Is an almost 10 year Old old enough for sleep-away camp?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
MilliCal’s in bed now (She’s my daughter; I’m her dad), so I’ll reply.

We looked at a Girl Scout camp less than an hour away. MilliCal’s been away overnight, but not for extended periods. We had a look at the camp recently, and it looks pretty good. Both Pepper Mill and I went away to scout camps several times, although we were a little older than MilliCal is now.

The camp looks pretty impressive. They have a variety of tents and cabins (including yurts!), but she won’t get a choice where she stays. It’s luck of the draw.

This is all MilliCal’s idea, by the way. She’s the one pushing for it (and for starting this thread).

She might have one friend go with her, but it’s still uncertain. I think she’s going to end up making several new friends there.
[/QUOTE]

I was going to ask if she wanted to. Kid Kalhoun did it at about 10 years old, and he had a blast. He was an outgoing kid and took to it like a duck to water. If a kid doesn’t want to go to camp, you’ve got a problem on your hands. But as long as she wants to, go for it!

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I went to camp for the first time when I was 7 in 1975 and stayed in a 30 foot tall teepee for a week.The next year I went to the same camp and stayed across the lake from Teepee Village in the Stockade Fort.
Over the years I went to the camp every summer for a week,sometimes two.I also stayed in real cabooses and covered wagons.
The very last year I went to camp,I signed up for the “Outpost” program,which involved a canoe trip in a 35 foot canoe that weighed 600 pounds.(A replica of the French Voyager canoes)
In 1982 my dad was hired as the Food Service Director of the camp,so we moved there.I started working that year as a member of the maintenance team(cleaning the outhouses,chopping campfire wood,baling hay).Following years, I did a number of jobs,Archery instructor,Riflery Instructor,Soccer Coach,Kitchen Worker,Tour Guide and Life Guard.
I still spend a lot of time at the camp and my mother still works there.

I’ve seen many kids come to camp with a bit of apprehension,in nearly every case,those feelings were gone in a matter of hours.Camp is tons of fun.
Have a great time!

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I was eight the first time I went to a summer camp. (I went on a few one-night camping trips before then). It was for a week, and I did go with a friend. I did have lots of fun and made good friends and had nice experiences. But I do remember being pretty homesick, so eight was probably a little young, at least for me. I went for the next six years, and never had a problem after that. When I was 15 I went for about a month and had lots of fun. Some camps are not very rustic and might be better for younger kids.

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Pretty much all the camping I did at that age was just weekends with the Guides (Mom was overprotective, she didn’t want us going to summer camp). I managed to convince her when I was 15 to send me (Bro got sent to another one by default since he didn’t want to be left out).

It was great though!

I see you’ve done your research, which is a good thing. The first camp I went to was a two week YMCA camp. You spent 8-10 days out of the camp itself, first on a hiking trip and then on a canoe or horse riding trip (depending what you chose, the hiking was for everyone unless there was a good reason you couldn’t, then you went on a canoe and a horse trip). All I saw was horses and disregarded the hiking, which was bad considering I was totally out of shape at the time. It was a learning experience, that’s for sure (I wouldn’t change it for the world, but it was a big thing for me).

I switched camp next year (with a little more research) and went to that instead for the next 3 years. I wish I had started going earlier, I still miss it and the people. It was such fun.

I bet you’ll have a blast!

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[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
…We looked at a Girl Scout camp less than an hour away…
[/QUOTE]

Hi. This sentence kind of jumped out at me. If possible, I recommend driving out there several times taking lots of different routes, passing and pointing out lots of landmarks, so MilliCal can get a sense of exactly where she is in relation to home, school, best friend’s house, favorite mall, etc. I think a lot of stress that doesn’t really get addressed isn’t so much being away from home, it’s being adrift, without any sense of where you are.

And.

MilliCal, this is your thread and it would be impolite of me not to talk to you. I hope you get to go, and you have a great time, and that you make a new friend who likes to write letters. I never went to camp in the summer (my one chance, I ended up in the hospital), but many of my friends thought it was great. They said it was like being in the hospital, except you weren’t sick and there was fun stuff to do and the food was lots better. So go to camp instead of letting your appendix explode. Sincerely, The King of Soup.

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I bet you dollars to donuts that next summer, one week won’t seem like nearly long enough.

I first went to sleepaway camp when I was about 8 (affiliated with Campfire Girls, which is similar to Girl Scouts. I was hooked, and eventually went to a camp where each session was 4 weeks long. It was awesome. You’ll love it.

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I think I was older (around 12) when I first went to a week-long camp like that. But one summer I was on staff at the same camp, for the youngest bunch of kids. They were aged 7-9, and, while there was a bit of homesickness the first few days, and a few kids who didn’t deal well and went home, the vast majority (90+%) had a great time. If she wants to go, she’ll probably love it.

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Hi MilliCal. I met you at Durgin Park last summer.

I don’t remember how old I was the first time I went. 9 or 10 I think. It was a 4-H camp. Not quite a week, it was Sunday through Friday. While I didn’t get homesick, I can’t say I always enjoyed it. But most of my memories are fond ones. The food was surprisingly excellent. I made good friends. I loved swimming. What I didn’t like was that it was a little too structured. Hopefully yours won’t be like that. (Or maybe you like structure.)

The worst part was that when I was older, my brother was a counsellor. Never go to a camp where your older brother is a counsellor.

Never.

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First,MissMossie, CalMeachem is my dad.I amgoing to camp for 2 weeks 1 in July and 1 in August. The one in August is when my birthday is and my friend is coming with me. We will either sleep in open cabins or tents on platforms. We went to an open house on Sunday day andit was great!

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I went to sleepaway camp for six weeks when I was five. That camp kinda sucked, so I went to a different one the next year. I loved it so much I begged my parents to sign me up for a few extra weeks, which they did, and returned every summer until I was 15.

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grayhaireddaughter here:

I am 10 years old and went to summer camp for the first time last summer when I was 9. I had a great time! It was the YMCA Camp Letts in Annapolis Maryland.

It was really cool because you can choose what you want to wear and where you want to sleep (top or bottom bunk). It was a little scary at first because you were in a diffrent place with new (or not so new) friends. Sometimes your cabin mates, as I like to call them, cry and it’s tough to go to sleep but the camp counslers will be happy to help.

I am absolutely sure that they will separate the two genders as far away from each other as possible, so don’t think you’ll be paired with the opposite gender. :wink:

There were a-lot of things to choose from. Like trail-riding and swimming and archery. You may not be paired with your cabin-mates or anything of the sort but you will probaly have a-lot of fun.

The camp food when I went was amazing. It was normaly something that wasn’t let’s say: carrot category, but there was always fruit and bread (and also some optional peanut butter and jelly). When I went there were two sides as boy side and a girl side, just to make sure nothing out of the ordinaty happened. :cool:

Camp Letts also had a dance on friday night. Nothing fancy just a dance (macarena and stuff of the sort). My friend Courtany was ‘In love’ as the others called it, with a boy named Alias. :smack: It was fun to watch her sweat pools of of course sweat. DON’T WORRY! IT IS NOT A PROM OR ANYTHING!!!

Anyway, the cabins were very clean. There was one bathroom with one toilet two showers, two sinks and two mirrors so there was enough for all. We alternated. I was number 7, so we would do 1 to 9 than 9 to 1 ans swiych every night. :slight_smile: Every morning we would wake up before 7:30 to clean up our cabin for inspection. Than we would get everything we needed together for the day and go outside at around 8:00. It was cool, like milatary or something when we heard the horn play for being sent of to breakfast. Like I said, it is awesome to be able to choose what we could wear. No dresses of that type of stuff where allowed.

I really like the songs we learned. They were really funny and nice to sing and since I was in cabin 22 I made up a song. I know the lyrics but don’t want to type it on the internet. Some one might steal it.

I hope you have an awesome time at camp. Maybe get a journal and write cool stuff down. You’ll read it later and want to go back again. Most may say that camp is childish but heck, we are children! You may wanna cry when you leave but that’s normal, go ahead… it won’t make summer come back any faster. Oh you may also wanna bring a camera or video camera to tape a ‘movie’ about camp. You can annoy your parents that way by watching it again and again and again. :smiley: Good luck with that. (Wow I wrote a-lot.)

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BTW, my summer camp was also YMCA (Camp Sloane in Lakeville CT) and it was run pretty much like greyhaireddaughter describes. Guess not much has changed in the past … um… few… years. :slight_smile:

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Hi Millical,

My mum started shipping my little brother and me off to camps with school/summer holiday groups from about 9 years old onwards. I’m somewhat of a hermit loner nowadays, but as a kid I loved that stuff. We did all sorts of things like night hikes, camping out in the bush (the woods), animal spotting. It was pretty neat. I ended up with a possum nibbling on my hair during an under-the-stars campout one time (an australian possum, little cuter than the guys you’ve got over there I hear.)

It’s good that you’ve seen the camp, and that you like it. I’m adding my vote in for “go for it”. I really think you’ll have a good time, you sound like you’ve considered all your options and if mom and dad are happy to let you go, it’s going to be something that you’d regret if you missed.

I hope you have fun, and you get dad to post lots of pictures for us when you get back. I’m too old to go on sleepaway camps nowadays, but I still like to imagine I can go :wink:

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Hello Again Yup, doesn’t sound like much has changed (I went to Camp Chief Hector). Though as older campers… well, I won’t post anything here to give ideas lol.

Camp was always great, I seriously can’t wait until my son is old enough to go. I want him to have more memories than I do of summer camp.