked a lot and had the largest breasts I've ever seen on any woman EVER, my sister and I called them Rockets at the time. They loved us, we didn't know them well before we went, and I don't remember seeing them all that much on a regular basis after that, but they loved us.
So I know it's different, but we did it. We stayed even though we protested and begged to leave. Probably killed my mom at the time with the sobbing on the phone.
So do you have a good camp story, a good memory, or no? Should they let her stay till Saturday or rush in and save the day and take her home? It's a tough one and as a parent, just tears you up.
So she goes.
They get a card today, written the first day she arrived, saying "Mom, I want to come home. Me"
Well Mom wants to drop all and go get her NOW, Dad says No, she needs to know she can do it, she wrote the card the day she arrived, she's probably having fun by now...you see the argument here really.
So what do you do? As a child of 6 I went away for a month with my next oldest sister she was 7, to another state entirely, on a plane, we hated it the first week really...then we got in a routine, we had fun, we made friends and they are some of my earliest real memories of things, where I remember it all, not just snippets or a feeling, I remember it all. I'm glad I stayed, now it wasn't a camp per se, it was the Florida home of my great Aunts, we were pretty much left to do what we wanted and we played with the cuban children that lived next store most of the time and went out to eat at early bird specials and swam with the neighborhood kids and boiled in the heat of Florida in the summertime. The Aunties were old, good people, but old and they smoked a lot and had the largest breasts I've ever seen on any woman EVER, my sister and I called them Rockets at the time. They loved us, we didn't know them well before we went, and I don't remember seeing them all that much on a regular basis after that, but they loved us.
So I know it's different, but we did it. We stayed even though we protested and begged to leave. Probably killed my mom at the time with the sobbing on the phone.
So do you have a good camp story, a good memory, or no? Should they let her stay till Saturday or rush in and save the day and take her home? It's a tough one and as a parent, just tears you up.
i only went to a couple of week long camps and was irritated when my dad showed up to visit
i was trying hard to fit in and having your dad show up wearing one of those straw hats that mean used to always wear while driving their cars was enough to make a 12 year old shrivel and die
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it would be a terrible struggle dealing with the note your friends got
if the daughter hasn't called, she is probably ok - unless there is a camp rule about calls
i think that i would call daughter and see how she's doing
my kids have never been more than a cell phone call away except when i was overseas and they phone me every day about every subject so i have no idea of how i would deal with the situation as a parent because i have never been faced with anything similar
She's staying. Just like you and Kathy did. And she'll be fine. I say the parents (I am SURE I know which kid this is!) can just call the camp, check on the kid, and get the opinion of someone in charge. If they speak to the kid, it's all over.
If you two survived Aunt Ida, Aunt Betty, and Uncle Joe, that kid can survive anything.
Remember the Mendozas? Cindy and I cried like babies when we moved back to New York. *sniffle* Memories.
The mom called and insisted they ask the child directly, without anyother questions, "Do you want to go home", if the child answered in the affirmative they were to pack her up and call the mom back, the Dad was less than happy. He called spoke with the woman who said that she would have rather just checked on the child, and tried talking about things and encouraging her and having her friends encourage her to stay too, but by this time it was too late, the child had the expectation she was leaving and was already packed by the counsellors. So Dad talked to the child, she sounded GREAT, was having FUN, but now since she was packed, she wanted to come home, hadn't really thought about it since the first day but when they told her mom called and wanted to know she naturally said yes.
Mom picked her up last night, Dad was not happy about it.
She misses the big closing party and end of camp stuff, I think she'll regret this as much as a 7 year old can.
lots of love,
lil'sis
We never had the money to go to camp, day or sleepover. I always wanted to though. All my friends did and talk about it being the best time of their lives... sigh....
I'm sorry they picked her up. I'm with the Dad on this one.
I think her father's a shmuck of the universe, and you know why. HOWEVER, he was right. Honest.
It's just like the first slumber party. Ya gotta let 'em get over the willies...then they'll have a good time.
Sheesh. It's even like that with Buddha. That first night, upstairs, away from ME, in that HUGE crib. I rocked myself in a chair downstairs...doing the Haldol shuffle...*snicker* And cried. And listened to him cry. But ya know what? He sleeps through the night. Did so since he was three months old.
I'm shutting up.
Mom was wrong
wrong
wrong
set a huge horrible precendent
wrong wrong wrong
big mistake
HUGE mistake
and that's just my two cents...
Hey, I had a similar experience...I think she should stay for sure. I went to camp and I was different, standing out, also being the artsy type. But, after a couple of days, I was ok. Once we all went swimming, it was ok. Common ground. I can say I really hated the food. It sucked. It was the worst food, even to this day, that I ever recall eating.
But, I still think she should have stayed! Yuck, yuck on the mom. Bad move.
My parents sent me to camp when I was a year or two younger than most of the other girls there. The first year I was ok until they came for a visit (they were trying to have me stay for 2 weeks and visited after 1). I lost it when I saw them and cried and begged to go home. They let me that year. The next year I think they just sent me for one week and I loved it.
I agree they should have let her make it for the whole week. 'Complete the task at hand' being a key life lesson...