Kids going to summer camp for the first time need reassurance, but not too much

NEW YORK – Audra Friis has decided on a Long Island day camp for her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. She’s confident her oldest will do just fine after attending other day camps, but she’s a tad worried her first-timer will have trouble settling in.

“He doesn’t transition as easily as his older sister,” Friis said. “It’s definitely a high-energy camp. My whole issue is really the high energy and the overstimulation. Kids respond to that or they don’t.”

While some kids prefer to know all the details of a new experience, she thinks a less-is-more approach to preparing her kindergartner is the way to go. She’s not the only parent looking to easing that transition.

“Instead of filling his head with all of the things that he’s going to be doing that would ordinarily get somebody excited, he might back away and decide it doesn’t sound like fun,” said Friis, who lives in Commack, New York.

Camp directors and consultants think there’s no one way to prep new campers since a child’s personality and the care taken in choosing a camp play key roles, but there are things parents should avoid doing and saying.

Never, for example, promise a child heading off to sleepaway camp for the first time they’ll be picked up early if they get homesick.

“Kids shouldn’t go into it with the feeling that they have an out. Start with an attitude of excitement and enthusiasm and confidence,” said Laurie Kaiden, who calls herself a Campcierge for her work connecting parents with the Maine Camp Experience, a group of 32 camps there.

Trial or introductory programs are a good idea for parents who aren’t sure whether their kids will do well in a day program or far from home. Many sleepaway camps offer “taster” sessions of one to two weeks.

David Seddon is a former camp counselor who trains staff and works with parents as director of the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp program for younger kids, in Claryville, New York. He recommends a one-week trial session for first-timers.

Whether it’s taking on a new activity or trying a new food, Seddon said parents should talk with kids before the season starts about what they expect from them.

“A lot of kids come to camp and they really don’t know why they’re here,” he said.

Seddon agreed “overtalking” the details ahead of time – how many activities are crammed into a day, say, or what the showers are like – might create undue anxiety.

Logistics will work themselves out with the help of counselors, he said. And lots of camps try to create some familiarity for newcomers through videos, home visits and group meet-ups.

Lindsay Davis, who works with sick kids and their families as a certified child life specialist at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, has chaperoned young sickle-cell patients at a camp in Ashford, Connecticut, called Hole in the Wall Gang. She suggests parents be as detailed as possible on camp forms that ask them to describe their kids.

Perhaps most importantly, she advises: “Remind [kids] there is no right or wrong way to experience camp. Their job is to just relax and have fun.”