What if your child is not happy at camp?
Every year when kids go off to camp some of them find that they don't like the experience. Most will have a great time but there will be a few cases where they don't. A lot of parents are concerned about what they should do if it turns out that their child is not happy at camp.
The first thing that you have to do if your child is not happy at camp is to determine just why they are not happy. It is fairly common for a child be homesick, especially if this is the first time that they are away from home. In other cases it may be that your child genuinely dislikes being at camp. The best response is going to depend on the reason that your child is not happy which means it is important to find out why. This can be a challenge since most kids will not come right out and tell you why they are not happy.
If your child is not happy because they are homesick the best thing to do is usually to leave them at the camp. In most cases they will get over being homesick in time. This is an important part of growing up so you do want to make sure that you give them a chance to work through the homesickness. If the problem is really serious the camp counselors will likely call you so that you can talk to your child. In most cases this will be enough to overcome the problem. Only in extreme cases should it be necessary to take your child out of the camp.
Sometimes a child is unhappy at camp because of a specific problem, they don't like their bunk mate or the counselor for example. If this is the case you are going to want to call the camp director and see if you can resolve the problem. In most cases it will be possible to change the arrangements so that the problem is no longer an issue. It may not always be possible of course but in most cases it will be.
The last option is that your child genuinely dislikes being at camp, it happens, not all kids are cut out for camp. If this is the case you will probably have to pick your child up and bring them home. You don't want to be too quick about since you do want to give your child a chance to truly experience camp before they decide that they don't like it. If you do have to pick your child up from camp you are going to want to get them involved in some other activity right away like a day camp. This will help to prevent them feeling like they have failed at camp.