“Is my kid ready for sleepaway camp? This little guy? I swear he just started walking yesterday!” The nearly inevitable first time away from home can sneak up on you.
While it goes without saying that every child develops differently, the American Camp Association suggests children may be ready for overnight camps as young as 4 to 7 years old if they are toilet trained, they have had positive experiences while staying away from home, and they have good self-care skills.
“I would say that there is not necessarily a ‘right age’ for kids to start
going to camp. Some kids are ready at 5 or 6 others not until 8 or 9. You know
your kid best,” says Annie Matzke, the education and support coordinator for Children’s Home Society and Family Services in St. Paul.
If they still worry about being away from the family, then it’s probably better to stick to day camps. To ease kids into the camp experience, look for day camps that offer one-night overnights — or even “undernights,” long evenings that give kids a chance to toast marshmallows and sing campfire songs, but still sleep in their own beds.
Once you’ve decided your child is ready, there are a couple of handy online tools. Both the National Camp Association and the American Camp Association allow you to narrow down your search by region, cost, length of the camp, and types of activities offered, along with your child’s age and any special needs.
While you’re compiling that list of camps, you have an important decision to make: Should you send your first-time camper to remote Montana or keep her here in the metro? If the camp is nearby, it will be easy to visit and evaluate the facilities and your child will be more likely to meet children from the surrounding area she could stay in touch with later on. The ACA suggests that camps far from home will increase the likelihood of diverse campers and give you a broad range of camps to choose from. A journey away from home also promotes independence.
To narrow your search, you’ll also need to decide how long your first-time camper should be away from home. Short camps (one to three weeks) may be ideal for campers who are likely to get homesick and usually cost less. Long camps (four to 12 weeks) help a child develop a sense of belonging to camp culture. The longer they stay, the more opportunity they have to create lifelong friendships.
The ACA also advises allowing kids to take part in packing and preparing for camp, having a conversation about what it may be like, and keeping in touch through letters or phone calls. The friendships might not last until next summer, the counselors will most likely be friendly and caring, and the food will undoubtedly be on par but these are exactly the experiences that make camp worthwhile.
