How to Send a Special Needs Teen to Camp

You have been dealing with the joys and sorrows of parenting a special needs child for some years now. But as your child enters the teen years it may be time for a change. Your child may benefit both physically and socially from summer (or winter) camp. If you want to send your special needs teen to camp, you have a choice of many programs designed for different purposes and different handicaps.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Choose a Specific Camp Program

1. Decide what kind of camp experience would be best for your child. There are traditional outdoor camps that focus on a particular type of special needs teen such as Asperger's Syndrome, cerebral palsy, or burn recovery. There are also camps that provide training in a particular activity, for instance water sports, backpacking, or computers. Still others make their goal a specific improvement in the child's condition like weight loss, academic performance or diabetes management.
2. Consult your child's doctor, therapist and, of course, the teen herself before you select the camp to which you will send your child.
3. Look over the financial details. If the camp fees are too expensive, see if you can obtain financial aid from the camp sponsors or from another source. Apply to your religious affiliation and organizations that provide services to your child's specific condition for help.
4. Give the camp officials all the information you can about your child's disability. Holding back can result in a negative experience for all concerned.

Prepare your Teen for the Camp Experience

5. Go to the camp's website. Look at and discuss the pictures and information with your child.
6. Talk honestly about the child's fears and concerns. If he or she seems genuinely unable to cope, try a day camp or recreation center first, but don't give up on the idea of an "immersion" experience.
7. Include your child in every part of the process. Let your child choose camp equipment, help put labels on everything and fold and pack clothes.
8. Maintain a positive attitude throughout preparations and send-off. Let your child's last view of you as he or she leaves for camp be a warm smiling face.

Tips & Warnings

• If at all possible, make the camp experience a vacation from teachers, doctors and therapists. Send your child to a camp with lots of outdoor activities and social interaction among the teen campers.
• Consider an "inclusionary" camp, that is, a camp that handicapped and non-handicapped youth attend together. This is an especially good idea if you are eventually planning for your teen to be independent.
• Don't hover. The whole point is for your special needs teen to stretch his boundaries and find out what he can do. Most camps allow parents to phone their child at intervals. You can write letters. Other than that, let him or her be.