To pick my daughter up from holiday camp 150 odd miles away

[ShatnerssBasoon]

Please be kind as first time posting properly and first time any of my children have been away without family. DD is 12 and has gone away to children's summer camp for 7 days. Went on Sunday... there's no mobile phones but she's called on camp computer at allocated time to say she is having a bad time and wants to come home. She was in tears and says other girls are not being nice and there's not much to do. She's in a communal tent with other girls but not hanging out with her. She has one local friend who's there but it's snubbing her now they are there. It breaks my heart a bit to have her crying and wanting to come home. I want to go and get her... DH says it's nuts and she'll be fine. What should I do? I work in MH and he says my judgement is clouds by this

I would go and get her, some lessons aren't worthy of learning, being singled out is one of them. It's awful.

Independnce, stoicism, resilience, adaptability, sociability, goodhumour, most ofall forebearance, all chucked away as there is ‘nothing to do’ and some other kid is being mean or indifferent.

Yup. Being forced to do something you hate means you won't want to do it next time.

Knowing her folks have her back would mean that next time a similar away from home situation arises, her daughter would know that it's safe to give it a go. So when she hears, 'It won't be the same as last time' (because let's face it, it won't), she isn't immediately thinking, 'But what if it is and I spend a week on my own crying again? It's safer just not to go'.

Knowing that if you're being bullied through isolation, you can come home, makes fun and growing your independence healthily more possible.

My parents forced hyper-independence and resilience on me. I need people to know that the character it has built won't ask for help, won't open up about how she feels, and actively avoids things that make her feel uncomfortable because now I'm an adult I get to choose, and I choose not being scared... It doesn't build good character. It builds a 'nobody's coming to save me and the only person I can rely on is myself' attitude. Which sounds good on paper but doesn't feel great. The only way to build independence healthily is through secure dependence.

DS went to a day holiday scheme OP, it sounded amazing with all the activities they had planned listed out on the website. In reality they just stuck all the kids in a sports hall with some toys for the whole day, it was just crap, nothing was organised at all.

I would be straight up there and find out what's going on tbh, it sounds very poorly organised if they don't know what's going on - and I wouldn't assume that there is loads to do that your child isn't joining in with. It might have been made to sound amazing but actually be run as cheaply as possible with staff that don't have a clue. For a start they should be noticing if a child is unhappy and withdrawn.

Did you see about the holiday camp in Leicestershire? I wouldn't take my chances tbh. Who knows what's going on - I'd go and get her now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyep6j7z0zo

Rather too much unhelpful Transference and Projection on this thread, ladies.

I think boys are also encouraged to persevere ('tough it out') when things get difficult. There's a reasonable compromise between making them suffer abuse and caving in to every wobble they have.

God I'd hate to be being bullied and be your kid. Good humour in the face of everyone leaving you out and being horrible to you? Stoicism? What kids need is to feel safe and to be listened to, not just left to fend for themselves. That's how you end up with problematic coping skills like self harm and end up feeling like you are worthless and that you deserve your needs not to be met.

Developing healthy coping skills requires a foundation of safety and support.

I'm really glad you're not my parent.

You have summed up my feelings so well.

I’ve had some awful things happen in life and I am always told how resilient (HATE that word) and strong I am.

No, I am not. I was forced to cope alone and to be independent from a young age “stick it out! Don’t over react!” from a young age. As you say, you learn no one is coming to save you. So while I look calm on the outside, inside I am screaming and panicking, and I have spend the majority of my life hiding at home.

Thank god, I chose to raise my children the opposite way and they are completely different.

This thread took me back nearly 50 years to when I was the unhappy child at Guide camp. I'd been once with our own company and absolutely loved it so when our leader told us all that another company in our town had two spaces on their camp I was first in line. It was awful. The other girls ranged from just unfriendly/disinterested to those who seemed intent on bullying me and the other girl from our company. They made it plain that they didn't want us there and the leaders weren't much better. Of course it was pre mobile phone days and the leaders wouldn't phone our parents so the two of us sneaked off and found a pay phone and asked our parents to come and get us. Both our dads arrived together at the camp that night. I was expecting mine to be livid but he just said "I know you wouldn't have called if it wasn't important and I'm not leaving you somewhere where you're being bullied." And that was it. We went home and it was never spoken of again. But knowing that my Dad believed me, without question and had my back meant the world to me.
A similar thing happened to my DD on a dancing Summer school once. She's never been one to give up at the first sign of trouble so I knew that when she called it was serious. I remembered how much my Dad's response had meant to me and did the same. We do sometimes have to put up with things that make us unhappy, but not, in my opinion, when it's a completely optional activity and the child has given it a good try.

😘

How do parents cope if said child is abroad. Do they arrange flights for them to collect a 12 year old?

Probably!

By the time it got to going abroad with school, you’d hope that children had experienced being away before. Sleepovers, school trips closer to home. If you then knew your child couldn’t cope being away, you’d be pretty daft to send them abroad, and then, they would have their own preference on going anyway.

And school trips, where they are going with staff and children they know well and are with everyday, are very different to camps.

I get told how strong I am all the time, and I hate it. I hate being strong, I'm tired of being strong, yes I'm resilient but honestly I would just like to break for once, and to stop carrying everything.

I also get told how confident I am all the time, how outgoing, how good I am with people - I'm a petrified introvert, social events absolutely exhaust me, but the mask gets worn and I hate every second of it. If I try and tell people, they think I'm exaggerating.

'Bloozie' is a skin I wear based on the expectations that other people placed on me when I was 12, and honestly, I am sick of wearing it.

It looks to me like a typo for is.

A week of social ostracism and misery is not going to instil good humour. Quite the reverse.

Think of how it feels to be at a party or a wedding where you don't know anyone, and don't enjoy the activity. Even two hours is hard going. At a camp, there's no escape; there's nowhere to retreat to.

All that my awful camp experience (details above) taught me, at 11, was that I was an unlikable, possibly even disgusting person.

I think we might be twins. Sending solidarity. It’s hard.

She's in a communal tent with other girls but not hanging out with her. She has one local friend who's there but it's snubbing her now they are there.

I wonder if there are some mismatched expectations? Maybe DD thought she and the one girl she knows would stick together and do everything together, but the other girl wants to mix with the wider group?

I'm another one for go and get her. She's a kid - not everything has to be a try-or-die virtue lesson.

Call the camp if you want, but in my experience if it's run by 'she'll be fine, we'll tell her to put her big girl pants on' people (as some are on here) you won't get the real story anyway. If you speak to someone and you feel they are actually on your wavelength, empathy-wise, then maybe see how it goes, if your DD agrees. I'd be warming up the car though.

What’s going to happen if she has bitchy coworkers?

She'll be an adult. I'm sure you can appreciate she won't still think and act like a 12-year old, she will be different in lots of ways by then. Resilience can be learned in small, everyday ways it doesn't all hinge on one monumental summer camp when she was 12 and needed her mum. Luckily for us all.

Son at the end of his A levels did six weeks camp America as a junior. Was on the USA Canadian border. Parents would leave children of this age for up to three weeks.

These pallid nervous kids would arrive rattling with ritalin. Those in charge would take all the prescriptions and lock them away safely to be administered as required.

The days would start early. It was breakfast, say canoeing all morning, packed lunch, then afternoon activities, also full on. Back to camp, BBQ, smores, camp stories, they were curled up asleep by 8.30 pm absolutely knackered.

He said that the kids didn't take the ritalin, they just didn't want or need it. They went home, brown, happy and full of stories of adventures.

Reminds me of an old song. Hello mother, hello father. Probably on YouTube.

Go and get her, @ShatnerssBasoon. As a child I used to get terrifyingly, disablingly homesick - it's horrible. So I told my DC that I would always come and get them without question, no matter where they were and what they are doing, if they needed me to. My DD did suffer from homesickness and we would often go and bring her home. Now she's in her twenties, really confident and independent, no problems with travelling or going away. I'm so glad I was there for her when she needed it.

Yes. I would.

I'd want my children to be confident from a young age that if they ever call and ask for help that I'd be there every single time.

There are different ways to teach a child 'coping skills' and leaving your 12 year old to 'cope' when they've cried to you asking for your help isn't one of them. it's setting them up for mental health issues and my children's well being will come before any so called coping lessons.

You can dress it up whatever way you like but I say not going to get them is absolutely shit parenting.