A program director recently mentioned to me that a parent called in upset because they didn’t see their child in the daily group photos. The director had to call the staff and tell them to take equal photos of each kid.
Sound familiar?
It’s not a huge deal, but it’s definitely a nuisance. These stories are becoming more and more common in school OAE programs and camps. And it represents a bigger change that has been underway.
ACA Camping Magazine described the evolution as going from "fly-over" parenting before 2000, where parents dropped kids off and heard from them at the end (hi mom and dad), to "helicopter" parenting through the 2000s, to "drone" parenting today, where parents expect real-time monitoring.
It makes sense. Knowing where your kids are and being able to monitor and contact them on your phone is the accepted standard for parenting and supervision today. That’s why some parents seem obsessed with dissecting a program’s daily photo feeds, and why others even help kids smuggle phones into the field.
Forty percent of camp parents never attended camp as children.
The experience is unfamiliar to them, and unfamiliar things feel risky. The anxiety is real to them, and it is reasonable.
It also influences what programs can offer. Program lengths are getting shorter; the most common duration is now one week or less. Cost is part of that, too; camp prices are up 51% since 2019.
Shorter programs are also driven by parents who are not yet comfortable sending their kids away for longer.
And there’s a real struggle in that dynamic for our field. Building self-regulation skills and developing a healthy relationship with self, others, and the natural world takes time. Readers of this newsletter know that.
Competition for youth time and attention is getting tougher, between summer school and extra-curricular activities, academics, and even screens. They’re all competing for the same thing. Parents seem to understand the value of OAE experiences less and less, and are quick to choose a shorter program offering.
If 40% of camp parents have never done this before, we can’t assume they understand what we do or why more time literally equates to deeper learning and value. Meeting parents where they are, helping them understand the experience and trust it, is how programs earn the commitment to longer and deeper programming.
I worked with a program a few months ago, and they were asking themselves, “how much of our programming should be aimed at parents? What’s our role in parent education?” The answer is…probably not enough.
Let’s stop treating these parents as anomalies. Let’s anticipate and plan for these anxieties, and treat them at the source, starting with their first contact.
The same reframe applies here as it does with participants. Help people get comfortable first. Trust follows.
Stu
P.S. Barry Garst at Clemson has done good work on parental anxiety and camp. Children at Summer Camp: Researchers Delve into Parent Anxiety. The fly-over to drone parenting concept is from ACA Camping Magazine.