[extropy-chat] Re: Parenting: Are there any secular Summer Camps?

David Lubkin extropy at unreasonable.com
Fri Mar 12 02:44:11 UTC 2004


Kevin asked:

         :
>Isn;t there a camp where kids can just have fin and learn some things 
>rather than having to worry about all that hellfire and brimstone?
>
>I considered Space Camp, but they are too young to go alone so I would 
>"have" to go. Unfortunately, it is $379 per person! I am in Southern 
>Indiana, so the Gulf, East and west Coasts are all out of the question. It 
>has to be in the midwest.
>
>I didn;t know if someone might have had this same problem in the past and 
>might know of a decent place. Any ideas?

Get a copy of Peterson's Summer Opportunities for Kids & Teenagers 2004. 
$30 list, $21 from amazon. 1,500 large pages describing a few thousand 
summer options with reasonable topic and geographic indices.

I suggest doing what I did with my daughter, when she wanted to go to camp. 
I bought the book, then made it her responsibility to use the book and the 
web to find places she was interested in. Once she'd narrowed it down, she 
presented her preferences to me. I let her request camp brochures and 
videos and write in the Peterson book.

Of course, you might want to give them constraints (like cost and distance) 
so they don't fall in love with something they could have known up front 
you would say no to.

If you don't feel that either or both is up to this, you could do it with 
them. Either way, use the situation as an opportunity for them to take 
responsibility for a substantial project. You could coach them on planning, 
research, thinking things through, critically evaluating each place's 
marketing hype, etc.


-- David Lubkin.





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