Question: How Do I Choose a Summer Camp for My Child?

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Each week in Moms Talk, our Moms Council of experts and smart moms take your questions, give advice and share solutions.

Grab and cup of coffee and settle in to read this week's question. Below is how the mom's council answered but we want to hear from you. Leave a comment in the comment box below and share your thoughts.

Question: How Do I Choose a Summer Camp for My Child?

Annette Grams:

Plan ahead: A year before enrolling our child, I went and checked out some local camps during the previous summer. Ask other moms, teachers and most of all former campers what they liked and didn’t like about their previous camps.
Take it slow. If the choice of camps is not based on daycare or parents’ schedules try camps that  you can select just a few days/week and/or just a couple of weeks per summer. Mix it up early in the summer and try a few different camps. Do a trial run at summer fun.

Keep it local: If you want children to meet children from other neighborhoods and Andover school districts stay local. The first few fall days at the new school (grammar, middle or even @ AHS) find friendships and clicks quickly blooming. When summer campers meet up again in the fall they are in the know and know the right peeps.

Define it: Whatever your primary goals are for summer camps, social, academic, athletic, artistic... prioritize your list. When my daughter was a younger peep we tried general camps that had a bit of all or most of our list of activities. One year our child loved ballet, but by that summer it was hip-hop and softball.

Camp Counselors: Most camps have adequate or superior facilities that are safe, but the counselors, and curriculum make or break a campers day. Visit camps this year for possible plans next year. Watch how the children react to the counselors and vice versa.

After all my research and sample weeks where did end our child end up? Where she is now. The same place my siblings went. The same camp I was a teen counselor for. She loved those camps so much she is still going there as a teenager, but now as a counselor; Andover Department of Community Service camps at local schools and Pomps Pond.

My mom knew her stuff, but I had to make sure it was right for my daughter. It’s different now and yet still the same.