Sleep away camps

I wanted to go to sleep away camp so badly, but my family couldn't afford it.

When ds came along, I started talking about camp early so he would know it was coming. He went for a week the first time at age 7 and loved it. The next several years until 16 was two different camps for a week each.

He also went away with dh for 2 weeks plus each year after school got out. They mostly mountain biked with a little hiking and rafting thrown in for good measure. Some of it was camping the rest in hotels. Ds graduated this year and they had their 11th annual trip. Ds is already lamenting the fact that it might not happen again. Dh is too.

I think trying to get a child to try new things is always good. However, I'd be really against sending my child to some place away for 1-2 weeks when they don't want to go. If they wanted to go, I'd have no problems with it.

DH is big into the kids need to do this because I did this. Well, they aren't you. They aren't me. I do try to encourage them to try new things. DS has no interest in sleep over camps or any other camps really. I did get him to go to one invention styled day camp once. DD, couldn't wait to be old enough, and then she got sick although she's getting better now, if I could find one that would cater to her special dietary needs and health issues, she'd love to go.

I think I went once, probably around 10 or 11. Don't really have many memories of it except through pictures.  I think it was through the Camp Fire Girls similar to Girl Scouts.

My two oldest went to one through our church for a week.  They had fun but not enough to go more than once.  My youngest probably would not go though..she doesn't even like overnight zoo sleepovers.. she gets very anxious.. so we usually opt out of them.

Edited to add: Regarding DD who gets anxious, I don't feel the need to push her to go to camp to get over this anxiety thing she has.  We do other things to help that out.  

It's only as important as a parent's fond memories of their own experience. 

I grew up in a beach community. As my mom loved to say: "your life is camp. You don't need to go to camp." 

My best friends grew up going to sleep away camp for 8 weeks every summer. They couldn't imagine not sending their kids - they learned to play tennis, to lifeguard, to do just about everything they loved as teens at camp. Their girls go to the same camp they went to. 

My kids were fine doing various day camps. My youngest went to sleepaway 2 summers but it was ridiculously expensive (we're talking 5 figures) and we just felt it wasn't worth the money that could be saved for college. 

I think I would have loved camp but it wasn’t in the cards, financially, for my family. 

My son went to camp for two summers at 8 and 9 years old for kids with mental health issues. He had been diagnosed with depression, ODD and other issues at that point. The first summer he received a full scholarship but the second year I paid for part of it. 

I want to speak to the value for me as a parent as well. As I said earlier, my daughter is an only child and I stayed at home with her. My husband worked and traveled a lot. My daughter and I have always been close, but when she was younger I often had to find ways for her to be independent of me. We were always together. I knew everything she did and every single one of her friends and their families. I knew what she ate and what she liked to do and she was super comfortable just spending all her days with me.

I guess that sounds really great and what we hope for our kids. I certainly didn't want it to be the opposite of that, but because I was available I was on every field trip and at every class party and the one to drive all the girls around and home on snow days from school, etc. And I loved every bit of that. But I realized that that might not be completely healthy or certainly sustainable.

Being away from each other, even from a week, was so important. I don't know what my daughter ate, if she brushed her teeth, what she wore, who was her buddy for the bike. I can't explain really why that was so helpful. Years later she told me she ate nothing but bread the entire week her first year at camp. She also said she slept in her clothes because it was such a rush to be ready for breakfast the next morning. I'm pretty sure she never brushed her hair any of the years she was there. But she did eventually try foods she never would have at home. And she made all those decisions for herself for whatever reasons she deemed were important and none of that would've happened at home. And I learned to give up the responsibility for those choices for her for a week, and know that she'd still be alive at the end of he week regardless of any of those things.

And I got a week to myself to remember I just wasn't someone's mom and remember what to do with my own time without always having a child by my side. As silly as it may sound, it made me ready to be able to eventually go out into the world and make her own way without either of us being completely lost.

Summer camp is no joke! =)

I think sleep-away camps might be a regional thing? I never heard of any in this area growing up. There were lots of day camps and churches would have "lock-ins" (sleepovers) during the summer, but no one I knew ever went to an overnight camp.

I DID go to a "craft camp" for adults a few years ago though. It was over a long weekend and there were a ton of make & take stations and classes to do during the day. It was okay, but spending the night in a giant room with a bunch of snoring middle aged women was not my idea of a good time. I discovered that I'm far too anti-social for that sort of thing - I need my down time away from other humans, so I probably wouldn't have enjoyed sleep away camp as a kid either.

I went for a week every summer and it was the best time of the summer each year. I even became a counselor for the summer after I graduated. I look back on it so fondly and am still friends with the girls I'd meet up there with each year.

I went to 4-H camp that was overnight for just 1-2 nights.

I went to church camps that were from Sunday PM to Saturday AM.

I think that camps are a good thing. Gives the children a chance to develop some independence and grow in other ways.

Our son went to church camps from about 6th grade until 12th grade. He also went to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama for 3 different years.

I went to camp every summer from when I was maybe 8 or so until I was old enough to be a CIT, then I did that for two summers. Then I went to college and found a better-paying job at home for the summers. (better paying than being a camp counselor). 

My ds never wanted to go to overnight camp. Dd went for a couple of nights with her Girl Scout troop, but never wanted to go more than that. 

Personally I don't think going to overnight camp is something that a kid needs to be independent and learn new things... or whatever else some people have said in this thread. My ds who never went overnight at all (except to friends' houses) managed to grow up just fine, found himself an internship at the Smithsonian after high school, moved himself down to Georgia a couple of years after high school, went to France for a month for a school program, etc. Dd went away to college and had a great experience, drove herself to New Orleans and has lived there for a year, will be living in New York City next year... No lack of independence in either one of them. Camp is not the only way to teach that. 

All that to say that if your dd doesn't want to go I wouldn't force her. And she's only 8. Maybe she'll want to go when she's 12... Or maybe not. Just give her other opportunities to learn independence. That's not totally dependent on sleepaway camp. 

Just my opinion of course...

I did several camps and so did DD. There is an independence fostered at sleep away camp that you don’t get as a day camper.

Eight and nine are both still very young. Look into whether any of the camps near you order a “first camp” or parent kid camp. I did this with DD at both a camp run by my church and Girl Scout camp. It let both of us experience camp for the first time together.

Soooooo many variables here...
Eight is YOUNG for camp. I used to be a counselor at a sleepaway camp where the youngest campers were 8. They cried for the first 3-4 WEEKS of camp. My friend was a counselor for the youngest ones (I had teens, which was a whole 'nother kettle of fish).

Among some people in NYC, 8 weeks of sleepaway camp is the norm from age 8 through high school. Only one of my own kids showed any interest in sleepaway camp, and then we started with one week at age 12 or so. That kid is now a counselor in training at the same camp, and gone for a month. All of my kids have successfully traveled away from home without family, so I don't think camp is necessary for that.

If you don't think she's ready at 9 next year, that's fine. She can go later. As a kid, I went to GS camp for a week each summer through middle school, and I was miserably homesick for the first 4-5 days. That did not stop me from being an exchange student in high school, and I had no problem going away to college in another part of the country.

All that is to say that camp is a fun experience for those who want to go. However, don't feel pressure to send your DD next summer if you or she is not ready.