<p>Good for you, Ginger. It's great that you were able to work things out together.</p>
<p>My concerns are just that...that she will feel like we don't trust her, we hate her BF, and nothing she does will be good enough.</p>
<p>Let me make sure I understand correctly..your daughter is finishing her freshman year in high school and you have never until just this year considered sleep away camp appropriate?</p>
<p>I think your overprotectiveness is coming back to bite you here. And I can absolutely see why your daughter feels what she feels about you (the quote I pasted). </p>
<p>Given that you have never allowed her to go off on her own to camp, an experience almost always valued by kids beginning in late elementary school, I can see that your fears that she doesn't have the independence or judgement to handle being away are reasonable.</p>
<p>What you don't seem to realize is that you have set your daughter up to fail. If you don't expect kids to be independent, they don't learn to be independent. If you assume she will fail, she will live up to that expectation.</p>
<p>Given her lack of opportunity to exercise independent judgement in a safe setting, I think job one is to create opportunities for her to do just that. Find an all girls camp and get her signed up asap--in just three years she's going to go off to live in a dorm, and you are about 4 years behind in terms of her level of experience at being independent.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Mombot, I think you are being a bit harsh. Many kids have never been to sleepaway camp, and yet they still grow up to be independent, self-sufficient adults. (I am one of those - I never lived away from my parents until college, and I never returned to live with them once I left.) Sleepaway camp, for one week or the whole summer, is not the be-all and end-all of raising independent children.</p>
<p>I completely disagree with Post #42.</p>
<p>
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Given that you have never allowed her to go off on her own to camp, an experience almost always valued by kids beginning in late elementary school, I can see that your fears that she doesn't have the independence or judgement to handle being away are reasonable.
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The only kids I know that went to sleepaway camp in elementary school were the ones whose parents worked fulltime. Most kids in our school district go to day-sports-camps or day-township-programs. </p>
<p>Most people in the U.S. probably cannot even afford sleep-away camps. I cannot imagine that even 10% of elementary school kids in the U.S. go o sleepaway camps, though I obviously do not have any stats on this. </p>
<p>Many other parents actually want their kids to be around, and do activities, trips, beach, pool as a family or with friends.</p>
<p>Kids learn to be independent and make wise choices without the setting of sleepaway camps. And I'm sure that there are a few kids who have been to sleepaway camps who look forward to making bad choices every summer.</p>
<p>Ginger, as a mom of two daughters...one a soph w/a boyfriend...I think you have made good decisions. Don't second guess yourself. I wish that my mom had made the "line in the sand' a little more legible for me.</p>
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Half of her wants to fast forward and be an adult and half of her is still a KID!!! (Just enough to drive a parent crazy!)
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</p>
<p>That is so true for my 13 year old as well.</p>
<p>chocoholic: although it is true that "most" people in the US cannot afford sleepaway camp, this board, with its focus on preparing kids for college, does not reflect the demographic of "most" families in the US.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine a community where parents do not think kids can handle sleepaway camp before high school. We live in the west; a week at "outdoor school," which is a week away at a camp with your classmates, is a near-universal experience here and has been since I was a kid. I grew up in a different state; we did "outdoor school" in sixth grade; here it is usually done in 5th. Anybody who missed out because their parents would not let them go would be considered a freak. </p>
<p>Boy Scout camp starts in 5th grade; CYO is available to kids as young as third grade, although they only spend a couple of nights away. </p>
<p>Summer camp is just one of those wonderful magical childhood memories to me; I would never deprive my 10-and-ups of the experience. We loved it; our kids loved it--by high school they usually had too much going on with summer sports and classes to be able to enjoy a whole week away from home.</p>
<p>Mombot - I can see where you are coming from and I may have painted a picture of myself as an overprotective mother....BUT if you knew my D, she is the most independent and magnetic social butterfuly teenager I know!! She has travelled across the country twice by herself and she has done atheltic (sleep-away) camps in the local area. Her friends look to her to coordinate events and she's got her own sense of fashion style that I wish I had at that age!</p>
<p>To answer your questions: "...you have never until just this year considered sleep away camp appropriate?":</p>
<p>What I find INAPPROPRIATE is for a 14 year old girl to go away to a sleepaway camp program for 7 days with her 17 year old boyfriend where there will be hundreds of high school kids and what seems to me to be an environment where close supervision would be very difficult.</p>
<p>Chedva - you got that right: "Sleepaway camp, for one week or the whole summer, is not the be-all and end-all of raising independent children." I also never went to sleep-away camps as well, but you can place me almost anywhere in the world and and would relish the opportunity to meet new people and see new places!</p>
<p>Chocoholic - There is nothing more exciting that I look forward to than summer! School activities have taken so much away from family time that I cherish the slow summer days with my kids. And we do prefer to spend our money on family vacation as opposed to sending our kids separately out on their own to sleep-away camps.</p>
<p>OaksMom - Thanks for understanding. As for me growing up, my parents did not draw a line in the sand...they dug a canyon!! So in retrospect... I am very liberal with my kids compared to my parents....but I don't resent my parents one bit because I always knew they had my best interest at heart.</p>
<p>I thought caring for babies and toddlers were tough...but, boy-oh-boy nothing prepares you for the teenage years!!!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your input!</p>
<p>Has nobody realized the fact that, minus locking one's daughter up in her room, there is nothing that can stop her from having sex? I'm not saying it's nice, but that's the reality. Sleepaway camp with a boyfriend will not affect this in ANY way, shape, or form. I am seventeen. I am speaking from the experience of myself and everyone I know. Everybody's parent thinks they watch out and make sure there aren't opportunities for their child to have sex. Everybody's parent is wrong. You should worry more about educating and informing your daughter than sheltering her, OP. If she's gonna do it, she's gonna do it. As I said above, it doesn't mean you have to like it. But, being aware of the reality, how should you handle it? Not by keeping her away from summer camp, imo. You can't treat somebody like a child when you know they want to jump to something so very unchildish; it doesn't work, and it never will.</p>
<p>Dis-grace, many posters have mentioned that if she wants to have sex she'll be able to find the opportunity. That does not mean that the opportunity should be left standing in front of her.</p>
<p>Wow you are crazy just let her go. One of these days she has got to learn to make decisions for herself without her parents staring over her shoulder the whole time. Trust me when I say that if you continue to impose regulations on her she will find ways around them. It is much better for you to have an open and honest relationship where she will tell you what she has done/is planning on doing, whether it involves her boyfriend or otherwise. Overly strict parents, those who force religion on their children, only make the kids more eager to rebel and that is exactly what they do in college. I know you are infatuated with the image of an extremely religious and pious young woman who will not do anything wrong but forcing your beliefs and morals on her will not do that. It's her life.</p>
<p>corranged, I'm also thinking of the fact that most people I know (all the way from my own age to in their forties) don't feel harmed by what they did behind their parents' backs. What they feel was harmful was the fact that they couldn't talk to their parents about it even though they wanted to. This is, of course, anecdotal evidence, but it is what I am familiar with, and so I state it.</p>
<p>It's quite obvious that the OP is not trying to break them up, nor restrict their time together. Just as I would, she does not want to be the "enabler". Amazingly enough, my kids practically spill their guts to me, sometimes after the fact, and we have very open conversations.</p>
<p>I think the OPs main motivation for the week at camp was not to break them up, but to give the kids a bit of separation and space, nothing wrong with that</p>
<p>I have more of an issue with a 14 year old dating a 17 year old, what is a junior doing going after a frosh girl, and what he has nothing better to do then go to a camp that most likely he wouldn't even look at with out the GF?</p>
<p>You can't stop them from doing what they are going to do, but you don't have to rent them the room</p>
<p>and mom needs to trust her gut, those lies, well, if they are serious enough, and mom feels something is "not right" then she needs to trust that</p>
<p>this is like sending the two lovebirds on a vacation together with parental approval</p>
<p>we as parents can't stop kids from doing what they really want to do, they will find a way, but we don't have to say, sure, go ahead, spend a week together in the woods with little supervision, and we will pay for it</p>
<p>and no matter how swell the 14 year old is, she is 14 and this boy, well, a 17 year old going out with a 14 year old always raises warning flags to me, in a number of ways</p>
<p>and if the girl can't be away from the boy for a week, well, mom's instincts are correct</p>
<p>she isn't saying to dump the boy or forbidding the relationship, she is saying that her D, 14, shouldn't be away at sleepway camp with the love of her life for a week, too bad...</p>
<p>"You can't stop them from doing what they are going to do, but you don't have to rent them the room"</p>
<p>Good point, CGM. She IS only 14, after all.</p>
<p>at a local religous school two kids had sex on retreat, they sent a BF and GF together, not realizing it, as the school is usually very careful to make sure BF and GF don't go on same overnight retreats</p>
<p>She should stay home. No question about it. Just tell her 'YOU ARE NOT GOING HONEY, WE WILL HAVE FUN AS A FAMILY"</p>
<p>I'm just wondering if the parents here would feel the same way about a son. Let's say the reverse is true whereby the son is Christian and the gf is not. Would you be as protective of the son? After all, he might impregnate the girl, right? I'm particularly curious about how the dads would handle this issue. Thanks.</p>
<p>the "christian" part is irrelevant, and the OP knows that even at a "christian" camp, stuff can happen, so she isn't naive</p>