I first came across the article, "
How to prepare your kids for the social pressure cooker of camp," in the June issue of the North Toronto Post. I tried to comment but wasn't able to do so without a Facebook account. (The article irritated me, but not enough to induce me to join Facebook.) After a bit of online sleuthing, I found the same article on a certain overnight camp's website: it so happens that the article's author, who is a renowned restaurant critic in Toronto, is also the director of the "certain camp" in question. The article was cross-posted by the director herself to the camp's blog, and comments were—ostensibly—welcome. So I left a comment. A mildly critical comment. And then one day, out of curiosity, I revisited the camp website, only to find that the comment had been removed. I suppose its removal is not all that surprising. After all, parents who have thrown their kids into the camp's "social pressure cooker," in some cases for weeks on end, would be the people most likely to read the comment. But would it be a terrible thing to open up a true dialogue about the way kids' camps are structured and run? Would it be a terrible thing to question why we assume that "social pressure cooker" boot camps are good for kids?
This is the comment I left:
So why not schedule in some downtime? Why would I want to send my eight-year-old into a "hyper-stimulating," "high octane social pressure cooker"? What sane parent would? This description strikes me as encapsulating everything that is wrong with camp these days. Where is the camp for kids who want to enjoy nature, make friends, and have fun, but aren't interested in being "hyper-stimulated"?
(See also
Camp Keep-Me-Busy)
