First of all, after the blisters break, do NOT use Solarcaine on them. I’ve had second degree sunburn twice in my life, both times as a adult. The first time, after the blisters broke and I started peeling, I sprayed Solarcaine on my back thinking it would ease the pain. Instead, it hurt far worse than the original pain did. In fact, it was sheer, blinding agony for a few seconds. I swear by green aloe vera gel, myself.
Look, Wallet, I’m also fair-skinned, I burn easily, and I worked in tourism for many years. I used to warn people about the need to applying sunscreen, and it didn’t always worked, even when I was beet red while I was telling them this and serving as an example of what would happen if you didn’t do this. When my brothers were teenagers, they spent a week at the beach, staying up all night and sleeping on the beach all day. One of them, who’s naturally even fairer than I am, wound up with sunburn so bad he had purple polka dots! He wasn’t traumatized (it takes a lot to traumatize him); in fact, he now owns a house on a beach and has fair-skinned kids of his own.
You’re not a rotten parent. This could happen whether you’re there or not, and whether you warn your son or not. Yes, he was in pain when you posted. Yes, it could have been prevented, but that assumes your son’s willing to take a break from having fun and subject himself to slathering himself with sun block. When I was a kid, that was a chore. It’s worse, of course, because cuddling him to make the pain go away will only make things hurt worse, but I doubt this will ruin his life or put him in therapy for years. He may have learned a lesson; then again he may not – that sun burn I mentioned wasn’t my brother’s first one. He’ll be all right soon enough, and now, when he moans about sunscreen, you can remind him of what happens when he doesn’t.
As for the counselors, I see nothing wrong with saying a word, but please consider their position. In this day and age, putting sun screen on the kids themselves is inadvisable, when you consider that people who work with kids are warned against touching them in any way. They can tell kids to put sun screen on, but that leaves them with the question of what to do if a kid refuses to. We’ve all read tales of parents who think no one has the right to make their kid do something he or she doesn’t want to do. I suggest you ask your son to tell you what happened and if the counselors told him to put sunscreen on. If they did, ask him why he didn’t. They may have done the best they can.
He’ll be all right, you know, and so will you. Please don’t kick yourself over this. On a grand scale, this is fairly minor and in a year, he may not even remember (not a good thing if you’re trying to get him to wear sun screen again! :eek: ).
A careful hug to both of you.
I would also most definitely take this up with the higher ups in his daycamp. If there are no rules regarding this, there ought to be. Good luck.