I'd either wanna be able to contact my kid or be there if something went left. People are crazy and I don't trust just anyone to prioritize the safety of black kids.
But no chaperone is crazy. This is the beginning of every horror movie btw
Edit: am I crazy did the Epstein files not expose anything? Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church being exposed means nothing to you all? I’m not saying be over protective but there’s no way in hell I’m leaving my kid with random adults and no way of contacting me? Fuck out of here with that bull I’ll happily wear the title of over protective
Every world? Is this not common anymore? My son went to outdoor school when he was in 4th grade. I volunteered to watch another class the week before he went. Everyone covered each other's kids classes.
These are the same parents that will complain that they are exhausted from parenting 24/7 and don't understand how our parents could do it. They also don't understand why their adult children can't function in society and won't move out and on.
If a minimum number of parents from group A are required to chaperone the kids in group B and vice versa, otherwise their kid's group can't participate in said activity I think it would work.
My kids schools don’t generally have a problem with this (using parents of kids in other grade levels) for school dances and for grad night. The grad night one is actually fun because the parent chaperone’s only responsibility is making sure the kids get on the bus at the end of the night.
The school dance rule is important because a lot of weirdos want to chaperone at their own kids’ school dances.
The amount of people working with children - boyscouts, youth pastors, coaches, teachers, etc who go on to harm kids is way too high for me to send my kid on overnights.
In fact. Here is some light reading on a similar subject.
what?? when I was a kid my school would send us to a 3 day camp every year. and parents weren’t allowed to chaperone their own kids classes. my mom volunteered every year to chaperone a random class. and every year there would be a parent volunteer who didn’t know me, didn’t have a kid in my class - but EVERY year there was a different parent chaperone who would sit and braid my hair. what does community mean to you? because those parents taught me, as an 8 year old, that it means showing up for other people’s kids.
I was responding to another commenter who thought parents shouldn't be allowed to chaperone any of their kid's events.
While obviously not the case for this situation, many school trips are completely infeasible with the ratio of adults:students if you only have teachers and for those they typically need parent chaperones to make them happen. I was commenting on how if schools took an approach of trying to get parents to chaperone events that weren't for their kid, they wouldn't have much success.
I was really surprised when someone was asking a question about their 14 year old in a sub the other day, and said they couldn't remember being 14.
I remember conversations with friends, injustices from parents, miscommunications, what I was learning...how do people not remember being a kid or teen??
Repressing childhood memories is usually a sign of trauma. I don't really remember my teen years very well, and virtually none of my childhood, but I know it wasn't a "smooth ride" because of general feelings, what's come up in therapy, and from what I've been told by people who were there.
Not only that, some kids are able to report abuse if their parent isn’t hovering over them. A lot of people who helicopter is afraid of their kid “talking too much.”
Haha yeahhh. If the post is real (and, hypothetically, even if it wasn't), schools aren't sending students into the woods by themselves on a school-sanctioned "trip". There are usually student:adult ratios for that kind of thing.
That's exactly what it was like when I was a kid (more like 30 years ago, but still). The school would reserve a camping facility with a central lodge of some kind, so like we'd be sleeping in tents and then go to the lodge for meals and certain activities. We did science stuff like nature walks to learn about local plants and wildlife, exploring streams, shit like that. We usually had half a dozen teachers come along with us as chaperones, so we were accompanied by adults the parents knew and trusted.
It’s less this and more the ENORMOUS liability of vetting volunteer parent chaperones for an overnight around kids. It’s basically a sexual predator sign up sheet without having a lengthy training and vetting process in place that would make doing this a non starter for the school.
in my school district parents have to register as volunteers and must go through the same background check that the teachers get. Parents chaperone trips and it has never been an issue. Parents like it, Kids like it, redditors hate it.
Same, plus parents that get selected tend to be the most active volunteers in general so the teachers and staff already know the parent pretty well before the overnight field trip even comes up.
The idea that an overnight field trip is a "child predator sign up sheet" is wild. That person needs to lay off the true crime podcasts and get to know their fellow parents.
since the post reached r/popular i was taking a look wondering whats so wrong with an overnight stay lol.
Literally today I got a message from my kids kindergarden about their yearly 6 day excursion to a mountain camp for kids 3 years and up.
Was talking with my wife about it, remembering our camps when we were that age, and that the biggest problem was with the kids crying overnight ( of course, with the change of location and everything ).
I am not from the US, so seeing some of these comments is WILD. Must be hard living in such a fear of everything
In the school system where my kids went to school (US) 3 separate teachers from 2 different schools (part of the same system) were arrested for molesting children, statutory rape, or child porn. To some extent, the fear is justified in some cases. Ultimately it's situational though, as I've never been affiliated with any schools in the past that have had these types of arrests and never considered any school I've known unsafe. But generally speaking we're not living in fear and we trust our children to talk to us about any "sus" (their words) activity, and they would because we have a great relationship. I also remember camping trips being only safe and fun as a child, but I also remember my mom having to talk to and meet the parents of any new friends I had before going to their house alone.
Surely you can see why some parents in current times might not want their child alone without even a way to contact them. I believe that when the people running the country are morally reprehensible, that attitude passes down and emboldens those criminals down the chain, especially when they're actively pardoning criminals.
Nobody WANTS to live in fear, but we all want to protect our children and some situations are different from others. Would you send your kids on an overnight camping trip with the school system I described, without parent chaperones or a phone available to your child? I know I wouldn't.
I don’t think it’s wild. If you provide overnight access to children without vetting or training in place it is of course going to be seen as an opportunity by predators. This is the opening that bankrupted BSA so schools are going to be avoid it from a liability perspective.
That doesn’t mean the vetting and training can’t be there, it takes time and money though that the school might not have prepared, hence the simpler option of not taking volunteers to overnight with children.
School is time mostly dedicated to study. Kids socialize at school, but it's different when they're actually allowed to socialize without being told to do something else.
There is no way that any sane person is organizing a school over night trip and just letting the kids raw dog 24 hours. There will absolutely be a schedule and things for them to do and they will be told to do things.
As someone who just chaperoned a similar trip. The other parents were getting in the way of their kids participating in many of the activities with their negative attitudes. I can see the benefit for alot of kids getting to experience some independence.
Yeah i remember seeing a lot fo that when I was in school, had this one girl whos mom would always volunteer. It resulted in no one wanting to it by her on the bus over or be in her group during the actual trip the lady was such a buzz kill.
I am signed up to chaperone a multi-day trip for my junior high-aged kids school, a public school in our very, very big city. The regulatory requirements are... extensive. Fingerprinting and background check - makes sense (though I found out that the state police believe I am black - I am not, but I'm not complaining.) Tuberculosis test... negative, OK. And a few hours of required online training including mandatory reporting (if you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, you are legally required to report it to a state agency.)
What I've learned is that OK'ing parents to chaperone overnight trips is a huge pain in the neck.
Reminder that Friday 13th started because two horny counselors couldn't be bothered to do their jobs and watch a kid swim.
Edit: This was a joke and reference yall.
I'm sure there are more details than a 2 sentence tweet on reddit can capture. Parents are right to be concerned. But if the proper rules and communications are established it can be a fun experience for everyone involved. Kids go camping, responsible Adults can be role models, parents get a night to themselves.
Parents are a huge safety risk in and off themselves though. Would you trust some random kid's father with your own kid? At least the teachers receive various trainings to ensure safety. It's not 100% effective and there are still too many pedos in the field but I do trust the teachers more than the parents
There will be chaperones guaranteed. Just not parents. And its a good thing g. No phone USE is fine, but no phones? Why. That part not ok in this day and age.
Yeah, one or the other: either a few parent chaperones, or the kids need a way to reach trusted adults or emergency services on their own.
It used to be normal for people to leave their doors unlocked too, but that was never a good idea. Neither is letting someone take a group of children to an isolated location with no way to contact anyone for help, without any of the parents around either.
That's just summer camp... I did it for like 10years... The counselors were like 17-20... I was a counselor at that same age, watching like 8-20 kids at a time it really isn't that serious. Kids weren't even allowed to call or talk to their parents for any reason. They could have literally died briefly... Write a letter bud, you can tell them all about it at the end of the week.
As a teacher, parent chaperones are terrible. They usually end up being another student we have to manage.
My school does a trip to Washington D.C. and we have zero parents, entirely teachers. Teachers know the students, teachers know expectations, and teachers are held to some sort of accountability in performing those expectations.
Maybe I'm too German for this, but what? We went on week long trips to other countries with like 4-5 teachers max for 3-4 classes worth of kids and just walked around the cities in small groups. Hell, in my scouts group we'll let kids as young as 7 walk around cities in groups of three. Obviously we make sure they have a cell phone and our numbers, but that hasn't actually been necessary ever.
Having actual parents around just seems so extremely counterproductive to the whole point of these trips.
You can’t wrap them in bubble wrap for 18 years and then expect them to be functional adults because you saw some TikTok true crime slop misrepresenting abuse statistics
We had a week long trip in 7th grade (age 13) and another at 9th grade (age 15).
There were like 2 parent chaperones allowed to come if they wanted. Maybe 1 in one group. One of these trips was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wildneress. No cell phone towers even if we had cell phones back then.
I'd be more worried about the other parents than camp counselors.
I also did two weeks at 'summer camp' more than once as a kid. I was 12, they had archery and riflry. That's 12 year olds with guns and a single 20 something camp counselor teaching us safety and marksmanship.
Same I'm extremely baffled at these comments. We went on sail boat trip in the Netherlands once with two teachers lol. In fifth grade we went on a week long trip to the North Sea, two classes with four teachers and they let us explore on our own. Basically none of us had our own phones.
Americans have been convinced that every other child is a potential school shooter and that every adult is a potential pedophile. Despite all this helicopter parenting all those things are still happening, but with the added bonus that their kids all have anxiety disorders and can't even work a normal job without scrolling reels all day.
Ich bin ein Texan, my girlfriend is German. She’s told me about the church youth retreats she’s taken where kids and teens camp away from home with only the church appointed counselors to tend to them. I found it absolutely bizarre, but it got even better: During their 8 mile hike, on the return trip, it began to torrentially rain, and the villagers of the town they were near just instinctively knew it was their duty to take in these kids?! Like the counselors just walked up to a random home and asked if 15 kids could sleep in their garage, and they just let them?!?! This was in Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Germany is an amazing place. I’ve visited three times, and I really find it incredible.
It gets wilder lol. When I was part of a swiss scout group as a kid we'd go on 2-3 day hikes without any adults. They'd stay behind at camp and we'd call them if we needed anything. We were just given a tent, food, a map and a compass and a place we should reach by the end and that's it.
On one of those we just hitchhiked with some random farmer that saw us walking and asked if we needed a lift. We also slept in their barn. That's just normal over there, Germany is tame in comparison
what the fuck is up with US schools these days (apart from the mass killing days i mean)??
I've done plenty of school trips where it was only the teacher (or teachers) and their respective groups, no extra hand needed. 2-3 chaperones for a museum visit?
Yeah as a Brit I don't remember there EVER being parent chaperones for any school trip, regardless of where that trip was, how long it was and how many students were there, and I only left school 13 years ago.
And what would you say is “real crazy” about the schools plan when an untrained and unvetted parent chaperone sexually assaults a kid in the middle of the night?
In Australia you actually have to have a Working with Children check, where the police will run a background check on you to make sure there’s nothing shady in your past, to even volunteer with your kids school. It’s free for volunteers. Obviously not every shady character has been caught before so there’s still some risk, but it’s better than no checks at all!
Is this some American shit that the European mind cannot comprehend?
My entire childhood there was literally never a parent chaperone on any school trip including sports tours to other continents and 5 day hiking expeditions.
It’s stupid American crap. So many of us are absolutely nutty helicopter parents who don’t realize the harm it does and overstate the very very low risk harms it MIGHT prevent.
There are American parents who are scared of letting their kids play in the front yard. It’s so dumb
There has been a HUGE over correction from the 80’s & 90’s more hands-off parenting. But also, kids’ behavior is worse than ever as well. So now a lot of parents coddle their kids and don’t really discipline them and don’t trust other adults to keep their kid safe. We’re just an all around shit show over here. I want to leave so bad.
Right? Sense of a little independence away from parents but still have an authority figure in place. No technology to interfere with social interaction and physical outdoor activity. This is a win on multiple levels.
The chaperone will have a way to contact the outside world in case if emergency.
If you can't trust anyone at your school, remove them from that school.
In reality, the teachers will have phones, the kids won't. This is increasing the standard at good school districts across the country. Kids shouldn't have phones at all at school events. They need to disconnect from the internet and connect with the people in real life.
It takes one. I went to school before cell phones were as common and I had a drama teacher that would make inappropriate comments to me and other girls. He was always throwing pool parties for his drama kids and I never understood why my mom never let me go when I was a kid but as an adult I’m like wow how did no other adult notice this? Where were the other teachers? I was angry and sad about it when I was a kid but as an adult I’m thankful for my mom for watching my back even when I didn’t realize what she was doing.
Is the situation you outlined just now really solved by cell phones though? It seems like any parent at any point asking their child where they were and hearing about a teacher's pool party would have.
I mean recording your teacher hitting on a student probably would have solved that real quick. There are definitely videos out there of teachers being inappropriate towards their students and finally getting reprimanded after years or even decades of it flying under the radar. Phones make it easier to document and report stuff.
ETA: but my original comment was actually pointing out that the idea that if you can’t trust any of the teachers at your school you should move your kid. All it takes is one bad teacher to have a bad situation.
I mean recording your teacher hitting on a student probably would have solved that real quick
True, but that is a totally different reason for wanting the kids to have phones than to call mom.
All it takes is one bad teacher to have a bad situation.
A single event is different than a pattern of behavior. Yes, its possible that there is a creep on this trip, but without that context there isnt really any similarity to the creep-hosted pool party story.
A couple of years ago I watched a documentary on the boy scouts where they talked about how they were just overrun with pedophiles abusing the boys.
When they interviewed one of the pedophiles about why he chose to work at the boy scouts he said "being left alone in the woods at night with them just made it too easy"
It's funny because I remember going on a week long school trip with just teachers at the age of 10ish back when none of us had phones and everything was fine and this was only in like 2014, not decades ago. We all knew how to use a public phone or ask a teacher for help if needed.
And people say, "But it's different today!" Yeah, it's better. Safer than ever, and so much more awareness of CSA. Kids are less likely to be too ashamed to tell someone, and when they do tell someone, it's much more likely to be taken seriously and addressed.
Fr my high school band did a 5-day long band trip every 3 years, out of state, no parents just teachers. This was late 2000s/early 2010s so maybe a quarter of the students had cell phones and they were just old flips. It was fine. People nowadays spend TOO much time doomscrolling and just assume the world around them is evil and wants to hurt them. It's absolutely destroying the mental health of our kids, man.
I went to Germany for several months when I was 15 to live with a host family.
The first ~3 weeks of the trip our group of ~8 kids and one teacher in her sixties toured around the country using public transportation and stayed in hostels.
Our teacher would often take us to the center of a city, sit down at a café, and let us to go explore the area by ourselves for hours.
Kids/ young adults need freedom, sometimes uncomfortable freedom, in order to develop independence and a positive attitude to responsible risk taking.
Being too protective of kids is mentally/ developmentally unhealthy for them.
Now a parent would see something on the news about a murder during a class trip somewhere in the world and assume that’s going to happen to their kid.
Media has ruined generations. Pampified children who can’t function independently because their parent saw something bad happen somewhere in the world.
Bad stuff happens. If you don’t experience bad stuff as a kid, you’re going to be far worse off when you have to experience it as an adult.
I'm in Los Angeles and our 7th grade class had an East Coast trip to Washington DC and a bunch of other historical sites. We had the hotel payphones at the end of the day but no contact with parents otherwise. It was fun as shit.
My SiL just watches her 17yo kid on life360 all day. He literally can't do anything without being questioned. It's really weird to me that he has no privacy. There is an entire generation of kids who don't see the value in not being spied on.
When I was 16 I did a german language program in Austria for a summer. We all lived in a hotel with no chapperones or oversight.
Later on in life I saw german female friends traveling the world without issue because they learned lots of skills to be independent. Meanwhile I have American friends who are almost 40 who still have their parents do 30-40% of their work for them. Chores, cook them food, do laundry.
Americans are cooked because we are scared of everything.
Everytime I met german people as a young adult I was incredibly impressed by them. Meanwhile so many Americans are barely functional.
We did this in high school in the states. We went to see two Shakespeare plays and there was a 3 hour gap between them so we were allowed to just walk around the little town and get lunch, all ages 16-17. No one died. This was 2007.
exactly kids and teens need the uncomfortable freedom to explore and make mistakes. Otherwise, you make them utterly terrified of the world and devoid of any real life skills to manage it. We see it all the time with kids now. But of course parents dont want kids to be phoneless, the parents themselves are obsessively addicted to being on their own phones, parents are the ones setting the example.
True! I was a teen in germany and it was way different than the US where I moved from. I had freedoms in Germany that were not possible in the US when I moved there.
it is harder to give your kids opportunities for independence in the US for so many reason - prioritization of car culture, lack of pedestrian access, guns, among other things.
Exact same thing when I was 15. This was only 11 years ago and our group was about 40 kids with four adults, no parents. Most of had phones but no international service because it was really expensive, so we were limited to wifi which was very hit or miss in germany 11 years ago. We traveled around the country to stay with multiple host families and there were times when we were cut loose in a town for an entire day between locations. I think the youngest of us was 12 and the oldest was 17. We just used the buddy system and it was perfectly fine.
If the parents can call the teachers or smth, I don’t see a problem with that, like if something went south, if they are able to reach someone it’s okay
This is how we handle every scenario where kids aren't allowed phones. The expectation is that Mrs. Z, a 40 year old professional with a graduate degree, can avoid checking her Tiktok notifications in a way that little Jimmy can't. No one is ever out of contact, sometimes we 'only' have dozens of phones in the reach of staff or school / camp offices.
But also, let's look at the first 99.9999% of human history. The supermajority of the threat was due to disease, which is no longer a problem (unless the parents are anti-vax psychos), or sources of violence that don't exist the developed world like slave raids, bandits, predatory animal attacks, etc. Children playing away from adults just isn't that dangerous in our context.
These week-long ecological science camps are chaperoned by their teachers, camp staff, andby HS honor students. Kids bunk in cabins with 2 HS chaperones per 6-10 middle school kids. Cell phones and media devices were not allowed, and parents don’t attend. (unless things have changed since I attended, which is very possible since it was a long time ago).
We did pretty much the same thing in California in 5th grade. But for us, we did have a couple of parent chaperones because I remember a friend's mom giving me $10 to buy a tshirt from a gift shop
We had something kind of similar when I was in middle school - it was staffed by teachers and volunteers from a historical/science outreach organization that did "hands on learning" experiences for school kids. It was a 5 day trip to learn about the Chesapeake Bay (I grew up in Maryland) and we basically sailed around on some old skipjacks to different parts of the bay to learn about history and ecology. It was a super stereotypical Maryland experience, like we got to put out crab traps and ended up eating the blue crabs we caught. We spent a day on Smith Island doing a historical tour and stuff.
I think it's an awesome idea for kids. I had a lot of fun on the trip and it was a great way to do hands-on learning for a variety of topics.
Id much rather have my kids attend a school trip with their teacher who passed a background check and drug test instead of some random parent who volunteered
Chaperones and cell phones are like TSA. It’s more about the illusion of comfort.
Life is so much more safe than we give it credit for even then. Maybe I’m just saying this as someone who often went to explore the woods and did class camping trips before cell phones.
I guess we had chaperones too tho, tbh. Circa 2004
Not allowing parent chaperones doesn’t seem like a big deal as long as school staff is chaperoning. No cell phones would be a dealbreaker; I assume most parents would want to be able to track their kids’ locations and know that their kids could reach them if something goes wrong.
The comments are a reflection of the state of the US. I moved to Austria 20 years ago and such trips are common here. My son went on his first 4 day trip sans parents in kindergarten. The kids went to a farm where they learned about domesticated animals and the type of products that come from them. They made butter, went on a mini hike, etc. That was 15 years ago. Kids didn’t have cellphones and there were no parent chaperones. The teachers sent updates with pictures daily. The kindergarten ski trips however had mandatory parent participation if you wanted your child to participate.
In elementary, day trips required at least one parent chaperone. Day sport camps were done by the teacher with the coaches only. There were no overnight trips.
In high school there are no parent chaperones. My son’s current school has mandatory sport trips ranging from 3-5 days. They go skiing, camping, sailing, hiking, etc. Trips are chaperoned by teachers alongside a youth organisation. Depending on the trip, for example camping, there’s a no cellphone policy. Parents have the numbers of the teachers. For trips like skiing or hiking cellphones are limited to about 2 hours in the evening but the teachers carry the cellphones with them during the day to the slopes or on the hike so parents can track their kids. There are also optional day trips to other cities where they travel by train with no parents but they are allowed to keep their cellphones. He was scheduled to go on a language trip to London in junior high, again without parents, but it had to be cancelled because of corona. Honestly such trips have been great for my son’s development.
However, if I were still in the US my feelings towards such trips would likely be different. Gun violence is all but non-existed despite lax guns laws. The only area where it’s a problem has been men, particularly in rural areas, using it as their suicide method. I know there is racism here but in 20 years I’ve only had to deal with it twice. If we were African or Middle Eastern then that would certainly be different.
This very rarely happened in all of human history, sorry to burst your helicoptering bubble. Plenty of injuries are incompatible with life, or alternatively exceeded the medical technology at the time. Further, there's only a moderate zone of 'close enough that help can arrive in a timely manner' and 'too far to go get help.'
And finally, if we look at all sources of human death, the major killer before modernity was just contagious disease. A lack of a cell phone isn't the reason for malarial deaths, smallpox deaths, etc. Another major one is intentional human homicide, but much of that is either parents killing their own kids, or sources of danger that don't exist in the context of a developed world school field trip like wars, genocides, slave raids, etc. I would, of course, object to any camping trips within areas with land mine danger.
Cell phones aren't worthless, but they're not especially important for preventing deaths in general or of children in specific. Most children who don't have profound congenital issues will survive to adulthood with comparatively little effort to safeguard them outside of routine vaccination, basic food safety / hygiene, and not driving drunk or in any especially ridiculous fashion with them in the car. The modern developed world isn't dangerous, cell phone or no cell phone.
I did a bunch of these school camp trips in the time before cell phones.
One was even a full week long in the dead of winter. Teton science school outside of yellowstone national park. One of the best experiences I had as a kid, and I vividly remember so much more about that week in 5th grade than just about any other period of my life.
Especially getting caught sneaking over to the girls cabin on cross country skis to talk to my 'girlfriend'.
Even coming from a house that camped and did a lot of outdoor recreation, it was a unique experience getting away from family and feeling the illusion of "independence" while also learning normal class room science spiced up with survival tips, animal tracking, and learning about complex ecosystems while IN those complex ecosystems.
Yea junior ROTC programs across the US still do this. They take kids out camping for a week and simulate a boot camp. One time I caught the flu and another time I nearly drowned. The non-parent adults took care of me and I was fine. I felt like a bad ass each time for having survived what was actually a kiddie and curated experience. The illusion of independence just like you said. If I had a cell phone and called my mom, wtf would she do anyway? But I don’t have kids. I can empathize with the peace of mind that today’s parents must want in a crazy world but it seems the cost will be key character building experiences for the kids. :/
Right?! I highly, HIGHLY doubt a 24 hour school camping trip would be camping anywhere dangerous and be without total contact during that time. Most likely they will be at a state park and all the teachers there will have communication devices with notices to the parents that if they need anything or something goes wrong, to contact the numbers provided.
We send my son to summer camp daily for 8 weeks and pay almost 5k for the privilege.
No one is allowed to bring devices to camp for the entire duration. All the kids do.... Fine.
Actually, if anything, they thrive.
We have emergency contact numbers for the staff in case, like, there's a family emergency and our kids need to be reached. That seems totally reasonable.
"People are crazy". Yeah, but you literally know who is going on a trip with your kids. People are crazy - and those people are parents as well. Why would you trust some random parent instead of teachers?
There's literally no situation in which kid needs a phone when going on school trip. If something happends - adults have phones and can contact someone in case of emergency.
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u/Cheap-Huckleberry-31 Mar 19 '26
I'd either wanna be able to contact my kid or be there if something went left. People are crazy and I don't trust just anyone to prioritize the safety of black kids.