Overnight Camp: Is Your Child Ready?

As winter trudges along, are visions of summertime dancing through your head? If so, you’re not alone. Soon we’ll be saying bye-bye to cabin fever and a welcoming hello to the warm sunshine, flip-flops, bomb pops, summer vacation … and for some of our children, overnight camp!

Before enrolling your child in any particular camp, look over the following ways to prepare yourself and your child for the overnight camp experience:

Involve your child in the selection process. You don’t want her to feel as if you’re just sending her off to some strange place. Go through camp brochures and/or websites together. Let your child know what to expect and review the checklist of things that will happen each day.

Ask questions. Ask everything and anything you can think of and don’t feel silly about it. What is the camper-to-staff ratio? What is a typical day like at camp? Are there background checks on staffers? What happens if someone bullies your child? Asking questions will help ease your mind.

Prepare for camp together. Read through the packing list together, bring your child with you when shopping for camp supplies and pack together.

Make sure your child can take care of herself. Be sure she can bathe by herself, brush her own teeth, comb her hair, unpack her own bags, decide what to wear and make healthy food choices. It’s also important that she can verbally express her basic needs (i.e. if she needs help or doesn’t feel well).

Plan your correspondence. Email or snail mail? You and your child decide. Make it easy for her by addressing and stamping envelopes which she can use to mail letters home. Camps typically have no-phone-call policies.

Stay positive about the camp experience! Let your child know you’re excited for her by telling her things like, “Can’t wait to hear all about the fun things you’ll do at camp!” What you don’t want to do is disrupt her enthusiasm with your own nerves. Don’t linger too long when you drop her off and avoid using the word homesickness or making deals with her by promising to pick her up if she’s sad. Homesickness is completely normal.

Gina Klein writes from her home in Kansas City, where she resides with her husband and two daughters.