parents visiting kids at summer camp.

[beardad]

I think this situation is kind of weird and not sure what to think of it.

 

Let's say you got a call from you son who is at summer camp and he was crying because all the parents of the other kids came up to see them that day, but not you.

 

Mind you this is just a regular tuesday, not the friday family day, and the camp is at least a 6 hour drive away. also none of the other families shared the fact they were planning on going to the camp to visit.

 

 

[moosetracker]

I'd take the story with a grain of salt. ALL the parents might be 1 or 2 exaggerated by a home sick kid. Also 6 hours is a long way to travel for one or two hour visit. If that is not round trip, then that is a 12 hour drive!

 

Also personally I never felt guilty about not doing what the "other parents" were doing as long as I knew my son was not neglected..

 

Other parents give thier kids $20 a week allowance, too bad $5 is good..

 

Other parents bought thier kids the latest game system.. You have the computer & games for that and gameboy, you don't need the latest fad..

 

Other parents bought their kids a new car.. Sorry work to buy your own car, and insurance and upkeep..

[Tampa Turtle]

Gee and I thought I had problems!

 

I guess that is the helicopter parent equivalent of the "Charlie Don't Surf" scene from Apocalypse Now". On a tuesday!

 

I would tell my Son that while I love him just as much as the other parents that I respect him more and know he can make it on his own for just a week. That you know he is not just a baby.

 

I guess these are the same parents that will accompany their kids to college, job interviews, and basic training.

 

While parents have the right my observation is that it is extremely disruptive to "camp norms" whenever parents show up.

 

Hang in there. You are doing the right thing.

[Stosh]

Unless it's the Friday family time near the end of camp, visits by family should be discouraged. It's bad enough working through homesickness without parents getting in and meddling around. I can safely say that after 30 years of working with boys, family that shows up early means the boy will soon quit scouts. In my cases, that statement is true 100% of the time.

 

With camp, in my case 20 minutes from where the scouts met regularly, I even had one boy that had his parents come and pick him up every night and take him home and bring him back in the morning. Unfortunately parental rights trump SM's every time.

 

The only other issue is cell phone calls home to come pick them up. That is as bad as parents dropping in during the week.

 

I always advise parents against this practice. Every time I have had to walk a boy through homesickness he has always stayed with the program and had a great scouting career.

 

"You're home sick? Me too, that's why I'm here."

 

"Sorry, you can't go back home this week, your parents have rented out your room."

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

[beardad]

I agree about the exageration, which is why I didn't send an email out to the troop flying off the handle.

 

what it sounds like is a group of moms got together and made the trip. yes 12 hours round trip. If I had known about it, I still would not have gone, but I could have at least told the boy: "hey some of the parents are coming up, sorry we can't make it yadda yadda yadda."

 

I think the part that irks me is some of the parents got together and planned this trip, but didn't include everyone. like I said. I wouldn't have participated anyway, but giving the boy a heads up would have eliminated the teary call I got last night.

 

 

[Horizon]

Sorry to hear you went through this. Let me paraphrase my comment to the parents of the boys in my Troop.

 

"Parents. The absolute best way to get your Scout homesick, is to call them or visit. Up until the moment they make contact with you, or see a friend making contact - they are too busy, too engaged to even think about being homesick. However, if you come for a visit or if your Scout somehow makes a phone call - they WILL be homesick at the end of the call. I will then have to have adult leaders and members of the Venture Crew cheer your Scout up.

 

My first year at Summer Camp, I was having a great time until I called home on Wednesday. I then, for no good reason, got homesick and started crying. Luckily, an ASM spotted me and spent an hour bring me back to an even keel

 

So - give them a hug when they leave, and wait for the stories when they return. They will be fine, I promise."

 

Now, this is also managed in my Troop through the Venture Crew slush fund. Any member of the Crew has a budget to spend on 1st year Scouts. If they spot a miserable Scout, they are authorized to spend my money on an ice cream, a soda, etc. (for both of them - this is also a bribe) while they distract the young Scout.

 

Sorry to hear this happened.

[beardad]

Another weird thing, is that it was the parents of the older scouts. this is my son's 2nd year at camp, and he had no problems last year. (at least related to this)

[CalicoPenn]

I'd like to know how the camp adult leaders handled this visit. If I were the Scoutmaster and these ladies just showed up for a visit with no warning, I'd be telling their sons, in front of the moms and the entire Troop, to pack their bags because their mommies came up to bring them home. Would I lose those Scouts? Probably - and I would be just fine with that.

 

I mentioned that I went to a Scout camp that had a family camp. The family camp had their own waterfront, their own dining hall, cabins for families, and their own activities. One year my father was one of the leaders for a week and my mother and youngest brother spent their time at family camp. I didn't see them when they arrived, I didn't see them the entire week we were there, and didn't see them until the last day of camp when we hopped in the car to continue heading north instead of taking the bus south back home. We left after the buses left so we could help our Troop get packed and settled on the bus. It's a shame that today's parents just can't seem to see the value in giving their sons space for personal growth.(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

[Spiney Norman]

We had something akin to this happen this year with our troop only in the reverse. A few of the first year dads come up and camp with the troop. We do our best to keep these guys busy, engaged and away from their sons. Sometimes these dads have to leave camp before the week is out due to work schedules etc. Almost like clockwork the homesickness appears, usually it starts with "my stomach hurts" and ends with a long convo with an ASM or older scout about what they have been doing and how much fun they have been having.

 

[beardad]

Spouses of the leaders who went up. including spl's mom. that is what is weird. it's like the leadership of the Troop who should know better.(This message has been edited by beardad)

[BadenP]

 

OMG, a 12 hour round trip just to say hi to lil johnny at camp, what a bunch of pathetic parents. Here is yet another example of the new "cupcake scouting program" in all its glory, lol. Look these kids have cells to call home in their free time if they are feeling lonely, which is yet another reason why cells should not be allowed at camp, IMO, except for emergencies. All I can say is I hope the camp staff were firm with these parents making sure they understood that this behavior is unacceptable and disrupts the camp program for the boys. Sad, sad, sad.

[SMT224]

There's gotta be more to this story...

 

You say these were the wives of the adult leaders at camp? Did they perchance spend the night after that long drive? Maybe it wasn't their sons they were lonely for...

 

As to the Scouts who thought it was a parental visit... well, a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse.

[Basementdweller]

Sad and Weird.

 

I don't get it.

[Twocubdad]

Unfortunately parental rights trump SM's every time.

 

Ummmm..... yeah, maybe, but I'm not sure parents have a right to create turmoil within the troop, cause the leaders lots of extra work and aggravation and potentially ruin summer camp for other boys.

 

We always tell parents of first and sometimes second year Scouts to please not come to camp and plan to leave before the end of the week. If you can only stay one day, come Friday and drive us home Saturday. Got two days? Come up Thursday. If you come up Tuesday and think you're going home Wednesday, you'll have an extra 68-pound piece of luggage in the back seat.

 

While that's always been a friendly suggestion, after this year it will be raised to a stern warning with crossed arms. This year, unknown to me prior to camp, we had the dad of a new Scout who came up with us with plans to go home Wednesday. What a disaster -- mostly for the son, but it created a terrible problem with a handful of other homesick newbies who were constantly reminded how they missed their parents. The problem wasnt' so much when the dad came and went, as it was the way he fawned and doted over his kid. I had staff members come up and ask me if the kid had some terrible illness.

 

It would take me an hour to go through the whole story, but suffice it to say that I won't go through that again. I may not be able to keep a parent away from his son, but I don't have to sit back and allow him to poison the whole troop. I spent hours and hours dealing with homesickness this year. It's not fair to the other Scouts or the adult leaders.

 

I can deal with homesick boys. That's what we do. I can't deal with with parents who are so selfish as to inflict themselves on all the rest of us to ease their own separation anxiety.

 

Sorry for the rant. Still somewhat of a sore subject.

[83Eagle]

I know this is a thread about Boy Scouts, but even with Cubs this is a problem.

 

Just got back from district cub camp--only three nights, four days. We had 13 boys, and 11 dads attend. This was a much higher % of dads than I expected, and I told them all along that they did NOT need to attend if they did not want to as long as we had the required youth:adult ratio, which I knew would not be a problem. I clearly said this because I know there are parents who are the come late/leave early/never help variety.

 

Well, before camp, two dads told me they needed to leave a day early. I wondered why spend $$$ to go to camp and not stay there the whole time, but what can I do. Then, three hours into the FIRST AFTERNOON I had one scout and his dad go home because the boy was so homesick he was hysterics--yes, even with his dad there. On the third day the scheduled departees left after lunch. Then I saw two other dads packing up and they told me they were going to leave in the evening to avoid the rush/beat the rain/fill in your reason.

 

Those four were NOT cases where the SCOUTS wanted to leave. These were cases where dads had clearly decided that THEY had had enough of camp and wanted to bug out.

 

Now on the plus side, we had our best last-day program, because the dads who were left were those who really did want to be there.

 

But on the negative side, our Pack did not receive the participation ribbon that other Packs got because of our early departees. So we weren't recognized--and the remaining boys knew it, and knew why.

 

This is the first year something like this has happened and, ironically, came in a year of strong participation in camp. What I think happened is that in years past, we had the families who were really interested in camp ask about it, and we began participating more in district camp programs. Then, as the boys came back from camp and said how much fun they had, other boys wanted to go, but Helicopter Dad didn't want to let junior go off on his own so decided he had to come.

 

Next year I'm going to have to address this...somehow. It was really ridiculous to see our Pack table in the dining hall dwindle!

 

As always, it's not the KIDS who cause the most problems, it's the PARENTS.