Choosing The Perfect Camp For Each Child In The Family
A mistake parents can make when choosing a camp is confusing their child’s needs with their own needs. If you want your child to be happy at camp, focus on who he or she is rather than on who you were as a camper. Your goal is to create a harmonious relationship between each of your children and the camp experience, not for your child to follow in your well-worn hiking boots.
Going to camp should be a choice for every child. Don’t force camp on a child who is terrified by the idea. At the same time, feel free to plant the seed in your children’s minds from an early age that camp is a fun, life-enhancing adventure for those willing to try it. If older siblings have gone to camp and liked it, then younger siblings may already be eager to go themselves. But if your child is not enthusiastic, don’t push camp on them without learning more.
Camp Considerations
Feel free to present your camp experiences and what you got out of them to your kids, and invite others in the family to do the same. At the same time, however, communicate clearly your understanding that your child is not you or anyone else, and that you like and respect the person your child is already. Sending a child to camp to correct or fix things about them is backwards. The person who needs to change their attitude in this scenario is the parent, not the child.
If you have worries or concerns about your child, don’t send your child to camp to address those feelings. Find someone you can talk to so you can learn to accept your children for who they are and meet their range of individual needs. Kids who are secure and comfortable in their own skin thrive at camp, whereas kids who are insecure and anxious may flounder.
A Range Of Choices
Sending kids to camp may have been your idea, but in order for kids to feel good about the adventure, they need to buy in to the idea, as well. The first question to ask yourself is, which types of camp are best suited to your child’s physical, emotional, and mental needs? Would day camp or overnight camp be the better choice at this developmental stage? If choosing overnight camp, would your child prefer to be close or far from home? Also consider the mission and style of the camp. Would your child prefer to rough it for a week in the White Mountains or stay in a cozy, family-style camp with modern amenities closer to home?
Parents may need to let go of the idea that what was good for them as children is good for their kids. What was good for you as a child may traumatize a sensitive child or a child with special needs. Strive to meet your kids where they are. Parents may experience some grieving in letting go of preconceived notions of sharing childhood experiences with their children. But try to leave the past in the past, so you can make the healthiest choices for your family in the present.
For example, if you were a rugged and athletic child, these traits may have been widely admired, as they usually are. If your family of origin had a bias against sensitive or artsy kids, you will want to be aware of a possible unconscious tendency in yourself. You may also need to steel your mind against what others think about who your child is. You are not taking a poll. This is not the 1950’s or even the 1980’s. Try to view the camp landscape through the eyes of each of your children instead of through the eyes of others or tradition.
What if you are different from your child in even more profound ways than personality? What if the two of you have very little in common at all? Would you both crave the same types of camp experiences? Would you even be likely to choose the same camps?
Be Respectful
Children know intuitively when they are liked and accepted. They also know when parts of them are disliked and rejected. To look at a child and compare him or her to your childhood self or to siblings or peers is disrespectful and hurtful. To really see your child and accept him or her for who she is means loving and respecting your child as is. Each child is an individual with so much to offer the world, whether you can see and accept this or not. If you choose the best camp for your child, you can relax knowing the folks in charge will see the value in your child. When you can see the value in your child, others see it, too.
Trying to force a child to be more like you, when the child is not you, may seem harmless and common in our society, but there is a cost. A child can feel when she is being criticized, so even if you are trying to bring the two of you closer together by putting your child through paces you were put through as a kid, your child may feel unseen and unknown.
You can’t send a child who is not like you to camp and get a version of yourself back. Not only does camp not work this way, life doesn’t work this way. Take a good, long look at each of your children. Resist the urge to see them as a version of yourself. None of them are you. There will never be another you in all the world. Once you see, understand, and accept each of your children, then you can work together to choose the perfect camp.
Author, journalist, and writing coach Christina Katz has learned that seeing kids as the individuals they truly are always pays off in the long run. She also knows it’s always a mistake to do what everyone else is doing, even if that’s what the child thinks is best in the short run.
Additional Information:
Do your kids a favor and see them for who they truly are. Love each of them to the best of your ability. If you struggle with any of this, admit it, and get some help. Often, parents are so busy taking care of everyone else that they neglect themselves. Individuation is an ongoing process that begins in childhood and continues for a lifetime. Parents can benefit by finding self-expression practices that help them keep up with their own needs. When parents take care of their own emotional needs, the need to project their needs onto their children diminishes and healthy boundaries can be restored. These workbooks are a good place to start for any parent who is feeling out of touch.
The Artist’s Way Workbook by Julia Cameron
The Creative Journal by Lucia Capacchione
Journal To The Self by Kathleen Adams
Start Where You Are by Meera Lee Patel
The Secret Me by Shane Windham
The Inner Child Workbook by Cathryn L. Taylor
Story by
Christina Katz