How Young is Too Young...For Sleepaway Camp?

Also the first time I've heard the term sleepaway camp. It was always summer camp or church camp. Then when I got older, it was called "maneuvers."

 

You're never too young...

 

How old was Wudy the Wabbit?

 

AWESOME.

 

Fantastic.

 

I went to sleepaway camp for the first time when I was about nine. (Of course, while I was gone, all hell broke loose because my mom stepped in an ant hill and tore a bunch of ligaments in her ankle and no one bothered to tell me that I was coming home to her being on CRUTCHES and had to play fetch for her for two weeks.) I was okay because I had done a lot of sleepovers.

I also was a camp counselor at 4-H camp. Nine nine-year-olds for four days...I was about ready to rip my hair out and we had more than one kid who got really home sick and cried.

I also know that when I was 16 and away from home for the first long period of time (two weeks), I got really home sick, especially since I could never get my dad on the phone and I really missed him, that when I saw my parents at the airport, I literally went and jumped into my dad's arms and he carried me down to baggage claim.

Now it's weird, because it's perfectly normal for me to go months on end without seeing any of my family now that I've moved across the country and I rarely get home sick.

 

Huh. I guess never having gone to "sleepaway" or "overnight" or any other kind of camp meant I had no idea this meant a month-long period. I thought it was like a weekend thing.

Yikes.

 

Some camps are eight weeks long and cost 10-15K. Parents who have kids for status reasons and don't want to be bothered with them during the summer.

 

When I was growing up, I had friends who went for 8 weeks. Crazy. They loved it, though.

I've never heard it called anything besides "sleepaway" camp. To me, residential camp sounds like a place juvenile offenders get sent. Maybe the names are a regional thing.

 

I worked at a day camp and I cant imagine those bastard children leaving their families for extended periods. There were a few kids each year who were so socially inept they cried when their parents left. We're talking 5, 6, 7, 8 year olds. Ridiculous. When I was five I couldn't wait to go places without my parents.

Anyway, my first actual sleepaway camp was actual cross country camp. I was 16. I also worked there as a counselor for four years which basically consisted of staying up all night sitting on the picnic tables and listening for cabin doors opening. We had to make sure the girl campers weren't sneaking out to give the guy campers blowies.

 

I used to go to a sleepaway camp for a couple of years. One summer, I went to one two-week session, went back home for two weeks, then went back for another two-week session. But then, I was between 14 and 16 years old at the time.

I don't remember how much experience I had sleeping in beds other than mine at my parents' place or at a relative's, but the counselors pretty much all thought I was a great kid, and while I certainly missed home, I enjoyed the hell out of my time at the camp.

But I don't know if I could have handled anything more than a day camp at 5 1/2.

 

It varies by kid.

At 5, even 6, I can't imagine a kid handling that. At 7 or 8, I think many could do a week or two without much problem.