Back To School Week: I Worry About My Daughter More At Camp Than At School

My daughter is in a ”bubble” at school. Meaning, in many ways, school is not the real world.

At her private school, there are volunteers to open car doors when you drop and pick kids up. They eat at real tables at lunch, are served hot meals, and even have a salad bar. There’s an indoor ballet studio, swimming pool, full gym with work out machines, and the male teachers wear suits and ties. The teachers treat the children respectfully and never in your life have you seen a school of such polite children. I’m talking handshakes when they meet new teachers and handshakes with the headmistress. Children actually hold doors open for adults. Although there is the odd drama that happens between the girls, there’s rarely anything to be concerned about, because the teachers make sure that ALL the girls feel welcome and that they all democratically participate every activity.

They teach respect at my daughter’s school, thus she is to be respectful too. She’s always to share. She’s always to listen. She’s always to include everyone who wants to play with her at recess. She’s always to listen to the teacher, and there’s no talking back. If a teacher says to be quiet, she’s to be quiet. If someone is mean to her, she is not to be mean back, but go off and play with someone else.

But I have different ”rules” for her during the summer time when she’s off at camp. It was a friend’s husband who actually got me riled up about how I have to ”train” my daughter differently during summer. He taught his son how to punch someone in the face, just in case he got into a fight at overnight camp. Trust me, my friend would never allow her son to punch someone at his private school, but their thinking went that at camp you have to have ”street smarts.”

I could see her point. I wouldn’t be able to talk to my daughter at all during over night camp, so I wouldn’t be able to protect her or talk her through a problem. I didn’t teach my daughter how to punch because I don’t believe in violence at all, but I do believe my daughter needed some street smarts when she went off to day camp for the first month of summer and then overnight camp for the second month.

My daughter was distraught after her first day of camp when she saw a girl from her school who has always been mean to her. At school, I explicitly told her just to stay away. But at camp, I let her know that she needs to stick up for herself. I told her this numerous times. ”If she refuses to share with you, you just tell her that she’s being mean and that you are going to tell the counselor.” I added, ”Camp is different from school. At school you have to behave but at camp, you have to stick up for yourself and it’s all about having fun and if someone is ruining your fun, then you need to say something. Be strong. Be mean back!”

Anyone who has a child that is more of a ”follower” than a ”leader,” like my daughter is, will know what I’m talking about. My daughter’s sweet disposition is her best quality, but it can also be her downfall in situations when she’s surrounded by other children with stronger (and more bratty) personalities.

One day, my daughter came home telling me that one of her counselors told her that she couldn’t wear flip flops.

”But mommy,” my daughter said, ”I don’t understand. SHE was wearing flip flops.”

And this made me flip.

”You can wear flip flops. You ask your counselor why SHE is wearing flip flops if flip flops are not allowed.”

We role-played this a few times and the next day she came home and told me she said to the counselor, ”But you’re wearing flip flops.” I was actually PROUD of my daughter for talking back to an adult figure, even if that ”adult” was a 15-year-old.

When it came to overnight camp, I also had to teach her some ”street smarts.”

”When you get to camp, get a bottom bunk and don’t get one near the washroom,” I said. The week leading up to overnight camp, I would say to her, ”What are you going to do at camp?”

”I’m going to get a bottom bunk, not near the washroom,” she repeated.

”Good girl!” I would exclaim.

At school, however, if she complains about who she has to sit beside or where her locker is, I tell her that’s how it is and to suck it up, buttercup. At camp, I was like, ”You run in there and make sure you get the bed you want!” I was super proud of my daughter, too, when she came back from camp and told me that a girl in her cabin wouldn’t let her help on a cabin painting project. My sweet-natured daughter found the guts to tell her, ”This is a group project. If you don’t let me help than it’s just yours. So you better let me help.”

At camp, her cabin was yelled at every night for being loud and not going to bed, which I laughed at. That’s what overnight camp is for! I loved the fact that my daughter got up early with the other girls, laughing and giggling but pissing the counselors off, because they wanted to sleep in. They got yelled at. Oh well! I let my daughter get away with way more at camp than I do at school. But I’ve warned her already, ”School is different from camp. Now you have to be a good girl again.”

(photo: Anelina/ Shutterstock)