Letters to Camp

Did you know that letters to camp is also about reassurance?

So much of the camper-parent experience is about reassurance.  Reassuring your child that they will have fun, that being away can be a great learning experience, that you care even when they’re away, etc.

A few years ago, we learned about another important reassurance: that we’d be able to write to our child regardless of where we were.  Two days after we dropped our daughter off at camp for the first time, we headed out for a vacation in Banff in the Canadian Rockies (a great vacation by the way).  Luckily our hotel had a PC with Internet access that we used to send emails.

We knew we’d also be sending at least one postcard too, which seemed to have surprised our daughter who wrote back in huge 3-inch letters, “Oh My Gosh, I just got your postcard from Banff,” an exclamation that has taken its rightful place in our family lore.

The takeaway: even when you travel, make sure to reassure your child that you will still be able to write and that you’ll always be thinking of them when you can’t.  And make sure to plan ahead – with paper/envelopes/stamps, addresses, and a connected PC at the ready.