A tale of two camps

They're back! And they aren't happy to be home. Both the 11 year old and 9 year old in their last days of their first two week overnight camps lobbied to stay an extra two weeks. Of course, their modes of communication to us are telling in terms of the camp experience they had.

Child No.1 attended a very traditional, outdoors type camp in New Hampshire. Her communication with us consisted of traditional, snail mail. I should emphasise the 'snail' part. The two letters we received prior to her coming home consisted mainly of demands, subtle and not so subtle, for stuff which we duly express posted to her. But her letters took a week to reach us just one state over. Thus, on the day we brought her home, we received her letter asking, well pleading, to stay longer. That said, we already heard much of that during the car ride home and, indeed, during the pick up where we pretty much had to physically drag her from her cabin. Suffice it to say, she had the time of her life and didn't see why that should end. From our point of view, in principle, she had exactly the experience in camp we were looking for. In retrospect, I think a bit of hardship that might have made her more willing to return home might have been nice. Apparently, the bugs, the relatively poor food, the crappy showers, etc, weren't enough to outweigh two weeks of swimming, kayaking, dances, photography, archery, horseriding, waterskiing and fifty new best friends. Go figure.

In contrast, Child No.2 told us about his desire never to return home via FaceTime. FaceTime is an iPhone 4 feature that allows you to talk face to face. And, yes, our son has an iPhone 4. He was going to computer camp for goodness sake. I figured he should have the best. So sue me! But the big benefit of  that was being able to communicate face to face every night; sometimes absurdly late at 10:30pm! Indeed, I think our experience would make a good iPhone ad. I never expected that feature to be more of a gimmick but in actuality, he got about as much of home as he needed and saw no reason to come home. Of course, we can add to that the comic creation, the puzzle game making, and the web page design in html! Apparently, he had good food and hot water. Also, given the computer camp experience, one of his roommates brought a Nintendo Wii and of course a flat screen TV to use it on. Suffice it to say, that made his room the hub of a huge amount of social activity. Near as I can tell, they pretty quickly turned it into an exclusive club with rules of behaviour and apparent entry fee in form of canteen food. 

We had two kids go for very different experiences and, in neither case, are they at all pleased to return to us. Their younger sister was pleased to see them as will we, of course, once the period of sulking ends.

You learn well, young grasshopper

Following up from her first letter from camp -- without any coaching from me -- comes this gem today addressed only to "Mummy."

Besides, the other girls in my cabin have never heard of Tim Tams and I really want to show and share with them -- can you please send some?

OK that looks like a naked demand but she follows right up.

I miss having food at home. They never cook veggies here -- and when they do, it's drowned in yucky stuff.

Perfect. She expresses missing exactly what her mother values most and uniquely supplies. Just brilliant. Tim Tams -- if we can find them -- are on their way.

Camp and candy

As regular readers know, my eldest daughter is at summer camp. Her mother did not believe she should bring any 'special treats' to camp. This is part of the general belief that special treats should been restricted at every opportunity. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure that treats were a key part of the camp experience. When dropping her off, I snuck in a few things but it was clear that it wasn't going to last the two weeks. Her cabin mates had large stashes and clearly more neglectful or loving parents depending on your perspective.

Now while I could have sent her a care package, moving to large quantities in secret seemed too much. So instead I opted for shameless manipulation. I told my daughter that she should write a letter immediately saying citing social problems as a result of her treat poverty. 

"You mean that I can't make any friends because I don't have treats to share?"

"No, more like 'I feel left out because others have more.'"

We received a letter on cue reading "Dear Mum and Dad, I love it here! But I do feel a little left out because I have the smallest amount of treats." etc. Suffice it to say, a care package is on the way  (with home-made Anzac biscuits and M&M's) and also we have just given her an incentive to write more. What is more I have begun a process of passing on what small knowledge of intra-household manipulation to my daughter. So we can classify it under "education."

Summer camp

With three months of summer here in the US, there was no doubt we were going to avail ourselves of an extensive array of summer camp options. Now unlike the foreigners who were profiled on This American Life, we knew that the US summer camp tradition was more formal than driving your kids to a camp site with a bag of groceries, pitching a tent and leaving them there alone for a week. (Yes, that actually happened to someone). But the kids had imagined a summer camp ideal akin to what they had observed at the movies. So the search was on for that.

But before that traditional notion, I was determined to expose the kids to the technology-based camp options available in the Boston area. So for the last two weeks, the two eldest have attended the Digital Media Academy at Harvard University. They were supposed to go for just a week but my son was enrolled in an "Adventures in Cartooning" class which, at the last minute, was found to have just one attendee. Apparently, that isn't a great experience so to compensate us for that loss, we got an extra week for free. My son ended up doing a game design course which turned out to teach him enough so that he could design around 10 games by the end of the week. None are killers but he did come away with the insight that "it is much harder to program games where you play against the computer than where two people play against each other." My daughter did a Photoshop course and suffice it to say, became President of the US as well as placing Wizards out in the open in muggle territory clearly performing magic. Both activities kept them quite happy for the entire week. In the second week, they participated in a movie making course. Of course, the 11 year old was horrified that she had to be in the same class as the 9 year old but, hey, it was free! They wrote, filmed, acted and edited (with special effects) an 8 or so minute spy movie. I think they came away with an appreciation of just how hard it is to make a movie, let alone something good. We enjoyed seeing their final products and differing interpretations. 

For the next two weeks, they are both attending overnight camp. I drove the 11 year old out to New Hampshire for a camp that was exactly movie like with cabins, an eating hall, and a lake all out in a forest. As we drove up, a squad cheered our arrival before we were moved into the 'lice' queue which all parents seemed to appreciate. During that time, we heard more cheers as another camper arrived and I commented (loudly) "hey, it looks like they weren't just happy to see us." Of course, my daughter couldn't escape the line. I then dropped my daughter off at her cabin. These cabins had disappointing names like 'Cabin G' rather than the expected quasi-native American cast off that was more 'movie accurate' but I guess that's the times. The cabins had well worn bunk beds and (I guess) atmosphere. As we unpacked, I started to quiz my daughter's cabin-mates about where they were from and that instantly led to the question, "Daddy, when you are going?" At which time, I made a grand exit leaving my daughter grateful she wouldn't be seeing me for two weeks.

Our son, on the other hand, hasn't attended the movie Summer Camp. In the end, when presented with the option he opted for Computer Camp that took place closer to home. Suffice it say, this camp was huge with 150 kids and it was clear that not a one of them was going to be jumping up and down to get in on the regular physical activity that was part of that camp's schedule. Compared to his sister, he was in the lap of luxury and civilisation. Also, for us, there is far more connection as evidenced by the video call we received only a few hours later. 

The house is relatively quiet now; although we still have one child wandering around. She'll likely get much more attention. I suspect those with teenagers appreciate these Summer Camp months more than we do at the moment. For now, it is all character building.