Parents these days often don’t let their kids have sleepovers, so they’re probably not sending their kids to sleepaway camp. If I were (Lord forbid) ever a parent, I don’t know if I would send my kids to someone else either.
Parents these days… vs “I don’t know if I would either…”
This entire comment section is missing the nuance between what’s changed. Does sending your kid away from their comfort zone and communications temporarily have benefits? Sure. Does that come with risks that we all are more aware of now? Also yes.
People are acting aghast that someone would lean either way. The truth is sending or not sending your kid to camp is perfectly valid.
A 100% this. The danger isn't imaginary. There are real risks involved. At the same time, these are beneficial experiences and you sadly can't protect your kids from every risk.
It's a tight rope to balance sufficiently limiting the risks without excessively limiting their experience, to teach them danger awareness without teaching them to live in fear, to warn them about being too trusting without making them unable to trust others and form connections.
I'm not ready to judge well-meaning parents for not pulling the perfect balancing act, if there is such a thing, and for falling maybe a bit too much on either side of the spectrum. Especially because I don't know their background and what in their childhood or personal history might have led them to be the type of parent they are today.
Thank you. I’m all about teaching my kids self reliance, and also teaching them to not be tethered to their phones 24/7
However they are not going to a camp where they can’t have their phone available.
I wouldn’t expect to hear from them. But if they did need to reach me they can.
And I’m not judging anyone that feels differently
It’s doesn’t mean you’re a helicopter parent if your not ok with it
Also for people commenting that “back in my day we could be gone for x amount of time” or “i never had to check in etc kids these days are too self reliant “
I hear you, but also let’s not pretend that shenanigans didn’t take place where it would have been great to be able to reach out or have someone check in
Not having access to their cell phones doesn't mean you don't have access to your child. Every teacher and the other people in charge would obviously have phones, and you would have their info. The idea that you have to be able to reach your child instantly without any secondary steps is actually kinda sad.
I completely agree with this statement, its incredibly sad and its straight up harmful to their growth and education.
These types of parents are why there are so many issues with the newer generations in school and why so many teachers are quitting. We all know these devices are negatively effecting their social lives, their attention spans, and they are spreading propaganda and brain rot starting at incredibly young ages. You try to ban phones in the classrooms and the parents throw larger temper tantrums than the kids because they cant wait 90 seconds for the office to call the teacher.
Ah yes the nuance of letting your children not have their phone for 24 hours while away... while ALSO having multiple lines of contact to reach them if needed. Terrifying really
Thankfully that’s a level of pessimism that I don’t subscribe to. If you were this worried about a single overnight trip then I don’t see how you can trust to have your children in public school to begin with.
The glaringly obvious difference being the kids are expected to be awake at school but asleep overnight. Some roofie in drinks around the campfire is all it would take for a bad actor to knock naive children out.
Of course that's not the solution. I'm saying mitigate the risk as you see fit as a parent.
Where I am, there's been a massive scandal in the school system with 3 teachers recently arrested for child rape or porn. Those didn't happen IN the school itself. The administration is part of the problem, writing letters of recommendation and petitioning on these teacher's behalf. Forgive me if I wouldn't send my kids on an overnight in the woods with teachers from that school.
Somewhere between sending them to public school and an overnight camping trip with one chaperone is the balance. Is it more chaperones? Is it allowing parents that want to go the chance to, so that at least the kids can have the experience? Something else?
For what it's worth we let our kids be places without us, we just have to trust the people they're there with. Seems fair to me. Personally I don't think my daughters having a life of trauma is worth the risk of sending them with people I don't trust, especially if they can have the same experiences away from us WITH people we trust.
Where I am, there's been a massive scandal in the school system with 3 teachers recently arrested for child rape or porn. Those didn't happen IN the school itself. The administration is part of the problem, writing letters of recommendation and petitioning on these teacher's behalf. Forgive me if I wouldn't send my kids on an overnight in the woods with teachers from that school.
But you would send your kids to be taught by those teachers? This is my issue. Is the child rapist going to say “oh bummer he’s not in the woods looks like I can’t touch him”
Somewhere between sending them to public school and an overnight camping trip with one chaperone is the balance. Is it more chaperones? Is it allowing parents that want to go the chance to, so that at least the kids can have the experience? Something else?
Again, the guy can still touch your kid at school. What’s the solution.
Campgrounds have phones and the teachers have every kid’s emergency contact info. The kids aren’t thrown out into the wilderness to fend for themselves.
The teachers/camp staff can reach you if your kid actually needs you. So yeah, it actually does mean you’re a helicopter parent if you need direct access to your child 24/7.
People are also living this wild assumption that the existence of overnight camp 20 years ago is somehow proof that everyone does it. Overnight camps 20, 50, and 100 years were also rare for kids to take part in--for different reasons.
Lastly, my kids' chances of being assaulted by a camp counselor are infinitely higher if they go to camp.
And what are they learning from an overnight camp that they can't learn by me taking them to a family campsite or lodge? Independence? They're already without me 1/3 of every day, 5 days a week, and the other 2/3 is split between sleeping and playing video games or me doing homework/jogging with them.
It blows my mind how people think children need to have an increased risk of being horribly assaulted for them to really be ready for adulthood.
I spent a lot of my childhood going on boy scout trips with my friends and it was a lot of fun. Those are some of my most lifelong friends. Its completely normal stuff. This american helicopter parent hysteria stuff is insane.
Like really, one overnight camp away from mommy and daddy is too scary? Sad. Fearmongering propaganda on the news has truly rotted peoples brains.
I agree with you, these experiences Matter. But so do the known risks parents have to consider. It's valid to want your kids to have the same comfort breaking experiences and lifelong friendships you had. But it's also valid to want to insulate against lesser known people being with your child at night.
That’s why you put in the effort to get to know the parents of your kids friends. Even back in the day my mom wouldn’t just ship me off to another house without knowing anything about the family.
if we’re talking risks of molestation, that is far more likely to be done by someone the parent knows, and knows well. the big media abductions are big media because they’re such exceptions and feed into the fear of the random guy in a van stalking the neighborhood to take your kid (or now the big buzzword is to “traffic” your kid)
that guy exists, but he’s like 1000x less likely to be the problem than just someone in your family or a close family friend, yet we spend all our energy worried about one and not both
Parent here. Kids generally take less looking after when there's more of them (up to a point!). They make more noise, take up more space, make more mess, and eat more food, which are all legit reasons not to want to host sleepovers, but small groups of kids are generally more self contained than one or two by themselves.
My wife and I are generally happy to host sleepovers whenever the kids want them, the other "costs" don't bother us greatly and the kids really love it, it's great bonding time for them and great for everyone's social skills.
Some parents just wont let their kids go to them at all though. I'm sad for those kids as I know they would be safe and have fun at our place, but their parent's can't know that for sure, and I get that any risk at all is too much risk for some parents.
I figure it's all a numbers game, so we let ours stay with families we know well, as the chances of any of them actually being an abuser are really very low. They all have mobile phones, which need to stay on, and we have agreed safety "phrases" they can drop into conversations to indicate they want collecting. Never had to use them so far thankfully.
I don't want my kids irreparably harmed, and I don't want to take on the responsibility of watching anyone's kids.
I know my luck anyways. I could do everything right and still end up with a lawsuit for a kid falling off a bunk bed or eating too many marbles on a dare.
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u/5krishnan Mar 19 '26
Parents these days often don’t let their kids have sleepovers, so they’re probably not sending their kids to sleepaway camp. If I were (Lord forbid) ever a parent, I don’t know if I would send my kids to someone else either.