After having just listened to This American Life Podcast, "Notes on Camp", I was struck by the preponderance of overwhelmingly positive camp adventures, experiences, and valuable life lessons that apparently can only be learned at sleepaway camp. While I can not argue that for many people camp is a wonderful place to learn valuable social skills, try new activities, and learn a lot of valuable life skills such as sportsmanship, camaraderie, and cooperation, overnight camp is certainly not a place where everyone can and will thrive.
In fact, it is not uncommon to hear successful and socially-adept people categorize their camp experience as being among the worst and most socially traumatic experiences of their lives. While it is unfortunately rather common for any group of people to scapegoat those who are in any way different from the majority, this can be a particularly traumatic experience when one is in the tender grip of preadolescence, and is very much under the influence of the predominant opinion of one's peers.
Those children who may have the most difficult time at sleepaway camp are those who are in any way different from the predominant majority either in their interests, their appearance, their developmental level, their acculturation level, or simply those kids that are late bloomers. Additionally, children who are particularly anxious and/or attached to their caregivers may also have a hard time adjusting to a different social order of overnight camp. This does not mean that there is anything socially or otherwise wrong with the children who do not do well at overnight camp. It may simply mean that these folks may thrive in a different, less-intense, social environment. For instance, some children may fare better at shorter-term specialty camps like drama, art, physics or sports camp. Others may find the structure of day camp more appealing, since day camps allow the campers an opportunity to temporarily escape the constant surveillance of others and one can get a short reprieve from the social forces of what is "cool" and what is "not cool".
While overnight summer camp may be a great option for some children, others can do just as well learning valuable life skills often exclusively associated with overnight camp from other organized activities. So if you are one of the many people who hated their camp experience, know that you are not alone, and take heart in the fact that the social hierarchies of overnight camp are rarely substantiated in adulthood.
In fact, it is not uncommon to hear successful and socially-adept people categorize their camp experience as being among the worst and most socially traumatic experiences of their lives. While it is unfortunately rather common for any group of people to scapegoat those who are in any way different from the majority, this can be a particularly traumatic experience when one is in the tender grip of preadolescence, and is very much under the influence of the predominant opinion of one's peers.
Those children who may have the most difficult time at sleepaway camp are those who are in any way different from the predominant majority either in their interests, their appearance, their developmental level, their acculturation level, or simply those kids that are late bloomers. Additionally, children who are particularly anxious and/or attached to their caregivers may also have a hard time adjusting to a different social order of overnight camp. This does not mean that there is anything socially or otherwise wrong with the children who do not do well at overnight camp. It may simply mean that these folks may thrive in a different, less-intense, social environment. For instance, some children may fare better at shorter-term specialty camps like drama, art, physics or sports camp. Others may find the structure of day camp more appealing, since day camps allow the campers an opportunity to temporarily escape the constant surveillance of others and one can get a short reprieve from the social forces of what is "cool" and what is "not cool".
While overnight summer camp may be a great option for some children, others can do just as well learning valuable life skills often exclusively associated with overnight camp from other organized activities. So if you are one of the many people who hated their camp experience, know that you are not alone, and take heart in the fact that the social hierarchies of overnight camp are rarely substantiated in adulthood.
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