On Not Documenting Every Moment

I had a surreal moment last summer. I’d been attending camps for 39 years, working at the same camp for 30 years, and writing about camps for nearly 20 years when I finally got the chance to drop off my own son at camp. The summer of 2011 was Dacha’s first two-week stay at overnight camp. The moment I had been looking forward to since a decade before I even had children had finally arrived.

My camp director friends had made all kinds of predictions about that day. “Your kid’s gonna flip out,” some of them guessed, “because there’s been so much build-up to this moment.” “You’re gonna lose your junk,” others speculated, “because you’ll be over-analyzing every second of what Dacha does.” A few also suggested, “You and Dacha are going to be fine. It’s the cabin leader I’m worried about. It’s not every day that the author of The Summer Camp Handbook drops his son off at camp.” Sheesh.

In reality, none of that came true. Dacha was exited to be a camper, having grown up on the property but not having been allowed to participate in anything except waterfront activities. And I stepped through the entire day as if I’d done it a million times (which I kinda had, at least from the point of view of the cabin leader). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), we had remembered to pack everything. Heck, I didn’t even linger to chat up Dacha’s cabin leader. Why should I have? I trained the guy myself.

But I did make one huge mistake. I busted out my flash video recorder and tried to capture the whole experience with megapixel fidelity. The result: I was a step removed from actually savoring the moment. I knew what was going on, but I was so intent on memorializing that half hour from main-lodge check-in to our final goodbye hug that I missed the experience of dropping my son off at camp. And watching the video is completely unsatisfactory. It’s like trying to enjoy a sunset on Skype.

I realize that only a few parents reading this month’s column are youth development professionals who will be dropping off their own flesh and blood at camp this summer. And even fewer of you reading this have written advice columns for parents about creating a successful camp experience for your children. But that doesn’t matter. We all have one thing in common: We love our children and we enjoy being part of their lives. ‘Nuf said.

For this reason, I urge you to keep your smart phone and all other electronics at home on opening day. I’ll allow you one posed photo with the counselor in front of the cabin, but that’s it. Honestly. Plan to spend opening day breathing in the fresh air, listening carefully to your son or daughter’s tone, observing the subtleties in his or her behavior, and interacting face-to-face, not through a lens. The emotional memory you will create that day by being present in the moment will be higher def than any flash video. On opening day, be a parent, not a producer.

Have a wonderful summer!

Dr. Christopher Thurber

Hey, Water Fans!

Get informative tips about the importance of keeping hydrated as you go about your highly active and scorching hot camp days. Learn the tell-tale signs of severe dehydration that our bodies put out to warn ourselves when we’re at dangerously low hydration levels. Read the straight facts about how water fuels our bodies and come across interesting information and helpful tips for keeping water on your person at summer camp. This post from the Everything Summer Camp company writer has been removed from our Blog site and moved to our main site’s Camp 101 feature. Click here to read this helpful Blog post.

Hey, Camp Fans!

It’s the last day of May; and you know what that means! It’s most-likely time for many of you to actively prepare for your camper’s summer camp stay. While completing a packing list, making sure that your camper is completely packed, and eventually getting them to camp with all of their camp gear may sound like an overwhelming impossibility—I swear—Everything Summer Camp can help make everything much simpler than it sounds.

It’s true! Everything Summer Camp can really take away all the stress that goes into getting everything ready for your child’s summer camp stay.

Issues start to arise when you have multiple places from which you need to buy your gear. It can easily become much harder to keep track of all your things when you purchased nine items online from five separate Web sites and the rest you decide to hunt and gather at your local retail stores! Yes, you will save some money this way, but the products you’re going to purchase will not be of the same quality as what we can offer.

We’re Everything Summer Camp! We’re your one stop shop for all your summer camp needs! Our Web site can save you tons of time and we don’t make our customers pay through the nose for it, either. In fact, we hope that you involve your camper in the experience of preparing for summer camp—have fun on our Web site and really get into the summer camp spirit.

Our number one concern is our customers and getting your children to camp fully prepared and on time. Don’t let stressful camp prepping lead to a stressful camp experience for your camper—leave the work to us and simply enjoy your summer!

That’s all for today, Camp Fans! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Packing Ends and Odds

What to pack isn’t half as interesting as how to pack. As you read this, millions of parents are doing it the wrong way. They’re packing for their children, instead of with their children. In a prior Everything Summer Camp e-mail, I discussed how important it is to involve your child in all of the big and small decisions regarding camp. Parents and children should shop together, choose a footlocker or trunk together, and, of course, pack together. “C’mon,” you protest, “my kid wouldn’t know how to pack a trunk if his life depended on it.” Not unless you let him help.

I laugh thinking about my days as a cabin leader, chastising a camper for wearing only a T-shirt on a cold rainy day, only to have him reply, “But I don’t have a raincoat!” Odd, I think to myself. So we’d open up his footlocker together and lift up the top tray. Lo and behold! Stacks of neatly folded clothes, including—you guessed it—a raincoat. Cue the dreamy harp music. “Oh, I had no idea. My mom packed this all for me.” I think you get the picture. Indeed, there are benefits to packing together that extend far beyond the joys of spending casual time with your son or daughter.

And now a few insider tips on what to pack that most camps won’t tell you.

• Label everything. Admit it. Even though you’ve read this recommendation from me before, you’ve already set aside a few things for camp that don’t have your son or daughter’s name on them. Baseball glove? Toothbrush? Sunglasses? Underwear? Shampoo? Between iron-on labels, laundry markers, and a commercial tape labeler, you can slap a name on anything.

• Label the footlocker or trunk. No, I don’t have a raging case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Believe it or not, you do need to label the container in which you and your child are packing all of this beautifully labeled gear. Good quality footlockers, for example, get used as ladders, card tables, and even wind up outside from time to time. So yes, it has to have a name on it or in it.

• Pack the packing list. Next thing you know I’m going to be asking you to label the laundry marker you send with your child, right? (Come to think of it, that’s not such a bad idea.) Anyway, placing the list of everything you’ve packed inside the trunk itself serves as an excellent checklist at the end of the season. It’s the guideline for repacking, so be sure it’s complete.

• Avoid sprays. Most bug sprays, deodorant sprays, and even perfume atomizers create flammable vapors. Better to pack stick or lotion forms of bug spray and toiletries. (And leave the perfume at home.) Not convinced? Imagine a bunch of eight-year-olds with a half dozen cans of spray repellent dousing themselves around a roaring campfire. Got that image? Now delete.

• Enlist support. Social support is important and helps promote adjustment. But the kind of support I’m talking about here is more…intimate. Let’s just say that some activities for young men and women and more comfortable with bras and jock straps on. That’s right. Excessive bouncing during horseback riding, mountain biking, and plain old running can be uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable as asking your parents to buy these undergarments. So, if your child is hitting puberty, assume they need this support and shop for it (with them, of course) matter-of-factly. Hey, they can always elect not to wear it. Kind of like the raincoat they discover at the bottom of their trunk.

Enjoy the summer!

Dr. Christopher Thurber

Water Safety Alert

How a conversation at home could save your child’s life at camp

Drowning is a leading cause of accidental death among young people. So whether your son or daughter is headed to day camp or overnight camp this summer, you’ll want to teach them basic water safety at home, before opening day.

Yes, high-quality camps should train all of their staff in emergency water rescue. They should categorize swimmers and place them in appropriate instructional groups and water depths. They should insist that children swim in buddy pairs…and follow other essential safety practices. They should. But they don’t. Not always. They’re human, so their attention wanes and their judgment falters.

I’ve been a camp waterfront director for nearly 25 years, so I’ve seen or made just about every aquatic mistake well-trained lifeguards make. And that experience has taught me the importance of redundancy. Safety systems need back-up safety systems. And that’s where you, as a parent, come in.

When moms and dads participate in basic water safety preparation at home, campers behave more safely at camp. At a minimum, these are the steps you should take prior to opening day:

• Teach your child that playing in the water is fun, but should never be enjoyed alone. There must always be a properly-trained adult lifeguard present.

• Teach your child to enjoy the water in buddy pairs, never as singletons. This might be a parent-child buddy pair at the beach, under the watchful eye of a trained lifeguard. Or, it might be a pool party in the backyard, where every young guest has a swimming buddy.

• Teach your child to swim. Even the youngest day campers can learn to swim. Before the camp season starts, bring your child to some lessons at the local municipal pool, YMCA or club. Sure, children will become better swimmers at camp, but learning the basics prior to camp is a plus.

• Teach your child to swim only during daylight hours. Accidents are more likely when campers cannot judge depth, direction or bottom conditions in the darkness.

• Teach your child to tread water and perform the survival float, as well as to respond to a distressed swimmer with a reaching assist or a throwing assist. Even a kindergartener can save a life with a working knowledge of basic rescue techniques.

• Reinforce your expectation that your son or daughter will follow all of the camp’s aquatic rules, such as: No Diving in Shallow Water, No Running on the Dock or Deck, Always Wear a Life Jacket in Boats, etc.

Like wearing a seatbelt in the car or donning a helmet when riding a bicycle, following waterfront safety rules makes an exciting—but potentially dangerous—activity safer. What you start in your own bathtub, backyard pool or nearby shore can then be reinforced by your child’s counselor or cabin leader. Or, if a distracted staff member fails to remind your child to don a life preserver before he or she launches out in a canoe, it won’t matter. A properly-sized preserver will already be buckled on, thanks to you.

Enjoy the summer!

Dr. Christopher Thurber