Dec/090
How to Know When Your Child is Ready for Camp
How do you know if your child is ready for their first camp experience?
Send your kids to camp before they’re ready and you can expect a potentially disastrous result. Wait too long before sending them, and you might have the proverbial, “I wish I’d done this sooner” regret.
Some kids are ready for camp before others. If your child is independent, goes to school, is accustomed to being separated from you for extended periods and/or has older brothers or sisters they look up to, they may be ready for camp this year.
On the other hand, if the above criteria do not apply, you might want to wait another year.
Sit down together with your child and bring up the idea of camp. Frame the conversation in a way your son or daughter will understand. Ask questions such as, “Would you like to go to camp this summer and make new friends?” or “Do you want to play some fun games and do some new activities at camp?”
Many parents start their kids off with a day camp experience before sending them to overnight camp. For younger children, this is a great way to go. Day camps are a natural stepping stone to sleepaway camp.
Also, since day camps are generally local establishments, you can visit the camp and meet the director ahead of time. Make sure to bring your child along. If he or she is excited about what they see, this is a good indication they’re ready for camp. If their reaction is mixed, negative or indifferent, now may not be the right time.
Summer camp can be a powerful experience for a child in terms of making new friends, building social skills, and increasing their self-confidence and esteem. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your child’s first camp experience is positive from the start.
If your child doesn’t enjoy camp the first time they go, they might never want to go back.
But if they have a ball, there’s no telling what a fantastic positive impact the experience can have on their lives.
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Oct/090
Why is Summer Camp so Expensive?
If the word “affordable” doesn’t come to mind when you think of summer camp, you’re not alone. Sending your kids to sleepaway camp for just a few weeks could run you several thousand bucks or more.
But the good news is there’s a camp for every budget. You don’t have to break the bank for your child to enjoy a fantastic camp experience, and a less expensive camp does not necessarily mean it’s a lower quality camp
You might be asking yourself whether sending your child to camp is worth the price. And by the way, why does it cost so much?
In general, summer camps have high operating costs that need to be covered in order to maximize your child’s safety and fun. When you pay a little more for camp, the camp can be extremely selective in the staff it hires and pay its camp counselors more than they’d make elsewhere, plus it allows the camp to purchase and share with your child the highest-end (best quality) equipment and supplies.
You can’t put a price tag on safety, supervision and fun for your child!
But that’s not all. We haven’t even discussed insurance premiums, advertising, transportation, and other many other costs camps incur to deliver an industry-best-practice camp experience for your child.
The high cost of raising kids is indisputable, but the documented benefits of the camp experience are indisputable, too. Imagine all the fun and important things your child would miss by not going to camp:
In this economy, families are cutting back on everything that’s not essential. Certainly a fantastic camp experience is something every child deserves, but whether the price of camp is “worth it” is open to subjectivity. Only you can decide the appropriate answer for your family.
And although the summer camp in industry is often considered to be one where you get what you pay for, the important point to remember is that there’s a camp to fit every family’s budget whether you’re looking for a day camp in Los Angeles, a sleepaway camp in New York or any camp in between.
Copyright Eric D. Naftulin and Aloha Beach Camp. All rights reserved.
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Jul/090
Top 7 Points to Consider When Choosing a Camp for Your Child
Hopefully your child will be among the 12 million other kids going to camp this summer. The positive benefits kids gain from a camp experience – such as learning to take responsibility for themselves, making new friends, and building self-confidence and esteem – are well-documented and indisputable.
You don’t want to make a mistake when picking a camp, so here are the top 7 things to consider before you sign on the dotted line.
Make sure your child is ready for camp
Kids develop at certain rates. Some kids are ready for camp before others. If your child is mature, gets along well with others, and is comfortable being separated from you, he or she is probably ready for a camp experience. Otherwise, you might consider waiting a year or two.
Include your child in the decision-making process
It’s been proven time and again: The kids who enjoy camp the most are those who’ve been involved in choosing their own camp. When parents pick a camp without consulting their kids, their kids usually don’t like camp as much.
Check references
One of the biggest mistakes parents make when signing up for camp is not checking references. Always ask the camp director for at least three references, and be sure to follow through on making your calls. If you don’t hear glowing reports from the references, look into other camps.
Only pick a camp with activities your child likes
This one’s easy. If your son wants to learn to surf, send him to a surf camp. If your daughter wants to polish her gymnastics skills, look into a gymnastics camp. Don’t send your surfer kid to cooking camp. Don’t send your daughter who’s obsessed with gymnastics to an archery camp.
Meet the director ahead of time
It’s not a good idea to register for camp sight-unseen. There’s too much potential for something bad to happen. The camp might not be as safe as you thought, the counselors might not be as nice, the director might not be as qualified, and the facilities might not be as clean. So meet the director ahead of time, and/or take a tour of the camp, if possible, before the summer starts. You wouldn’t buy a car without a test drive, so don’t sign up for camp without a test-drive, either.
Choose an ACA Accredited camp
Most parents would not send their kids to a non-accredited school, so why would you send them to a non-accredited camp? Picking a summer camp that’s accredited by the American Camp Association is the ONLY way you can be sure the camp meets or exceeds up to 300 best-practice industry standards relating to child safety and program quality, among others. If you don’t choose an accredited camp, watch out.
Find out the camp’s refund policy
What if your child doesn’t like camp? What if they break their arm before camp starts, or even during camp? What if something unexpected happens and you need to drop out? While many camps have no-refund policies, others are more lenient. Make sure you understand the camp’s refund policy in advance and get it in writing. You don’t want to make a finical mistake, especially in this awful economy.
These are the top 7 things to remember when choosing a camp for your child. Summer camp can be one of the most rewarding experiences of a child’s life when you pick the right program.
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