Letters to Camp

Share current events from home.  The last ten days have provided unique opportunities to share soccer, political news, space news and more.

 
In the hustle and bustle of the school year, it can be hard to share a special moment with your child.  And if it seemed hard when they were home, you’d think it would be just about impossible when they weren’t even at home. And yet, letters – and emails – give you a unique opportunity to share experiences with your camper in a very personal way.

Let me explain.

Let’s go back to, say April. It’s 5:30 pm and you’re sitting down for dinner.  Your kids come running to the table, rushed because one needs to eat fast so she can hurry back upstairs to study for a test, another can’t wait to text with their friend and the third child keeps stealing glances at their iPhone (which is supposed to be off the dinner table!) all through the meal.  You barely serve the mashed potatoes before the kids start to get antsy and before you know it, another meal is over. It’s pretty hard to get air time to discuss, school, what’s new, and especially world events.

A whole new ball game

But when you’re writing letters to camp, it’s a whole new ball game.  Sure you need to tell your son how the Red Sox are doing (not good), keep them updated on the weather (rainy), etc. BUT your letters also provide the perfect opportunity to mix in a bite-size dose of current events, science, and sports, as the last 10 days have shown.

Camper first

Before I go on, I must remind you that you write letters to your camper for the benefit of one person and one person only: your camper. So if you’re going to share current events, remember to tailor your sharing to your child.  I.e., share what they’re interested in.  And share the excitement of the news without making them feel like they’re missing something exciting news on TV or the Internet.  After all, you’re sharing it so they don’t need to see it on TV!  Finally, use the news to start a dialog – ask your camper what they think of the news, what’s most exciting about it, what lessons did they learn etc. Here are a few recent news goodies:

Pluto and the New Horizons mission

If your son is going planetary about Pluto and the New Horizons flight (Seriously: nearly 10 years in flight and the only question I would be asking by now would be, “ARE WE THERE YET???”), then by all means share the latest news about the flight and its findings, and do it in your child’s terms: “10 years is a long time… that’s how old you are!” The flight has been in the news for several days now, so you can easily find great stats and pictures to share: “bigger than we thought, used to be called a planet but it’s now a dwarf planet because it doesn’t have a strong enough gravitational pull etc”. Here are a few sites with info: NASA National Geographic  NASA Planets for Kids NY Times, July 14

USA Women’s Soccer World Cup win

If your daughter is kickin’ for soccer, I’m sure you’ve already shared the great news about the USA Women’s Soccer team’s win over Japan for the World Cup 10 days ago. And the news kept going with the first women’s sports team getting a ticker tape parade in NYC – how cool was that (unless you make your daughter feel bad that she missed it…)! Indeed, #GirlsCan! Ideas: pick inspirational team-member stories from this site. Fun fact: the game was the most-watched soccer game in the US ever!

Going nuclear

This week, Iran, US and other nations ink nuclear deal.  Serious stuff but maybe your camper has been following this, especially if you have a connection to the Middle East. If so, you’ll want to share Tuesday morning’s news.

Politics and the race for president

Yet another contender enters the race for Republican nomination for US president.  This week it was Scott Walker’s turn. Share the news of the largest Republican field in 100 years with your camper. In fact, if we get up to 17 candidates (I think there’s still a janitor in the Senate who hasn’t thrown his hat in yet…), we’ll be tied with 1916.  Just two more to go and we’ll set a record…