Is this a normal request of a teenage counselor?

amother

Fri, Jun 28 2024, 1:43 pm

watergirl wrote:

If your child can not wipe properly, it is the parent's job to ask the camp before you enroll your child what their wiping policy is and then decide accordingly where you will send your child. You can't assume a teenage girl running a camp will do this on her own. You might need to pay for a licensed camp with adults around. If you send to a place run by teens, expect them to behave like a teen would. ASK FIRST.

I had to sign up for this camp six months ago, that's when everyone here signs up for camps. She was 3.5 and not trained yet (again, as per her doctor, due to her constipation they wanted to get that under control before tackling toilet training), and I told them that while I was signing her up. I said that I had every intention of training her before the summer, but I wanted to be up-front with them and make sure that just in case for some reason she wasn't trained yet, they'd be okay with her coming in diapers. The camp is for 3 and 4 year olds, which is why I thought they might be fine with it, but I did want to make sure first. They said that while they want the majority of the kids to be trained, if there are one or two who aren't it's fine, and they told me it was fine to sign her up.

She just turned four and we started training her about two months ago. I waited until a couple of weeks ago to even introduce the idea of wiping, since she had so much anxiety about the toilet (due to the constipation stuff) that I wanted to make sure she had that down pat before introducing another skill. And then I introduced it slowly. I honestly didn't realize it would be an issue. In my mind, if you're taking care of a young child, you grit your teeth and deal with what's there. My kids have all (above age 8-10, depending on the kid) learned how to clean toilets, and it's a rare but consistent chore that they do -- probably about twice a year per kid. Part of that is because I don't believe anyone should feel that they are "above" any chore. Also so that they know how to do it for one day when they'll need to. (For the record, all but one of these "older kids" in my house are boys.)

So this concept of a job that should be done to keep a child clean, but that is inappropriate for the person watching them to do, is a strange one to me. I also don't understand how this makes it more likely for a child to be abused, especially in a situation where most of the camp takes place in a room that has a bathroom right attached to it. (I guess if the bathroom were in an entirely different part of the house, then maybe that would make sense? But these counselors are changing the kids in and out of bathing suits...) It does seem that I'm not in the majority here, though, which is why I lowered my expectations even though I don't really understand.

To update, I went in the next day and told her that I had spoken to my daughter about wiping herself in camp (in our previous conversation the counselor focused on the fact that she thought my daughter was upset when the counselor told her to wipe herself -- again, the counselor was the one who initiated the conversation), and that I was working with her at home to try to make sure she can do it better. I didn't even have a chance to mention anything about wipes...The counselor jumped in and said "I thought about it some more too, and I realized...Don't worry about it, we'll take care of it here, anything she needs, it's fine." I said one more time, "Are you sure? I completely understand that it's not quite what you signed up for..." and she said "No, it's really fine, we're happy to help her out."

So hopefully we're meeting each other halfway? I think we both needed some time, and speaking to other people, to realize that each other's concerns were legitimate. I also find it so interesting that something that seemed so obvious to me, is not something that most people would agree with or see as obvious. Food for thought.