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We all know that sending your child to camp is one of the best things for your child but what he/she may learn there could effect the rest of their life. As parents we are over cautious about what our children learn or see in their normal day to day activity, when in reality the real problem could perhaps stem from camp. We’re all nervous on what a counselor might do, but majority of the problems stem from what other campers teach them.
The only solution is to never let your kids leave the house.
How is this different than what they experience in school?
How do you control what your kids see on the street?
Part of being a parent is teaching your version of right & wrong. When you & your kids are secure in who you are it’s really not an issue.What kuvult said
There is a mitzva (for _you_) to teach your children Torah. There is no mitzvah to send them to the forest with some other wilder chayos.
Kuvult, Rashi suggest best time to teach is from 16 to 22, so after that, they might be ready to go to the streets.
Disclaimer: most of our children are currently in labor camps. (that is, laboring in camps, leaving no time for shtuyot).
@OP send you kids to camp TROLL, run by Mosdos TROLL where your children won’t have that issue
A major, major problem in chinuch comes from the parents’ need to control their children. If a parent would just model good behavior everything will work out. Ignore everything else. (Of course don’t put stumbling blocks, like unfiltered internet, etc. But on a whole, if we’d just get out of the way, our kids will be awesome!). I really mean this: don’t make your kids daven, learn, etc. they go to yeshiva. Let the Yeshivas deal with all that. At home just model and try to make your relationship with your kids greater and greater. ZERO criticism. No matter what they do. And remember they know exactly how you feel about them. If every parent truly believed that he has the best kids in the world, then we would not have one kid off the derech. (Best kids, doesn’t mean smartest, learns the best, etc. Just the best!!!)
Read the story on the YWN news page tonight about a horrific situation where hundreds of girls who were supposed to attend Camp Malka were first transported to the camp which didn’t have an occupancy permit so were then shipped off to a local hotel with inadequate or no accommodations for these kids until the police ordered them to be sent home. Now, they will have no summer program, the parents hope their non-refundable payments will be refunded and someone will just shrug and say “sorry we let you down”.
What’s the point of this? That other kids could be a bad influence? That’s not only true in camp. It’s true in school, it’s true when it comes to kids who live nearby that your children may play with, it’s true pretty much everywhere. That’s why you research the schools and camps that you send your kids to, and choose the ones that you think are best. This isn’t a problem with camps “today” – it’s always been an issue, with everything.
All camps under the age of high school SHOULD BE BANNED!!!!!!
Kids in elementary school are too immature to go to camp. They suffer far more than any fun they might have.
High school camp is fun and enjoyable, but younger than that is horrible. Any parent who sends their kids to elementary age camp is evil and hates their kids. Or simply doesn‘t care about them.
Your kids will hate you when they get more mature, for not protecting them from elementary age sleepaway camp.If you let them out of the womb, you have to let them into the world.
You know today its almost impossible to fully protect our children. we have to do our best. try to guide them on who their friends and role models should be. There is no way to guarantee that they wont learn anything you didn’t tell them. Wherever it is, be it camp, school, shul, neighbors- there is always someone who knows more than the child. Our part is to do the best to make sure our children are in a safe environment. And if you are to find out that the kid learned something you didnt want him to know, try to explain that “This is not what we do/talk about”. “We are better than that”.
Again, your only concern is about the kid learning stuff earlier. In general, as you get older you learn more. The point is that we do our best. but you can never guarantee a full protection (unless you lock the kids in the house and never let them talk to anyone- which is not healthy either)The Camp Drama is an excellent point for research. a year from now, compare development of kids who did not get to the camp with their classmates who went to a different camp. Let’s see any differences in middos, learning, health.
@brunfin, the style of parenting you are mentioning is twisted logic.
Children don’t become better people because their parents ” tried to make their relationship with their kids greater and greater. ZERO criticism.”. I’ve seen those children. They become, for the most part, self-absorbed, narcissistic, and immature adolescents, who melt at even the slightest adversity. I’ve seen plenty of kids like that off the derech.
They can’t hold down a job because they balk at even the slightest restrictions their boss puts on them, they have difficulty dealing with spousal relationships because they have been fed “YOU’RE THE BESTEST!!!” their whole life and are too arrogant to be humble and build a two-way giving relationship.
I’d also like to mention that “No rules, no boundaries” is a disaster for the other children in the house who see behaviors that are inappropriate. And I know that you didn’t explicitly say “No rules or boundaries” but that is inherent in the “zero criticism” part. Because guess how that child is going to view that rule of needing unfiltered internet? as a criticism. “I love you and think you’re a wonderful person, but you need to wear a skirt in the house” WILL be viewed by them as you not accepting them. In fact, the whole “Just show them you love and accept them, without any rules or boundaries” mehalech is built on this wishful and fanciful idea that somehow pumping a kid up , AND JUST THINKING THEY’RE THE BEST!!!!!” will melt away all the other issues a child has.
“If you let them out of the womb, you have to let them into the world….”
So true, yet so many parents remain in denial. We have seen on multiple occasions, parents showing up with their kinderlach for job interviews at our firm. A recent news story sadly indicated that our experience is not all that unusual and other law firms and investment banks have seen similar episodes. These “helicopter” parents cannot let go. In Italy, young men continue to live in their parents’ basements well into their 30s and momma is totally happy with this arrangement, do the laundry and provide endless plates of pasta and chulent.
Summer camp may at least be helpful in pushing the kids a bit further out the door, making them a bit more self-reliant and hopefully prepare them to function independently in whatever derech they choose.
Gadol > We have seen on multiple occasions, parents showing up with their kinderlach for job interviews at our firm.
Selection bias maybe? Those free range kids just don’t get to the job interview?
Rashi suggests time to teach your kids from between 16 and 24, about the age of your applicant.
You may be idealizing industrial age lifestyle. Historically, kids were raised at home and worked at fields and workshops. A select few got educated, mostly by tutors. Society figured out that it is possible to educate the masses by making them sit in same-age groups of forty and repeat ABC after one teacher.
AAQ: Interesting points. I would have been mortified if my parents even suggested showing up at my first job interviews out of grad school but some of these millennials and first wave of Gen Zs seem totally comfortable with making an interview a family participation event
I hear you, I also would not join kids for a job interview, but have no problem calling someone to arrange it! Also, nobody ever came with a parent to the interview, even the one whose parent was my colleague. Maybe engineers are more mature than lawyers.
Still, we supervise more aspects of our kids than our parents ever did – and our parents do not object. I once asked my mother why she did not suggest me to do what I am now suggesting to a kid (and she agreed with the idea) – and she said “we simply did not think about it”.
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