[...] Summer Camp Rant [...]

I am for year round school. 9-10 weeks on, 2-3 weeks off. That is what we do.

Haven’t been there yet, but we had an older teenaged sitter at our house when I was a child. That let us have “unstructured” play…and allowed Mom to not have to worry about scrambling together childcare.
Actually, I can say that when we were researching our options for childcare when I returned to work when our son was seven weeks, I was flabbergasted at how many centers weren’t open during the summer; they operated on the school year even if they weren’t associated with a school. Huh? So all their clients either are teachers or have three months of vacation? Defied logic to me.

That said. I do like the idea of an extended or year-round school year–for educational reasons. They seem to waste so much time refreshing kids on last year’s material at the beginning of each new school year. Plus, if kids are going to be in a non-maternal/paternal care setting, better for them to be with professionals than highschoolers or random camp counselors. Some of the day camps I see going on when I am out and about with my toddler look pretty lame.

It makes me FURIOUS when people expect that kids should be in year round school because it is easier for working parents. Public School is NOT free daycare. If you were arguing that year-round school was better academically, or that it would help to decrease the learning gap between disadvantaged children and middle-upper class kids, then we could have a worthy discussion. There is something wrong with working parents who expect free summer activities for their kids. I work, and my husband and I pay a sitter or arrange summer camps for our kids–that is, we meet our responsibilities. Our kids enjoy unstructured playtime and enriching activities.

It sounds like your kids need to learn to entertain themselves, (a skill all humans should have) and they need to adapt to new situations at camp. But the author needs to stop whining about how much it costs to care for their kids in the summer. You get 9 months of the year “free” from public school, if you can’t deal with the 3 months of summer, then the problem lies with you.

Oh, and, CM — my kids are doing fine! They’re sucking it up and going to camp and then entertaining themselves on days that we’re home. It’s just … on those days, it’s hard to get anything done. Our house is small. Entertaining oneself frequently involves noise, requests for things on high shelves and … sigh … arguments. You know, because they’re kids!

My 4-year-old’s (fairly spendy) preschool is mandatory year-round. Having been in the childcare biz, I assume that this is because the two teachers can’t afford to just wing it in the summer and need to be able to count on summer tuition rolling in. However, the kids have two weeks in June and two weeks in August off from school to have a little taste of summer freedom/boredom.

I think part of the longing for those lazy summer days of hanging around doing as little as possible are not only overly-romanticized but also nearly impossible for a lot of kids/parents, for several reasons. Some of the reasons that apply to my situation is that we live in a fairly densely-populated city. Yes, we have a tiny yard but we also have busy streets. Kids can’t ride their bikes all over the place to go fetch neighbor playmates like I did in the ‘burbs. Also, some kids are more social than others. My extremely outgoing kid CAN play by himself but it makes him unhappy to have to do so for long (hour+) stretches. I don’t really see this changing even after he learns to read or after he’s old enough to be trusted with messy or complicated projects by himself.

I absolutely believe that kids need to learn to play by themselves, but for working parents I don’t really think it is reasonable to expect kids to play for 6+ hours by themselves every workday for three months. SOME organized activity is GOOD and HEALTHY. I mean, I spent plenty of (too long/boring/hot) lovely summer days playing alone, but I also spent a ton of time in front of the tv, as I suspect most adults who are given nothing to do would resort to.

It seems like a lot of the argument is over day camps and the way that they are run, ie that they are boring or don’t work for the parent’s schedule. As an alternative, you might think about overnight camps. With a 6 year-old like Wiel talks about, it might be a little young, but I know many camps that accept children that age. There are also many overnight camps that are adding day camps that run from morning until dinner. These types of camps offer many of the benefits that you wish your children’s summers had, depending on the type of camp they attend. The camps often offer a mix of structured and unstructured play. Additionally, most strive to help your children become more independent and find out who they are in a safe environment. Further, overnight camps can run from one week to eight weeks, though the most popular timeline is two weeks.

Thanks for this information, I have been looking everywhere. Cheers!