Kids and Camp
Working with horses at "camp" for grown-ups. (A resort in Austin.) January 2012.
For summers late in my elementary-school career, my parents sent me to a sleep-away camp. Three weeks at a pop. I hated it.
Seriously hated it.
I hated it so much that I schemed to get sent home:
I went on a hunger strike.
Later, I refused to eat anything but the peanut butter and white bread always on the cafeteria tables. (This practice resulted in severe gastrointestinal distress.)
I sustained a letter-writing campaign pleading misery and begging my parents to come get me "if they loved me."
During a thunderous midnight rainstorm, I stood outside in my jelly shoes and underpants to catch pneumonia. (No, I did not realize that you can't catch pneumonia in Texas in July. Even naked in the rain.)
I tried to find a partner to abscond with me in the middle of the night via canoe to some other shore of the huge lake.
The counselors--all college kids hoping for a fun summer job--hated me.
A recent office conversation reminded me of these miserable camp summers. Turns out someone I work with went to the same camp I attended, likely at the same times. He loved it.
I can't even imagine loving camp.
Why do some kids love camp, and others hate it? Yes, I'm an introvert, but I've run across others of my ilk who loved camp. And I enjoyed other overnight, away-from-home group activities—albeit when I was a bit older.
I turned to Google to see if any studies had been done or articles written by people knowledgeable about this topic, and turned up only one article on Yahoo! by Nora Beane. She brings up a few reasons I might not have liked camp. My camp didn't feature the types of activities I enjoyed as a kid. Instead of archery and swimming and canoeing, I would have been happier at a nerd camp where kids worked on academic projects or an artsy camp where kids were encouraged to do crafts and create. As a shy child, I would have more easily bonded with kids that liked to do the same things I did.
Still, I don't have a clear understanding of the dividing line between camp lovers and camp haters. Is it simply that the camp and the camper need to match up? Or is there something else?
Did you love camp? Hate it? Why? What divides camp lovers from camp haters?