Summer sleepover camp could work wonders for your child or teen with anxiety

I am a huge fan of summer camps for children and teens with anxiety, and particularly of sleepover camp! If you have a child or teen who struggles with separation, sleep routines, picky eating, or avoiding new experiences, sleepover camp is the bootcamp they need!

Many children will use parents to avoid anxious feelings, deferring to you to make whatever is making them nervous go away.

Camp, like school, is a place where they can flex their independence and “play up” as they are surrounded by their peers and a drive to fit in in a new environment, usually with some very cool college-age students who think they are just the best.

[want to learn more about summer schedules for anxious kids and teens? Click here!]

My first sleepover camp

I started my life of working with children as a camp counselor at Camp Okizu, a magical summer camp for children with cancer and their siblings. I spent years watching children as young as 6 stumble off the bus clinging to stuffies and disorientation while enthusiastic college students sang and clapped. Many of these little ones were in the middle of chemotherapy or had had their worlds turned upside down by a life altering diagnosis hitting their families.

They were rounded up into groups with children their age, corralled into cabins, had a few tears at first, and then discovered an experience that changed many of their lives forever. I still keep in touch with many of these kids (now parents themselves), 30 years later. They swear up and down that they would endure everything all over, because they discovered camp.

They found kinship and acceptance with one another, had a week every summer where they were “cool” and very much adored by the adults and other campers, and filled themselves with a self possession that carried them through the year.

Having a child with cancer is a devastating experience, and thankfully an uncommon one. However, struggling with anxiety can keep someone from having normal child and adolescent experiences.

Summer sleepover camps transform children and teens with anxiety

I am writing about my experience at Camp Okizu because what I took away from it, and carried with me throughout my professional career, is that children are resilient, they can do hard things that sometimes as adults we would never dream they can do. I saw it time and again in my years at camp. It shaped me into believing deeply in a child’s potential to grow into doing things they never thought possible.

It’s why I’m such a firm believer in summer sleepover camps for children and teens with anxiety.

Learn more about sending your anxious child to summer sleepover camp

If your child or teen struggles with social anxiety, separation anxiety, lengthy sleep routines, transitions, picky eating, or avoidance of new experiences, sleepaway camp may be the bootcamp that gives them the push to challenge their learning edge. You may put a kid on the bus with a ton of trepidation, waiting for a phone call to come get them, but find at the end you have mature little person who brushes their own teeth, eats a variety of food, and puts themselves to bed every night!

You might get a formerly socially anxious teen back with 20 new contacts they can’t stop texting with. If you are camp curious, I strongly encourage you to listen to this podcast by Lynn Lyons, LICSW from Flusterclux series.

And, if you need more support around parenting your anxious child or teen, I’m just a video call away. Contact me today!