My son is going to sleepaway camp for the first time this summer. He’s thrilled. I’m a nervous wreck. I’ve been bouncing around the worry spectrum, from Vaguely Uneasy to Distinctly Nervous and, finally, Full-On Panicked.
What if he can’t fall asleep? What if he gets lost in the woods? What if he gets bullied? What if there’s a serial killer loose? What if he gets bitten by a tick? What if he misses me? What if he’s miserable and I have no idea? What if he has so much fun he wants to go for even longer next summer?
These worries are grounded in reality (ok, serial killer aside), but they come from one place in me: How will I bear his absence? How will I tolerate how much I’ll miss him? And I know I’m not alone.
“Today’s parents worry about a lot,” says Susie Lupert, executive director, American Camp Association, New York and New Jersey. “They are used to being tethered to their children and able to text them with every thought. Parents worry that their child can’t function without them…”
You can read the rest of this great piece by Nicole Caccavo Kear about managing parental anxiety when your kids are going to summer camp in this post over at Seleni.org. I was delighted to share my thoughts!
