A Note to Parents

From the emails we've seen, a lot of you parents have been wondering why your child hasn't called you from camp. Let me explain. The camp we are at is a very wonderful facility, but cell phone reception is nearly non-existant in the main camp area (I had to hike up to an area where the staff live to get 2 bars at most). Second, the pay phones are very expensive and are often out of order. There have been times before we discouraged payphone use that when campers have had unsupervised phone access, prank calls to 911 have followed. Third, we have learned that frequent phone calls home often increase feelings of homesickness and separation anxiety; while your children may not be homesick themselves, a line forming in front of the pay phone can induce the ones that are to call and ask to go home. We know that you are missing your child too and sometimes they can hear that in your voice. All these reasons are why we encourage email back and forth. So if you want to hear back from your child, send them an email and request that they write you an email. More later from guest bloggers.