Cell Phone at Summer Camp

[Chippewa29]

Here is an interesting article from the Detroit News regarding kids using cell phones when they go to camp in the summer.

 

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110807/METRO/108070314/Cellphones-give-parents-link-to-summer-camp

 

I'd like to hear some thoughts from my fellow Scouters on what they think about this.

[Eamonn]

While I do believe that we as a forum have spent a lot of time discussing cell phones. Maybe too much?

I'm not so sure that we, well me anyway gave much thought to it from the parents point of view.

Have to admit to not being a great lover of any type of phone. I try hard not to be the person who answers the phone when it rings in my home.

I bought the entire family cell phones about seven or eight years back.

HWMBO works close to home, about a three mile drive. So unless something goes wrong, she can contact anyone at home, about ten minutes after she leaves.

My commute to work in the morning is about fifteen minutes. I leave the house at about 04:00 so I'm not making or receiving calls at that hour. Due to security I'm not allowed to carry a cell phone at work. While I can make and receive calls at work, all the calls are monitored and the operator has to place all outside calls. I'm home by about 13:00 and can take care of what needs to be taken care of then.

The cell phone that got the most use was the one we gave my son. It was useful for the "Where are you?" calls and the "Do you know what time it is?" Calls.

I don't think we ever used it as an electronic leash.

We have friends who have heir kids check in several times a day and will call them if they don't. One goes so far as to have her kids send a photo of where they say they are, to prove that's where they are at!

For me it was all about trust. I needed and wanted to trust my son. I believe that the only way to ensure that I was raising a trustworthy kid was to place my trust in him.

We never set up check in times, but did now and then when he was driving or going some place ask him to call when he got there.

At the Jambos email was available for him to email his mother, he never bothered and she was OK with that.

This trust thing is a big one with me.

I believe that we are sometimes forced to trust others.

Like the food we buy, we trust the people who grow it, proses it and cook it and hope it's Free from anything harmful.

In Scouting I trusted his adult leaders and I trusted him.

I of course am aware that just about any and everything we do has an element of risk.

My own feeling is that placing an electronic leash on someone does little to lessen this risk.

I can see how having a younger child check in with his parents can help the parents by reassuring them that everything is OK.

I kinda thought if everything wasn't OK that I'd hear about soon enough.

Ea.

[Twocubdad]

Some parents "really need to talk to them (their kids) every day. They want to talk to them every day."

 

At least they're honest.

[Scoutfish]

First thing I am gonna do is admit that I am too lazy to read the link right now.

 

When we go camping, it is my wife who calls as soon as she wakes up in the morning ( maybe around 8:30 or so) to make sure that I didn't lose my 10 year old son at camp or that aliens got him. In the afternoon...m,aybe around 2:00 she calls to make sure he didn't accidentally hike 28 miles to an airport and accidentally climb about a cargo plane to India while not paying attention to what he was doing or going.

 

At night , just before bedtime, she wants to talk to him to make sure his head didn't fall off or that a rattlesnake didn't crawl up his butt or something that might be considered bad.

 

Him? He rolls his eyes and says in a huffy voice: Yes mom, I am fine...yes...yes..I did...yeah.....yesssss...okay..I always do!....yes..okaaaaay moooom..bye..me too..me too..I did say it..I did...okaaay - I love you too!"

 

 

At least he only talks to her that one time a day, and it's her calling her baby instead of him asking to call her. Matter of fact, It there wasn't a call for it, he'd forget to eat while at camp because he is so busy running around and getting dirty.

 

Oooops. I mean, he's so busy participating in activities and exploring and stuff.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

I forgot to mention, he doesn't have a phone yet. She calls mine and when she calls me those 4 times a day, she only asks to talk to him the last time just before lights out.

 

The rest of rthe time, I am the one saying: "Yes...yes..I did...yeah.....yesssss...okay..I always do!....yes..okaaaaay ..bye..me too..me too..I did say it..I did...okaaay - I love you too!"

 

 

 

[nldscout]

It doesn't matter where you are or what rules you put in place relating to cell phones. People will do what they want because they think your entitled.

 

When we tell people at court to leave thier phones outside, you would think we were cutting thier right arm off. Some people will actually go into withdrawls.

 

Its that entitlement factor.

[acco40]

"When children come to camp they and you (parents) are making a leap of faith, transferring their primary care from you as their parents to us and their counselors," he wrote. "As children learn to trust other caring adults, they grow and learn, little by little, to solve some of their own challenges. We believe this emerging independence is one of the greatest benefits of camp."

 

"Sending a cellphone to camp is like saying to your child that you as the parent haven't truly come to peace with the notion of them being in our care."

 

Amen to the above.

 

 

 

[OwntheNight]

Fun Times!

We told our boys going to summer camp, they were more than welcome to bring their cell phones ( gotta let them do something for 18 hrs traveling from Texas to Colorado!) We also told them if they lost it, it was their responsibility, or they could leave them in the troop vehicle for the week and get them back on Saturday departure. Of course, once we got to camp, all the boys realized there was no cell service in the mountains where we were at. Needless to say, the phones were put away for the week, except for the small herd of boys who did an awful lot of hanging around the leader lodge where the wifi was. Hmmm. Luckily that was another troops issue, our boys kept pretty busy without the electronics all week.

 

I did have to snicker at one instance. After lunch about midway through the week, one of the boys was telling me that he wanted to call his mom and check up on her to see how she was doing. This was a 1st yr boy, so I knew to watch for this and was prepared to divert him to other things. He wasn't showing any signs of homesickness, so I pointed him to the pay phone booth down by the directors office. He walked down, got in the booth, picked up the phone, and then a moment later hung the phone up and came back up to me asking "how does that phone work?". He was shocked when I told him he needed to go to the commisary and get a pocket full of change and then come back down to the phone and start feeding quarters into it to call home. His response, "Well, I'll see her in a couple of days, she's probably doing fine"

[Papadaddy]

Your wife calls you four times a day while at camp? I find that odd...

[Engineer61]

"Sending a cellphone to camp is like saying to your child that you as the parent haven't truly come to peace with the notion of them being in our care."

 

Bingo! I don't.

 

=====

 

"He was shocked when I told him he needed to go to the commisary and get a pocket full of change and then come back down to the phone and start feeding quarters into it to call home. His response, "Well, I'll see her in a couple of days, she's probably doing fine" "

 

How about... dial '0' and tell the Operator you want to make a collect call. That's kinda one of those emergency communication lessons I taught my kids.

[qwazse]

Durn cell phone worked at camp this year.

 

Fortunately it was utterly useless on our week at Seabase Bahamas.

 

I consider home to be where the cell phone has no bars. I try to get back there as often as possible.

[CalicoPenn]

So what happens when the battery runs down? How are you going to recharge them? Is that going to be the next big capital project at camps? Cell phone charging stations in the campsites?

 

On the other hand, perhaps that could be a new pioneering project - construct a cell phone tower instead of a climbing tower.

[Engineer61]

Power?

 

Plenty of solar power units being sold for camping...even with a 12V DC outlet for car chargers.

 

Saw them a couple weeks ago at REI.

 

There are also hand crank cell phone chargers on Amazon.

[Scoutfish]

Pap,

If your comment was to me, yeah, she calls.

 

She is calling me because I have the phone.

 

But she isn't calling to check on me, she is calling to check on her "baby".

 

That is why I carry my phone and he doesn't have one. I catch the calls in order that her can keep getting dirty and whatnot.

 

 

[Hal_Crawford]

"There's been a real shift since 9/11"

 

Scouts bringing cell phones to camp means the terrorists have won.