·6 min read
Is There a Normal Summer Camp? What a Traditional Sleepaway Camp Looks Like
Not crunchy, not all sports. What a traditional sleepaway camp is, and 5 questions to ask before you pick one.
A mom on a call with me last week said this about her son:
"Honestly, when we started this process, I did not know if there would be camps that would be a really great fit for him."
Then this:
"What you hear about the most... was all the really, really sports-heavy focused camps. And so it's just nice to hear there's a lid for every pot."
There is a lid for every pot. It's called a traditional camp.
I hear some version of her worry from a lot of parents.
Full disclosure: I own one of these camps, in New Hampshire. I'll tell you about it at the end. I've also been to more than 500 camps across 47 states, so I've seen the whole range.
The Short Answer
Yes. Traditional summer camps try and give kids a well-rounded experience where it's like a '90s childhood meets New England woods, plus awesome role models.
A traditional sleepaway camp mixes sports, arts and the outdoors, and kids having a summer to play, make friends, and not super specialize.
Most parents don't know the name for it. They just know what they don't want.
The Two Ends
On one end, there are camps that are, as I put it to her, "really kind of hippie dippy crunchy granola."
On the other end is the one she was worried about. In her words:
"A camp that's all sports, heavily competition, mandatory sports multiple times a day probably isn't a fit for him."
There are a lot of both. And for the right kid, either one can be great.
Traditional camps try and be a little more down the middle.
Another mom put it this way:
"I want there to be sports, but I also want there to be arts. And I also want there to be like the rustic go, you know, for a hike or get yourself dirty and, you know, no screens. Like to me that is like what camp is about."
And the middle is not anti-sports. The mom on my call was clear about that:
"We like sports, he likes sports. I don't want to say we're anti-sport."
Do Kids Have to Play Sports?
Some, yes. Kids at a traditional camp still play sports. We put on cleats and go play soccer.
The difference is what sports decide. At our camp, the coolest kids are not necessarily the best athletes. Your social standing is not as tied to sports or athleticism.
On a normal day we have six activity periods. One of them is required sports, and your whole age group goes together. So the soccer kids are still going to play basketball, and the basketball kids are going to play soccer. It evens the playing field. It's a little more like gym class than the most intense sports.
We have seven boys' age groups. In only one of them, the second-year seniors, our 14-year-olds, is the ringleader also the best athlete. It's the only one at camp where that's true.
A lot of kids who don't love sports at home play them a little more at camp. It's just not as scary. There's not as much pressure from coaches.
And if a kid never wants to play in a tournament against other camps, he never has to. If he wants to, it's there.
Even our most competitive weekend works this way. At the end of the summer we do Color War. Hockey, soccer, pickleball, team songs, and a real debate about standardized testing. I wrote this about it in August:
A kid pouring everything into a hockey game and a kid pouring everything into a pickleball match and a kid pouring everything into a comic song... are putting in the exact same effort. To them, it all counts the same.
How Big Should a Camp Be?
I told her we're much more like a small liberal arts college, small on purpose, so every kid is known by name and no one gets lost in the shuffle. We're Middlebury College more than we are the University of Michigan.
(Don't get me wrong. I live in Ann Arbor. I think it might be the best town in America.)
We have about 130 boys and 130 girls, and it runs like two camps in one. Bunks are 6 to 8 kids with 2 or 3 counselors. Each age group is 15 to 24 kids.
That size is the whole reason kids leave with a crew that is their whole unit. That's possible when you don't have 60 kids in an age group. Sixty is overwhelming.
They leave camp with the kids who are going to be in their wedding, and the first person they call when they're nervous on the first day of college.
What Does a Normal Day Look Like?
The big weekends are great.
But I wrote this in July, and I still think it's the best test there is:
The way you really know camp has taken hold for a kid is a plain Monday, nothing special on the schedule, and the kid glad to be there anyway.
A plain day looks like this. Breakfast, assembly, three activity periods (the last one is free swim on the lake), lunch, rest hour. Then three more periods, dinner, free play, and an evening activity like capture the flag or a campfire. Flashlight time. Bed.
There are no phones in any of it. We're a phone-free camp.
During rest hour there's milk and cookies, every day. It's the most wholesome, old school, you're-at-Grandma's-house kind of situation. Except the junior counselors are handing out the cookies.
Big Kids Look Out for Little Kids
This is the "awesome role models" part.
Our youngest boys each get a big brother from Hut 6, the 15-year-olds. On the second night of camp, the big brothers walk back with them to help them get ready for bed, check on them all through free play, bring back candy from trips, and go bowling with them.
The oldest kids take it so seriously. And so much of it is because they had big brothers they remember.
At most places with big kids and little kids, the big kids are scary, even when they don't mean to be. Camp can break that down.
Find Their People
Here's how the mom described her son:
"He's a quiet kid until he finds like his 2 or 3, and then he'll really... he'll get rowdy with them. But he's got to find his people."
That's the real job of a traditional camp. One of our first-year campers told me why he picked us:
"I wanted a friends camp, not a stuff camp."
If you're still wondering whether your kid is ready at all, I wrote about that too: Is my kid ready for camp?
5 Questions to Ask a Camp Director
Tick them off as you ask. 0 of 5 asked.
Full Disclosure
I own Camps Kenwood & Evergreen, a brother-sister camp in New Hampshire. It's a traditional camp, and I think it's a great one.
It's not the only one. Ask every camp you're looking at these five questions. Ask us too.
You got this,
Jack
P.S. If you want to talk through camps for your kid, text me at 585-451-5141.
Related: What is a phone-free summer camp?