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Is Outdoor Science School a death trap?
April 24th, 2009, 7:19 am · 25 Comments · posted by Lori Basheda
Call me kooky, but the idea of handing my 10-year-old daughter a suitcase and putting her on a charter bus that will take her to the mountains for five days where she will live with complete strangers and be forbidden from having any contact with me sounds COMPLETELY INSANE.
I’m talking here about fifth grade science school. That age old California rite of passage designed to, I don’t know, torture parents?
My daughter’s school recently had a science school briefing. And we were assured that the week would be safe:
The counselors running the camp have college degrees. Well so did Ted Bundy, another nervous mom whispered.
The intellect of the camp counselor doesn’t concern me. It’s the bears, ax murderers, kidnappers, mountain lions and woods in general that worry me (”I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks”).
We spend our summer vacations at national parks. And there is no shortage of signs detailing the various ways you can die in the woods. (Like that poor boy in the Yellowstone danger sign below)
At the Science Camp briefing, they showed us a film of all the fun the kids have – peering over the edge of a cliff, sitting perilously close to a roaring bonfire in the pitch dark (that is no doubt cloaking a salivating pack of wild dogs), dangling from a rock wall and traipsing through the hungry-animal-infested woods carrying FOOD.
The real deal breaker, though: We are forbidden from having any contact with our kid. We wave goodbye Monday and (hopefully) see them again Friday. They can’t call us. We can’t call them. Why are we maintaining radio silence?
When I told my fifth grader she wasn’t going, she burst into tears. “I’ve only got one kid,” I reminded her. “I don’t have a spare.” She said she understood and demanded a bunny rabbit.
And where does my husband stand on this? He’s outside feeding the bunny.
What do you think?
Mom blogger Marla Jo Fisher thinks I’m out to lunch.
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I went to Outdoor Science Camp as a 6th grader. It was the one of the most amazing and awesomely fun experiences of my life. You’re super paranoid that something is going to happen to your kid. Truth is, there is a pay-phone up there that they’re allowed to use. But hey, when you’re having that much fun, who cares to call home. Mountain lions and coyotes. If you haven’t read on the OC Register site lately, there have been numerous sightings of coyotes.. IN THE CITY. So, you’re really not safe anywhere. Just let the kid go. They’ll have fun. You can sit at home and bite your finger nails.
I think it is a great experience for the kids to have this kind of opportunity. I have been sending my girls to Resident girl scout summer camp since they were 7 and they spend a week or more there by thereself with no contact from mom.. they will let them call if they really need to.. and now that my Oldest is almost 16 she is working her way to be a counselor there…
I guess, you’re a great tennis player!
I knew you’d pull through Britta!
My son went to this camp and the greatest danger to parents was–he cried when he came home because he was having so much fun there it was a let-down to be forced to return to his boring old domicile with his sister and mom! This was quite depressing, picking your kid up after you’ve missed him for five whole days and having him cry because he doesn’t want to come home. Fortunately by the next day he was used to our dull life again.
Also between the coyotes and the pit bulls in our neighborhood, I agree, my kid was probably safer in the mountains.
I have to say this is crazy over-protective, and a little sad for your daughter. I went to camp when I was a kid and had a blast being with my friends. I remember being sad about not being with my parents the first day or so, and then I completely forgot about them and just had fun, and learned a lot. So it would make sense to me that they can’t talk to their parents, because wouldn’t it just end up being emotional and distracting for them? And imagine the planning it would take to fit in a phone call for every kid. I’d rather the counselors spend their time planning activities, meals and safety procedures! Yes, it will be hard for you, but this isn’t about you, it’s about a life experience for your daughter. She’s probably a good kid and deserves it. Not letting her go is like punishing her when she didn’t do anything wrong.
well, it’s too late. she already missed. but the good news is, she’s alive!
I think a 5 day supervised trip with her classmates is perfectly acceptable for a 6th grader. In my experience with my children and with the surrounding schools in the three areas of So Cal we have lived in, their teachers attended as well. When my daughter came back this past October she was so proud of all of her accomplishments -I could see a difference immediately. I think you need to allow her opportunities to stretch her wings and become self-reliant. We all want the best for our children, but if we are consantly hovering over them and shielding them, we limit their ability to build their self-esteem and confidence on their own.
Now when all her friends talk about what a great time Science Camp was she is going to get depressed and feel left out. Are you going to keep her from the Senior Prom too?
there is a line on being paranoid and over protective. heck, it’s science camp! what are you going to do when she want’s to go to a sleep-away summer camp??
Lori,
Do you even let your daughter do sleepovers with friends? Are you still holding her hand when she goes to the bathroom? Or are you still bathing her? Give me a break! If you want her to grow up (and secretly you don’t…) and become a normal kid with personal self confidence you should have let her go.
What will happen if you’re gone? Like in dead? Think she will ever be able to deal with real life if she keeps waiting for you to call her cell phone?
I think you are horrible and it’s sad that your child can’t experience life because of your paranoid and selfish insecurities. Most of us have been going to “camps” for many generations and as a child it’s a right of passage. 25 years from now when you are all sitting at holiday dinner talking about the past your daughter will mention what a mean mom you were when you were growing up, and she is right! Time to cut th cord mom and her be a kid!!! How sad for this little girl, and a bunny isn’t going to bring back those lost memories.
I think you are an overprotective parent that needs to allow your child to experience life.
Oh lighten up, guys. My daughter is not traumatized. If you’re in Girl Scouts and spend your childhood going on Girl Scout camp outs, you are likely to grow up and say they were great fun, great memories, great growing experiences. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us non-Girl Scouts are headed for the shrink’s couch or welfare line because we missed out. Life has many opportunities to grow and gain self confidence, etc. Science School just won’t be one of them for my daughter. And she’s Ok with that. You should be too! And would someone please cast a vote for the “great tennis player” category!
So she may not be traumatized but is it really in her best interest to keep her from experiencing something because of your insecurities? Are you projecting your fears onto her so that she isn’t really willing to try new things because of all of your worrying and fretting over, in your words, activities that “torture parents?”
It may be that this was not in her best interest, i’ll give you that. But I’d be willing to bet that 99 percent of the parents out there will look back and see that they have made at least one decision, if not 50, that was not in their kids best interest… i shouldn’t have let her date that boy, i shouldn’t have made him keep playing soccer when he didn’t want to, i shouldn’t have been so absorbed in work — i should have let her go to science camp? I’m thinking that’s one that isn’t going to rank up there very high on the regrets list.
And isn’t anybody happy that a rabbit found a home because of this?
Your daughter will probably learn more and get more enjoyment from the rabbit. I did send my daughter to 5th grade Science Camp, but I wasn’t completely comfortable with it.
However, I was more concerned with the Sacramento trip the year before as they allowed Fathers to be the chaperone of other people’s daughters. I wasn’t comfortable with having some man, that I don’t know, having a key to my daughter’s bedroom. Some thought I was too over protective, but I would only let my daughter go if I was guaranteed that she’d have a Mom as her chaperone. I realize that a Mom could also be a molester, but the percentages of that are less. They tried to tell me that they couldn’t discriminate against father’s who had daughters that wanted to chaperone, but just because they are a dad doesn’t mean they are not a child molester too. My daughter went, but she did have a Mom chaperone. Most likely nothing happened to the girls that had someone’s dad as their chaperone, but it wasn’t worth it to me to take a chance on a stranger just to be politically correct.
Now, nothing to worry about until the 8th grade trip to Washington DC.
I think you are being way too over protective of your daughter. It’s sad that your fears are affecting your daughter’s development and education. I say development b/c for many of these kids this is their first time away from their parents not at a sleepover, etc. Leaving your parents for this long can be a bit scary, but this is part of growing up.
Cut the purse strings….let your daughter have fun at camp.
I am currently an Outdoor Science School Instructor in the San Bernardino mountains. I have a degree in Science and Recreation Therapy as well as 2 years of Registered Nursing School experience. These programs mostly run under the Department of Education. The SAME authorities that hire the classroom teachers that teach your child. The same teachers that you trust with your child 5 days a week from September through June. How well do you know them? The greatest part of my job is teaching 5th and 6th graders hands-on knowledge about science. They LOVE it and it brings out the best in those students who normally are not expected to achieve much in their classroom setting and teaches those students who do well in the class that there are more ways than one to learn. Many of the students’ classroom teachers attend the week long experience and believe it or not, they, more times than not, make things worse by showing bias between the “good” and the “bad” kids. Instructors and program staff see these children off the bus on Monday without bias because we know that every kid deserves a chance to shine…and they do. The students are given responsibilities that they may not experience at home as well as opportunities to open their horizons in expressing themselves through team building activities and even acting for the first time for Skit Night. Not only is the experience a great setting for social interaction with peers but an eye-opening appreciation for nature and environmental consciousness. Your interpretation of what Outdoor Science School is, is so far from the truth and though your daughter may not harbor any regret at this current decision, who knows how far a parent like you will take it.
By the way….I have yet to see a coyote and a bear….anywhere in San Bernardino! But we do have lots of birds, trees, squirrels and lizards!
I attended CA outdoor science camp twice because we moved and changed school districts during the middle of my sixth grade year (the first district did K-5, the second did K-6, both were in OC). Both experiences were incredibly educational both for science AND in social skills, which for me were likely much more important.
Those lions and wild dogs and bears (oh my!) you’re afraid of? They pounded into us how to cope with the local nasties (like rattlesnakes, which I notice *didn’t* make your list - bad OC mom, not including such a common fatal threat!). Just because the campground wasn’t plastered with signs didn’t mean we weren’t constantly briefed, reminded, reiterated, and enforced in proper behaviors and habits when dealing with wild environments. I recall we did encounter a rattler during one hike, and the counselor who found it coordinated with the counselor trailing in getting us all, single file, along the opposite side of the trail (a safe distance out of strike range) past it and onward, which I find much more useful info here in SoCal than “stay inside where there are no snakes”.
Not feeling horribly left out of something like Girl Scouts which is entirely voluntary and fairly rare is a reasonable response, but something like Outdoor Ed that everyone does is a totally different animal. The analogy with the prom is much more fitting - being the extreme minority left out is much harder to cope with than being one of the majority who doesn’t opt into a recreational group.
I guess the only things I’d wonder are, would you allow her to go to a summer camp? Because the counselors are generally strangers there too, and I’m pretty sure they don’t let their kids call home every day. The other thing is…it’s only recently that younger kids have cell phones. I was 14 when I first got mine (and this was as they were becoming more and more mainstream). 30 years ago or so kids were being sent to camps like this all the time with no cell phones and not calling home every day. their parents didn’t know what was going on every second.,..and somehow they dealt with it.
I would have been really sad if my parents took your attitude when I was in 6th grade and we went to an outdoor camp (well, we slept indoors, but most of the activities were outdoors). I would have been the only kid not going and it was an experience I’ll never get anywhere else. It was educational and fun all at the same time. And to me there is not a whole lot of difference between 10 and 11.
Parents who usually hold their child on a tight leash are the ones who wonder why their kid never visits them and leaves the minute they turn 18/graduate high school. No, this one event doesn’t mean that will happen but the fact that this is your thought pattern for something that I and several posters believe to be harmless implies that you have made similar decisions on other events like this and will continue to do so. I hope not. They have to grow up sometime, and it’s usually detrimental if you shelter them until they turn 18 and then they’re expected to know what’s what (or you could be like my parents and still never cut the strings, even though I am over 18).
I think your decision was selfish. What a great way to communicate to your child that they can’t handle a situation that all of their classmates could.
You’re a fool if you think she’s fine with this, but you’ve already shown yourself selfish enough to put your desires above and beyond your child’s needs. You should pray for guidance in raising children instead of caging them. If you wanted a dog, you should have gotten one.