Camp Complexities

Are you sending your teenage daughter to camp this summer? Beginning to think of it, right? It’s acceptance season and decision season.

Good luck is what I say.

As a therapist listening to how things all began to go wrong in camp, I am going out on a high wire here, taking a risk of antagonizing everyone (again) but needing to make parents aware of what goes on in camp. Not to everyone, but to enough teens that makes me wonder why nobody talks about this. Maybe, it’s because you don’t know. So this column will tell you what you don’t know. What you may want to talk to your daughter about. And if you can’t talk to her, figure something out. She needs to hear so she can be supported in this most wonderful of experiences that can veer badly and quickly, become so wrong.

Camp is a laboratory to learn about one’s self and about boundaries. Personal, physical, and emotional boundaries. It is also the breeding ground for boundary violations. Personal, physical, and emotional. Girls are far from home, far from the structure that often inhibits them, keeps them secure; thrown into the tumultuous free-for-all of emotions that have no container to rein them in.

Friendships begin and are broken leaving girls shattered and confused, not sure what just happened. It’s the hazards of being a teenager in which friendships are formed quickly, intensely, and often dropped as quickly as well. One friends becomes possessive, needy, clingy; or the friend becomes too powerful, the drug that fuels the friendship. Either way, something feels off, wrong, but your teen may not know how to extricate herself from the relationship that just yesterday felt great. Or sometimes, she doesn’t want to extricate herself at all! This friend is exciting. Popular. Your teen wants the feeling of being in the sun, and when she is with her new friend, she feels that way. Other girls are jealous of their closeness, and that makes it feel truly star quality. By the time, your teen feels uneasy in the relationship, she feels powerless to give it up. She doesn’t want to go back to her bland, boring, nobody-notices-me self.

Another boundary is when teens and young adults are saddled with the responsibility of their young campers, often exposed to problems beyond the scope of their knowledge or exposure, bewildered by the intensity around them and clueless how, when, or why  to reach out for help.

Being a counselor becomes more about being loved by campers, winning a popularity contest than about taking their responsibility to their campers seriously. And then, on the other hand, being a counselor may sometimes mean becoming sucked into some drama of a camper who finally has the ear of an adult—or so this 17 year old counselor appears to be—and confides in her counselor secrets even adults would not know how to address. And of course, this camper swears her counselor to secrecy or else she will hate her forever and forever, and the counselor stays quiet, trying to help, spending hours talking to this camper, becoming entrenched in this vortex of trauma she is completely unequipped for. Having no idea that she should tell a real adult what is happening. Someone like the camp director. Her parents, even if they seem far away.

Camp is a dangerous place for girls who are thrown in without problem solving skills, healthy communication skills, and underdeveloped or unhealthy boundaries. Camp is an incubator of intense emotions that teens are the perfect candidates for this intensity. Not yet adult, not anymore a child, experimenting and playing. Late night talks with a new, exciting friend, an adorable camper, way until sunrise, and the explosion of feelings that accompany this new friendship or mentorship.

These girls begin jobs for the first time, lacking basic skills of time management, self-care, and assertiveness with others to create and maintain boundaries. Teens find they don’t have a way to put boundaries on having other girls use their clothing, stopping conversations that feel uncomfortable, saying no to others sitting on their beds just made up with fresh linen, or keeping them up at late at night beyond exhaustion. And there is nobody to help them navigate these strange situations that may often feel at first exciting before deteriorating into doubt, guilt, and confusion.

It’s not okay when a camp director makes a decision to send a counselor—or camper— home in middle of the summer. The shame, the anguish, the bewildered confusion of I-have-no-idea-what-happened, the awfulness of knowing, or believing, that this is not her fault. Worse, when a teenager takes on the blame of a situation gone spiraling out of control because the responsible adults were absent, weren’t attuned to what happens in camp among girls. It is the responsibility of the camp facility to be aware of normal teen development. Of how all these learning curves are just that; learning experiences. Not opportunities to send girls home as an example to other girls. Examples of what, exactly? Of adults that run away or send away problems? Doesn’t teach anyone anything except the lesson of mistrusting adults.

What is the answer, you want to know?

Not creating more rules. Enough with rules.

The answer is education. Educate our girls about this exciting, tumultuous time of their lives when everything looms larger, more passionate, more thrilling than any other time of their life. Everything seems new, newly thought of, as if nobody has ever thought of these grand thoughts before. About themselves, their friendships, their world, their ideas!

Teach our teens about healthy boundaries. It’s okay to tell a roommate you don’t want her using your shampoo or taking your top without asking. Without the dreaded fear of being left friendless and isolated. Learn how to talk to the camp director that seems to be taking advantage of your time before play time. Navigate with co-workers to learn how to pitch in, initiate projects, take on what you can do, stretch yourself without cracking in half. So many new types of relationships. Of subordinates, bosses, co-workers, and support staff.

Teach counselors what types of secrets are harmful to keep. What is the scope of their work, and which types of confidences must be further confided to trusted adults. It’s important that counselors feel that if they speak, their words will be taken seriously, their camper will be helped. That they nor their camper will be punished for seeking help! I cannot begin to tell you how many girls learn to keep silent for fear of being sent home from camp, of their camper being sent back to terrible home situations, even as they desperately wish for help.

Create opportunities for counselors to foster their creativity, leadership abilities, hobbies, talents, and friendships in a safe environment. It stuns me how many girls, once they hit staff, are absolutely bored in camp with many, many free hours on their hands. I’m not sure why this happened. I remember having 2, 3 or even 4 jobs each summer. That seemed normal at that time, even though I think I was probably engaged in slave labor. But fun slave labor!

There are marvelous opportunities for role modeling in camp. Encourage teens to model behavior that feels empowering. Does your teen take medication for a chronic illness? For anxiety? Help them take their medication to camp with confidence and without the necessity for secret-keeping. If your teen has a physical handicap, do the same. And help your teen help her campers with similar situations feel empowered as well—with the support of the camp administration, of course.

She cannot do it alone!

I don’t know if I was simply not a therapist when I was staff 35 years ago in camp; and therefore didn’t know what I write here today. Maybe. But I know now. And I say here loudly and clearly, “Camp is a wonderful, crazy experience that every child should be encouraged to experience. But the experience needs to come first with education.”

Not rules, please. I said no more rules!

Education. Okay? Thank you.

Originally published in Binah Magazine