These Are the 14 Things Your Child's Counselor Wants You to Know Before Camp Starts

Counselors live for camp and for the eight weeks they get to spend with your awesome kid. When you drop off your child, a letter or verbal conversation sharing a bit about your kid and what they're into is so helpful. Counselors want your children to get the most they can out of camp, so knowing a bit about them before camp starts can go a long way.

If your child is going to camp with a group of friends, having them all bunk together could actually make camp less of an experience — they'll stick to each other, do all of the same activities (even if one really wanted to do something else), and overall miss out on making other friends and being more independent. This won't be the case for every kid, but it's a bummer when it happens.

If you're sending the kids in a large group, try to request them to bunk in pairs, just to break things up a bit — and please, don't throw a fit if your kid ends up on his own with all new friends, because he is still going to have the best time.

You're sending your child to camp to get the ultimate childhood experience — don't make it hard for them to enjoy their Summer by essentially giving them an out. If your child is the least bit homesick — and you've told them that they could leave upon having those feelings — leaving is going to be the first thing they want to do. Encourage your child to have fun, make friends, and learn new things. If you're really that concerned about them being too homesick, maybe they're not ready for sleepaway camp.

(Conversely, if you're the one that's worried about missing your child too much, try not to project those feelings on an otherwise excited child.)

I was the type of kid to run from my mom's clutching embrace as soon as we reached the camp office every Summer, but not every kid is that way. Most children will adapt to camp and eventually stop thinking about home at all, but if you're writing to them about what they're missing on at home, that's not cool. Don't give them the chance to feel like they're missing out (because with all due respect, camp is probably ten times better than whatever the neighborhood kids are getting up to back home).

It's easy to feel, well, uneasy when it comes to leaving your precious child in the hands of an 18-year-old kid, but those teenagers care about your kid and have been well-trained to handle their job responsibilities. Most likely they were a kid at camp themselves at one point, which means they're even more well-versed in life at camp. Your kids are going to be OK, they're going to have fun, and their counselors promise: they'll make them shower and reapply sunscreen.

There's nothing worse than having to make a phone call home to a camper's parents to inform them of a sprained ankle from the adventure course, a bump on the head from tripping over a tree root, or worse, an outbreak of pinkeye in one of the cabins. If something is seriously wrong, the camp is obligated to call, but if your child happens to write to you about throwing up because he ate too many hot dogs, please don't blame his counselor for "letting it happen." It's all a part of the experience.

My mom would pack me up for camp with all of the stained clothes I wore all school year, and maybe a cheap pack of t-shirts that she knew would go straight into the garbage when I got home. Unless you're sending your kid to an air-conditioned computer camp as far away from wooded areas as possible, they are going to likely stain or ruin every article of clothing you send them with (and their trunk is going to have a layer of dirt caked into the bottom). Save the new wardrobe for back to school.

Some parents literally couldn't care less about what actually makes it back home after camp — remember, everything is going to be filthy anyway. But if you send your child with plush towels or a handheld fan that you really want back, play it safe and label everything. The worst thing a counselor can go through is listening to two parents go at it about which blue sleeping bag belongs to their kid — especially when they're blaming the counselor for allowing the kids' things get mixed up.

Disclaimer: things will still get lost, but your efforts will be appreciated nonetheless.

If you go up to your child's counselor on day one and tell them you know your child is not ready for a ride down a zip-line, so please allow them to opt out of it (a zip-line, by the way, is a true camp rite-of-passage), you're already doing your child a disservice in their counselor's eyes. When you pick up your child eight weeks later, they're probably going to tell you that the activity you thought they "weren't ready for" was their favorite thing all Summer — your child deserves to achieve whatever they put their minds to, so let them.

If being a camp counselor paid a ton, more people would do it. The counselors that are there are doing it because they love camp, singing songs in crazy costumes, and most of all, becoming friends with your talented, funny, multifaceted kids. If your camp allows it, throw them a small tip when you pick your little monster up at the end of August to make Christmas come early. Going the extra Jackson — erm, mile — to show you are grateful to them for keeping your kid happy and alive all Summer will be appreciated (and remembered next year).

If your camp doesn't allow tips, a simple thank you really does go the longest of ways.

Please, please, do not call the camp office every day to find out what's going on with your child. There are a ton of kids running around, and every one of them belonging to a concerned parent. We don't have time to give you the rundown of your child's day every night before bedtime, and no, you most certainly cannot speak to them "just because."

We can, however, give you the same general information as all the other parents through the camp's website, social media, photo sites, and newsletters. Every camp is different, so find out what yours offers in the ways of information before you drop your child off.

When I was a kid, cell phones weren't a thing that children owned, but it was frowned upon to bring Walkmans, handheld games, and other electronics for two reasons. First, anything you allow your child to bring — whether they're smuggling it in to use after lights out or if it's allowed — can get lost, stolen, or damaged. And perhaps more importantly, these devices cause your kids to miss out on other cabin activities and bonding opportunities.

If you try to smuggle food or other contraband in through a care package, we're going to find out about it, and your kid's probably going to get mad at us for taking it away. Don't make us the bad guys — send activities that your child can do with their friends (like Mad Libs or trivia games), books, socks, or other fun, camp-legal items.

OK, so they're not going to come back a completely different child, but spending eight weeks in the woods exploring nature and singing campfire songs with new friends changes a kid. They are going to want talk about their adventures nonstop (which may include activities you would have never pictured them doing) and they might even have a whole slew of new interests that they want to continue to pursue outside of camp.

As a past childhood camper, I promise you, this is a great thing. Camp is supposed to change your life, and these experiences — and the people they're shared with — help to shape your child for the better.