education
camp. Instead, I watched him as he got off the bus, slightly
scowling. The first thing he did was lift his shirt to show me a
nasty gash on his hip from a fall. He was close to tears when
he told me he repeatedly asked to come home and was
not allowed. He recounted finally falling asleep around 1am
the first night of camp and how tired he was, such that the
second night he slept at 9pm. I sympathised. But actually, I
had never been to a school camp. Did I really understand?
My son told me on this very day that he would NOT be
attending the year 5 camp the following year. I casually
agreed but brushed off his comment because it was a whole
year away. When you’re a child, a year is a long time and a
lot can happen in terms of maturity and growth. I presumed
he would change his mind by the time year 5 camp rolled
around. Guess what? He didn’t. When year 5 started, he
reminded me that he would not be going to camp this year.
It was the middle of August after all and camp wasn’t until
early November, so I thought there was still time for us to
convince him to go. I did my job encouraging him, saying
he would be with his friends and they would all have such
fun together. We looked at the camp information online. We
talked about with whom he would share a camp cabin. I did
my best to explain that camp was mandatory. I even said
he had to go and that all of his friends were going, some
of whom also didn’t want to go. In the end, there was no
changing his mind and because I had initially agreed, there
was no changing mine either. I couldn’t go back on my word.
I had to ask myself, would missing camp change his life?
Is my life any better or worse for not having been to a school
camp at his age? The schools I attended in the United States
didn’t do camps for kids this young. My husband didn’t go
to camp at this age in Australia either. So we decided, after
much agonising over it all, to let him skip camp.
By not forcing my child to do something totally against his
will, I was not only staying true to my word but also offering
him a deeper level of trust in me that will surely benefit both
of us in the future.
We haven’t addressed year 6 camp yet, but my guess is
that he will want to go. He’s older now and more confident
than ever.
Thomas (age 10) “I’m kind of
looking forward to school camp
because it’s a new experience,
I’m nervous though because I like
being with my family.”
From a reluctant child’s perspective
Florence Clifford, now age 17, looks back at her year’s
attending, and not attending, school camp.
Initially I didn’t want to go to school camp—the idea
of spending two or three nights away from home, in a
completely unfamiliar place, at the age of eight didn’t exactly
appeal to me. For a quiet, bookish child, the information
packs full of kayaking, obstacle courses and dreaded ‘team-
building’ exercises were equally unappealing. Plus, I could
be quite contrary—and once I’d made up my mind that I
wasn’t going to do something, being told it was mandatory
only made me more determined not to give in and go.
Autumn 2019
37