Would You Send Your Kid to a Day Camp to Learn Life Skills?
Christy, a reader of The Mom Crowd, sent me a question asking about sending children from ages 5 – 10 to a day camp to teach them life skills. These skills would include “how to do dishes, vacuum, sweep/mop, set and clear the table, work as a team, how to make a check list, how to cook, understanding money, making a bed, folding and sorting clothes, etc.”
Christy is a mother of 5 and often lacks the patience and time to teach these skills herself. She says “the goal of the day camp is that after a week they would come away with some life skills and better yet see that they are part of the team. Understanding that if ALL the work is done Mom and Dad will have more time to play with them.”
What do you think? Is there a market for this kind of day camp? Would you send your kids? What would you want them to learn while going to camp?
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Didn’t they used to have these courses in school? I remember being a little one and having to do laundry as a school project… Hm. Either way, seems like a cool idea to me.
I’m not sure if I would send my kids to something like this. Probably only if they asked to go. These topics are really what a parent should teach their children; on the other hand, some kids learn these kinds of things better from someone other than a parent.
Sounds like Montessori school to me
(I say that only in the kindest way that only a Montessori teacher can say with a smile). Kids do love this stuff, but you have to be able to make the machine run at home. My husband always asks why our kids don’t put their stuff away at home if they do it at school. Home and school and camp are all different places with different teachers 
I agree with Deb. I think kids do stuff at school easily because it is expected. If you want them to do it at home then you need to teach and expect it. I also think the interacting and learning that you both will take away from the experience can be priceless. They will learn to follow directions from you and do it the way you would like and you learn to teach your children and practice patience.
I think I would rather be the one to go to a class on how to teach my children these skills. I enjoy reading the blogs of mothers with many children. They often have highly-developed organizational skills and much wisdom and experience that I can learn from.
I dont think I would send my girls to a place like that. I am a WAHM, and have plenty of time to teach them these skills. They love to help me out with laundry, cooking and yes even cleaning!! I personally believe that the parents should be teaching their children these skills. On the other hand, if you have both parents working, then why not, this would help the child more with the skills they may be lacking at home due to the working parents. I think it all depends on the situation and parents choice!! Love your blog!
I’m a cub scout leader in the UK. Having just finished a meeting Tonight, I handed in my resignation, not because of the meeting, but as one husband put it, ” the cogs/machines have to run at home” and quite frankly they don’t….society in general has become soft/easy pickin and ever so quick to judge
I am quite miffed that parent will say to me Why can’t my son/daughter do this……why don’t you take them there….. why don’t you try doing that…….I think…..WHY DON’T YOU Help instead of judging.
Kids mainly have to go to school,…… beavers,cubs,scouts,day camps,summer camps etc kids go because they want to. The rules and regulations in these type of environments as so much greater. At home rules/regulations are your own creation.
Jan 18th 2009 this was my son’s birthday.My husband/son/ and I went camping (weather very cold and snow) pitched a tent, dug a pit fire, went shooting, fishing and had a good slap up meal cooked on fire, nieces visited, and made another fire using flint,what a great day we all had. Why cann’t I do that with my cub pack? I asked my Group Scout Leader. No toilets, weather not good, parents not happy, he said.
As a stay-at-home mom, I am constantly with my kids, leading by example and getting them involved in what I’m doing.
But I could see that this may be a great thing for working parents…