Tips For Parents - Students Adjusting to Camp

Thank you for enrolling your child in the UW-Green Bay Summer Camp program! We are celebrating over 45 years of cutting-edge summer programming for youth, and we are very pleased that you’ve chosen our program.

We have provided a few tips to help you and your child have a successful overnight camp experience. Most students have such a great experience; they would like to stay longer! Younger students sometimes take awhile to adjust to the routine and schedule, but ultimately are happy they came. Please be sure to read the Housing Handbook provided for you that explains many details about your child’s overnight experience.

We offer these suggestions as guidelines. Certainly, you know your child better than anybody! However, with our decades of experience in serving youth, we hope that you come to appreciate the adjustment and proper way to handle those heart-tugs that sometimes occur.

Summer Camp Tips:

• If your child brings a cell phone to camp, understand that they will be collected at bed-check in the evening. We have found that it is usually not wise to talk with your child right before bed. This tends to be the most ‘tricky’ time of the camper’s day, and some students become more homesick at this time. Connect at dinner time.
  
  
• If your child is homesick, do not make repeated calls throughout the day. Calls to mom or dad tend to make homesickness worse, and kids (with hopes of being picked up) don’t settle in to the routine as they should.
  
  
• If your child is homesick, DO NOT pick up your child the first or second day of camp. If there still is a homesick problem on Tues night, the child would be best served by going home. However, don’t even think of picking up your child without first talking with our head counseling staff, who are experts in helping kids adjust. There is no refund for kids who leave camp due to homesickness. We will work with you and do everything we can to keep your child at camp.
  
  
• DO NOT plan to pick up your child mid-week to go out to dinner, go shopping, go to a game etc. Some students never ‘settle-in’ to the routine because they know that their ‘home’ connection is only a few days away.
  
  
• No news is GOOD NEWS! Don’t panic if you don’t get a call. This means that he/she has adjusted to the program and is having a great time! This is all part of the growing process. They are all instructed to call home late-week to let you know about pick-up times etc.
  
  
• When you talk with your child about being picked up, i.e. what time the concert is, when to check-out etc., do not say things like ‘the dog misses you,’ ‘one of your fish died’, ‘the cat won’t get up off of your pillow,’ or other sentimental things like that. These heart tugs can be too difficult for kids to handle!

If you have any other questions about adjusting to an overnight camp experience, feel free to give us a call! Our head counselor’s office is in operation from June 8-August 1. That phone number is 920-465-2742, 24/7 access, the general camp phone is 920-465-2267 (M-F business hours) or you can email your questions to christem@uwgb.edu.

We look forward to working with your child and to a successful camp this summer!