I just thought about it…is going on a summer camp as pupil really common in the USA?
Edit: wow…thank you for so many answers in such a short time. Very interesting.
49 comments
It’s not like every kid is doing it but it’s common enough, especially for families with money.
Probably depends on where you live. I grew up in a rural area and no one went to a summer camp.
For younger ages, like primary school, it is. Kids usually have 2 months of recess during the summer, and working parents often use summer camp as a supervised activity to keep children occupied. It’s not universal, but very common. Usually by 13 or 14, students are old enough to stay at home during the summer.
Fairly common yes. It’s not universal as it does cost a certain amount of money so not every family can afford it. But it’s also not an insane amount that only the top 1% can afford either.
I went on scholarship ever Summer to the local YMCA camp. Looked it up and it’s now $475 for 1 week. I think it was about $400 when I was going.
There was one Summer I got shipped off to like 4 different camps
In Kansas, yes, it was pretty common.
Usually 1 week, staying in cabins. Some kids maybe went 2-3 weeks. Never the whole summer or anything.
I feel like less than 10% of kids attend a typical summer camp (not related to like band or sports or something), but that is still a lot of people.
Only for half the year
To me they are, we have 10 different summer camps in my county!
It’s very common in Minnesota. The majority of kids that grow up here have some summer camp experience.
I went with my girlscout troop and we earned it through cookie sales and our parents chucking in some cash. Maybe it was cheaper to go in the 90s? Not sure how much it costs now?
Our town in Jersey had a summer camp program that even the low income families could afford.
It was two days a week and we would go to amusement parks or baseball games on thursdays and on tuesdays we would go to the local lake or if it rained we would have an arts and crafts day at the community center.
But a traditional summer sleep away camp was for if you were in scouts or if your parents had a lot of money to send you to the catskills or some equine camp.
We always had church camp and they are still very popular around me.
Yes, 1-2 weeks, I’m my experience. My kids do 1 week of nature and 1 week of sports camps.
There’s all kinds of summer camps – the day camp that kids go to in the summer to help working parents cover the summer break, Audubon camps, BS Camps Bible school camp for a couple weeks, to the Jewish summer camps that city people sent their kids for like 7-8 weeks.
There’s a huge range of them and very common. My kids did art camp, nature camp, adventure camp, sailing camp, etc.
If you mean sleepaway camps, I think they are becoming less common these days but summer camp in general is exceptionally common.
Sleep-away camps like the ones you see on TV are more common for upper middle class people from major cities. People from small towns are more likely to have regular access to outdoor spaces, sending the kids away to experience that doesn’t make much sense. Day-camps are much more common for all types of people.
In the Northeast, it’s very common.
Depends on how you define summer camp. There are overnight summer camps that last for weeks and then there are day camps where the kids get picked up in the evenings. Day camps are very popular for working parents with school age children. It allows them to drop their kids off similarly to school.
I think it depends on income level. Sleep away camps are more expensive than day camps.
Sleepover summer camps like you’ve seen in movies and TV are pretty common for families with enough money to do them. Kids usually go for no more than a couple weeks. Some summer camps can be longer for kids from upper middle class and wealthy families.
Day camps, where kids go to some location each day for a program to learn about nature or swimming or a sport or robotics… or some other topic for a week or two are VERY common and serve as a kind of childcare over the summer for families with two working parents. Those families often have to cobble together a full summer program of various day camps in order to cover childcare for their kids between school years.
It’s not an experience absolutely everyone has but it is fairly common. I went to church summer camp almost every year from middle school until I graduated.
I went to at least one when I was a kid, we didn’t sleep there though
Very common. Gives parents a 1 to 2 week vacation from their kids (for sleep away camp)……
There’s also ‘day camp’ which is more like a themed daycare – you drop kids off before work and pick them up at the end of the day….
Prior to about 12 years old I went to a Christian summer camp for a week about 3 years in a row. After that I wanted to do sport related camps so I stopped going to a summer camp. I found most camps died after reaching teenage years.
I think it’s pretty common but not everyone goes to a Sleepaway camp like you’re maybe thinking of. Lots of kids go to day camps and come home each afternoon.
There are several options, usually with different costs. But the two major categories are camps where kids leave for several days or “day camps” where kids do activities for a few hours a day over a week or more, but stay at home otherwise.
Scouts have many opportunities. Churches/faith groups often have a few summer options available, including “Vacation Bible School” or “VBS,” which is usually a themed week of day camps and often free or at little cost. There are also “family camps,” which are essentially resort packages for families with a camp theme. What I hear little or nothing about are camps for anyone who gets signed up to go, like in the show “Salute Your Shorts.”
Participation varies pretty widely as to who goes or doesn’t.
They’re common enough, but the kind that are shown on the TV and in movies are likely out of financial range for many, many people. I looked at a couple for my kid a few years ago. One was $6000 for 25 days and the other was $10,000 for 26 days or $18,000 for the entire summer (plus transportation to get there).
Day camps are a little more common and affordable. Some are just a babysitting service run by the local parks and rec department (basketball, swimming, kickball, etc at the local rec center) and some are more like a summer camp with canoeing and horseback riding and arts and crafts, but without the sleepaway part.
My kids went to day camp, usually. Overnight camps were for scouting.
It’s pretty common. I went to summer camp, so did most of my friends growing up.
When I was little, I went to a day camp that my school hosted. Most of the counselors were teachers, and most of the other kids were kids I went to school with. I went to sleepaway camp for middle school and some of high school.
Yeah, it is. There are day camps and sleepaway camps, general camps and more specific camps (sports camps, like soccer; performing arts camps; camps for kids with specific illnesses; etc. etc.).
I went to a couple. Went to a hockey/summer camp in Canada once. It was amazing. Not all are sleepaway camps like in the movies. Day camps where mom drops you off in the morning and picks you up in the evening are not unusual. With no school in the summer camp helps with childcare plus they are really fun.
In my culture (northeastern Ashkenazi Jewish-American) it is *incredibly* common, but it was much less common among my non-Jewish friends and classmates.
Yes, I did day camps when I was younger where parents just dropped us off and did an overnight YMCA one as well. 3 summers of Boy Scouts too. Parents don’t want to deal with their kids all summer and it keeps them busy. I don’t know how it is right now compared to 20-25 years ago when I was the right age. Jewish summer camps I think are still a thing.
They were common in Alaska
I grew up in the Midwest. I did Boy Scout camp a few times which was a few days total of overnight. I think nowadays there are more local “day camps” for kids for stuff for them for a week or two to do and not just be bored all summer.
Otherwise the type of long term overnight camp in TV and movies, like the 60s Parent Trap movie, or stories where there’s a rival boys/girls camp on the other side of the lake, to me those things I was always just figured were a rich NYC or LA kid thing.
Some of these questions are bizarre
I guess? They’re not irregular around the world. My home country had day camp type things — literally look at boy or girl scouts and how many countries they have camps at
Then look at religious camps
Then look at “young adult camps”
Where on earth are you living that summer camps seem foreign?
Yep although not universal it’s very common. In my community it’s probably something like 90% of families that send their kids to some form of camp during the summer.
There are two types. Day camps and sleepaway camps.
Most cities and even public schools and some churches and even specialized businesses host day camps. Parents drop their kids off in the morning and pick them up in the evening and the day camp has activities and field trips planned for the kids each day. These are very popular because they tend to be fairly low cost (200-500) and accessible since there are multiple options in most communities.
Sleepaway camps are quite common and are usually measured in sessions. Some sessions are 1 week some are multiple weeks and parents book their children per session. These are a bit more pricey but some organizations like Scouting America have reasonably priced sleepaway camps (400-800/week) however there are also some very pricey camps that are in the thousands of dollars per week.
My own kids tend to rotate sleepaway camps each summer. This past summer they did an oceanfront camp (sailing, scuba diving, kayaking etc…) in June and a mountain camp (horseback riding, fishing, lake canoeing, rock climbing etc…) in July and then a day camp locally for a couple weeks in August.
For families with middle class incomes and higher, it’s pretty common
I would say they are incredibly common. There are tons of different ways these can be set up. There are day camps that I used to attend as a younger kid. These are going to be essentially the entire work day to allow parents to drop off/pick up.
Sleepaway camps are what I think you are more wondering about. These can last anywhere from 3 or so days to an entire month. These are going to offer a much wider variety of activities typically, but are also becoming less common as kids start to prefer more technologically dependent activities.
In all honesty, I would not be the person I am today without having experienced sleepaway camp as a kid, both as a camper and counselor. Most people who spent a significant time at camp would probably feel similarly. It’s almost cult-like in a way. Anyway, they are super common, but maybe not as much as movies/tv shows would have you believe.
I went to summer camp most summers as a kid but only for a week. There are camps where kids essentially go for the whole summer but those are generally only for the wealthy.
I went to sports camps, scouting camps, science camps etc.
Parents wanted me to get outdoors. I enjoyed them. Got a boating license from one.
Yes, it’s quite common in the middle/upper middle and upper classes. I live in fairly middle/upper middle suburbs in Texas and I would guess that easily more than half to two thirds (or better) of my kids’ schoolmates attend some kind summer camp. My older daughter attended a traditional stay away camp in the countryside with all the usual camp activities (swimming, archery, crafts, theme night socials, hiking, etc.). My younger daughter is not at all outdoorsy so instead opted for theater camps with acting/writing/production workshops and an end-of-session theater performance. Other kids I know have done stay-away camps in their particular sport, or in religious settings, etc. Some camps are local and more like a day-activity thing. Other camps are held on college campuses where students stay in the unoccupied-over-the-summer dorms. And others are the traditional, stay in a group cabin beside a lake, type facility. Not universal for every kid, but pretty common.
Oh absolutely. I went to scout camp my entire childhood. My town has 2 camps. A scout camp and just a sort of “go there” day camp.
They’re prohibitively expensive for a lot of people. My family got in off financial aid.
It’s really dependent on demographics. Beyond just who can afford it, there are cultural factors at play here. If you’re an upper middle class Jewish kid from the NYC area, camp is practically a rite of passage. If you’re a first generation Asian immigrant in a similar socioeconomic class, it probably ain’t happening.
Speaking of sleepaway camp, I think it’s somewhat regional. When I was growing up in the 80s/90s in New England, pretty much everyone who could afford to would send their kids to at least a week or two of camp. I went for 2-4 weeks every summer age 8-14.
I live on the West coast now and it seems less popular here. But there’s a very long tradition on the east coast. And camps are very varied. A lot are traditionally Jewish. There are also boy/girl scout camps, and camps for sports or arts. I went to a theater camp for two summers.
The theater camp was at an old mountain resort and we slept in dorms that were converted from hotel rooms. We spent most of our time inside, taking classes and rehearsing for our plays. The other camp I went to, the cabins were very rustic and partially open, with outhouses. We went on backpacking trips and there was a farm. Two very different experiences!
Yes- in my experience. But there are a few different types:
* I went to a few summer camps- ones that were about a week-long when I was younger (10-12), and two-weeks when I was a little older (13-15). I stayed in a cabin with about 10 other girls close to my age.
* It was really common where I grew up to have summer day camp options- your parents would pay a fee for the whole summer, and you could come and go when you felt like it. They would also have “field trips” to the water park or the zoo that you could sign up for.
* Pretty much every church that I knew had “Vacation Bible School” that lasted about a week. That was just a half-day thing, though. It lasted a week- you would make crafts and learn about religious stories, maybe put on a play or something.
There are so many camps! I did Girl Scout camp. My kids did boy scout camp and another camp. I know a person who sends her kids to different camps all summer long because it’s cheaper than finding daycare for them.
I went to music camps for one to four weeks for several summers. They weren’t expensive and they were great fun.
49 comments
It’s not like every kid is doing it but it’s common enough, especially for families with money.
Probably depends on where you live. I grew up in a rural area and no one went to a summer camp.
For younger ages, like primary school, it is. Kids usually have 2 months of recess during the summer, and working parents often use summer camp as a supervised activity to keep children occupied. It’s not universal, but very common. Usually by 13 or 14, students are old enough to stay at home during the summer.
Fairly common yes. It’s not universal as it does cost a certain amount of money so not every family can afford it. But it’s also not an insane amount that only the top 1% can afford either.
I went on scholarship ever Summer to the local YMCA camp. Looked it up and it’s now $475 for 1 week. I think it was about $400 when I was going.
There was one Summer I got shipped off to like 4 different camps
In Kansas, yes, it was pretty common.
Usually 1 week, staying in cabins. Some kids maybe went 2-3 weeks. Never the whole summer or anything.
I feel like less than 10% of kids attend a typical summer camp (not related to like band or sports or something), but that is still a lot of people.
Only for half the year
To me they are, we have 10 different summer camps in my county!
It’s very common in Minnesota. The majority of kids that grow up here have some summer camp experience.
I went with my girlscout troop and we earned it through cookie sales and our parents chucking in some cash. Maybe it was cheaper to go in the 90s? Not sure how much it costs now?
Our town in Jersey had a summer camp program that even the low income families could afford.
It was two days a week and we would go to amusement parks or baseball games on thursdays and on tuesdays we would go to the local lake or if it rained we would have an arts and crafts day at the community center.
But a traditional summer sleep away camp was for if you were in scouts or if your parents had a lot of money to send you to the catskills or some equine camp.
We always had church camp and they are still very popular around me.
Yes, 1-2 weeks, I’m my experience. My kids do 1 week of nature and 1 week of sports camps.
There’s all kinds of summer camps – the day camp that kids go to in the summer to help working parents cover the summer break, Audubon camps, BS Camps Bible school camp for a couple weeks, to the Jewish summer camps that city people sent their kids for like 7-8 weeks.
There’s a huge range of them and very common. My kids did art camp, nature camp, adventure camp, sailing camp, etc.
If you mean sleepaway camps, I think they are becoming less common these days but summer camp in general is exceptionally common.
Sleep-away camps like the ones you see on TV are more common for upper middle class people from major cities. People from small towns are more likely to have regular access to outdoor spaces, sending the kids away to experience that doesn’t make much sense. Day-camps are much more common for all types of people.
In the Northeast, it’s very common.
Depends on how you define summer camp. There are overnight summer camps that last for weeks and then there are day camps where the kids get picked up in the evenings. Day camps are very popular for working parents with school age children. It allows them to drop their kids off similarly to school.
I think it depends on income level. Sleep away camps are more expensive than day camps.
Sleepover summer camps like you’ve seen in movies and TV are pretty common for families with enough money to do them. Kids usually go for no more than a couple weeks. Some summer camps can be longer for kids from upper middle class and wealthy families.
Day camps, where kids go to some location each day for a program to learn about nature or swimming or a sport or robotics… or some other topic for a week or two are VERY common and serve as a kind of childcare over the summer for families with two working parents. Those families often have to cobble together a full summer program of various day camps in order to cover childcare for their kids between school years.
It’s not an experience absolutely everyone has but it is fairly common. I went to church summer camp almost every year from middle school until I graduated.
I went to at least one when I was a kid, we didn’t sleep there though
Very common. Gives parents a 1 to 2 week vacation from their kids (for sleep away camp)……
There’s also ‘day camp’ which is more like a themed daycare – you drop kids off before work and pick them up at the end of the day….
Prior to about 12 years old I went to a Christian summer camp for a week about 3 years in a row. After that I wanted to do sport related camps so I stopped going to a summer camp. I found most camps died after reaching teenage years.
I think it’s pretty common but not everyone goes to a Sleepaway camp like you’re maybe thinking of. Lots of kids go to day camps and come home each afternoon.
There are several options, usually with different costs. But the two major categories are camps where kids leave for several days or “day camps” where kids do activities for a few hours a day over a week or more, but stay at home otherwise.
Scouts have many opportunities. Churches/faith groups often have a few summer options available, including “Vacation Bible School” or “VBS,” which is usually a themed week of day camps and often free or at little cost. There are also “family camps,” which are essentially resort packages for families with a camp theme. What I hear little or nothing about are camps for anyone who gets signed up to go, like in the show “Salute Your Shorts.”
Participation varies pretty widely as to who goes or doesn’t.
They’re common enough, but the kind that are shown on the TV and in movies are likely out of financial range for many, many people. I looked at a couple for my kid a few years ago. One was $6000 for 25 days and the other was $10,000 for 26 days or $18,000 for the entire summer (plus transportation to get there).
Day camps are a little more common and affordable. Some are just a babysitting service run by the local parks and rec department (basketball, swimming, kickball, etc at the local rec center) and some are more like a summer camp with canoeing and horseback riding and arts and crafts, but without the sleepaway part.
My kids went to day camp, usually. Overnight camps were for scouting.
It’s pretty common. I went to summer camp, so did most of my friends growing up.
When I was little, I went to a day camp that my school hosted. Most of the counselors were teachers, and most of the other kids were kids I went to school with. I went to sleepaway camp for middle school and some of high school.
Yeah, it is. There are day camps and sleepaway camps, general camps and more specific camps (sports camps, like soccer; performing arts camps; camps for kids with specific illnesses; etc. etc.).
I went to a couple. Went to a hockey/summer camp in Canada once. It was amazing. Not all are sleepaway camps like in the movies. Day camps where mom drops you off in the morning and picks you up in the evening are not unusual. With no school in the summer camp helps with childcare plus they are really fun.
In my culture (northeastern Ashkenazi Jewish-American) it is *incredibly* common, but it was much less common among my non-Jewish friends and classmates.
Yes, I did day camps when I was younger where parents just dropped us off and did an overnight YMCA one as well. 3 summers of Boy Scouts too. Parents don’t want to deal with their kids all summer and it keeps them busy. I don’t know how it is right now compared to 20-25 years ago when I was the right age. Jewish summer camps I think are still a thing.
They were common in Alaska
I grew up in the Midwest. I did Boy Scout camp a few times which was a few days total of overnight. I think nowadays there are more local “day camps” for kids for stuff for them for a week or two to do and not just be bored all summer.
Otherwise the type of long term overnight camp in TV and movies, like the 60s Parent Trap movie, or stories where there’s a rival boys/girls camp on the other side of the lake, to me those things I was always just figured were a rich NYC or LA kid thing.
Some of these questions are bizarre
I guess? They’re not irregular around the world. My home country had day camp type things — literally look at boy or girl scouts and how many countries they have camps at
Then look at religious camps
Then look at “young adult camps”
Where on earth are you living that summer camps seem foreign?
Yep although not universal it’s very common. In my community it’s probably something like 90% of families that send their kids to some form of camp during the summer.
There are two types. Day camps and sleepaway camps.
Most cities and even public schools and some churches and even specialized businesses host day camps. Parents drop their kids off in the morning and pick them up in the evening and the day camp has activities and field trips planned for the kids each day. These are very popular because they tend to be fairly low cost (200-500) and accessible since there are multiple options in most communities.
Sleepaway camps are quite common and are usually measured in sessions. Some sessions are 1 week some are multiple weeks and parents book their children per session. These are a bit more pricey but some organizations like Scouting America have reasonably priced sleepaway camps (400-800/week) however there are also some very pricey camps that are in the thousands of dollars per week.
My own kids tend to rotate sleepaway camps each summer. This past summer they did an oceanfront camp (sailing, scuba diving, kayaking etc…) in June and a mountain camp (horseback riding, fishing, lake canoeing, rock climbing etc…) in July and then a day camp locally for a couple weeks in August.
For families with middle class incomes and higher, it’s pretty common
I would say they are incredibly common. There are tons of different ways these can be set up. There are day camps that I used to attend as a younger kid. These are going to be essentially the entire work day to allow parents to drop off/pick up.
Sleepaway camps are what I think you are more wondering about. These can last anywhere from 3 or so days to an entire month. These are going to offer a much wider variety of activities typically, but are also becoming less common as kids start to prefer more technologically dependent activities.
In all honesty, I would not be the person I am today without having experienced sleepaway camp as a kid, both as a camper and counselor. Most people who spent a significant time at camp would probably feel similarly. It’s almost cult-like in a way. Anyway, they are super common, but maybe not as much as movies/tv shows would have you believe.
I went to summer camp most summers as a kid but only for a week. There are camps where kids essentially go for the whole summer but those are generally only for the wealthy.
I went to sports camps, scouting camps, science camps etc.
Parents wanted me to get outdoors. I enjoyed them. Got a boating license from one.
Yes, it’s quite common in the middle/upper middle and upper classes. I live in fairly middle/upper middle suburbs in Texas and I would guess that easily more than half to two thirds (or better) of my kids’ schoolmates attend some kind summer camp. My older daughter attended a traditional stay away camp in the countryside with all the usual camp activities (swimming, archery, crafts, theme night socials, hiking, etc.). My younger daughter is not at all outdoorsy so instead opted for theater camps with acting/writing/production workshops and an end-of-session theater performance. Other kids I know have done stay-away camps in their particular sport, or in religious settings, etc. Some camps are local and more like a day-activity thing. Other camps are held on college campuses where students stay in the unoccupied-over-the-summer dorms. And others are the traditional, stay in a group cabin beside a lake, type facility. Not universal for every kid, but pretty common.
Oh absolutely. I went to scout camp my entire childhood. My town has 2 camps. A scout camp and just a sort of “go there” day camp.
They’re prohibitively expensive for a lot of people. My family got in off financial aid.
It’s really dependent on demographics. Beyond just who can afford it, there are cultural factors at play here. If you’re an upper middle class Jewish kid from the NYC area, camp is practically a rite of passage. If you’re a first generation Asian immigrant in a similar socioeconomic class, it probably ain’t happening.
Speaking of sleepaway camp, I think it’s somewhat regional. When I was growing up in the 80s/90s in New England, pretty much everyone who could afford to would send their kids to at least a week or two of camp. I went for 2-4 weeks every summer age 8-14.
I live on the West coast now and it seems less popular here. But there’s a very long tradition on the east coast. And camps are very varied. A lot are traditionally Jewish. There are also boy/girl scout camps, and camps for sports or arts. I went to a theater camp for two summers.
The theater camp was at an old mountain resort and we slept in dorms that were converted from hotel rooms. We spent most of our time inside, taking classes and rehearsing for our plays. The other camp I went to, the cabins were very rustic and partially open, with outhouses. We went on backpacking trips and there was a farm. Two very different experiences!
Yes- in my experience. But there are a few different types:
* I went to a few summer camps- ones that were about a week-long when I was younger (10-12), and two-weeks when I was a little older (13-15). I stayed in a cabin with about 10 other girls close to my age.
* It was really common where I grew up to have summer day camp options- your parents would pay a fee for the whole summer, and you could come and go when you felt like it. They would also have “field trips” to the water park or the zoo that you could sign up for.
* Pretty much every church that I knew had “Vacation Bible School” that lasted about a week. That was just a half-day thing, though. It lasted a week- you would make crafts and learn about religious stories, maybe put on a play or something.
There are so many camps! I did Girl Scout camp. My kids did boy scout camp and another camp. I know a person who sends her kids to different camps all summer long because it’s cheaper than finding daycare for them.
I went to music camps for one to four weeks for several summers. They weren’t expensive and they were great fun.