Child Mind Institute provides a lot of resources for parents and caregivers with a particular focus on those families with children dealing with mental health or disability issues. With summer camp season coming up, your child may have some anxieties about heading off to camp even if they aren’t typically an anxious child. Here are their 13 tips to help your kid enjoy camp (also available in Spanish).

  1. Let your child feel a sense of ownership over the experience
  2. Help your child get excited about camp
  3. Avoid focusing on what makes children anxious
  4. Don’t trivialize their concerns or offer glib reassurances
  5. Focus on concrete details in conversations leading up to and during summer camp
  6. Reflect on your own formative experiences away from home and share positive aspects of them with your child
  7. Go through “rehearsals”
  8. Don’t linger at the bus stop
  9. Make communication easy and accessible
  10. Have goals for each letter or conversation
  11. Try not to communicate your own anxiety
  12. Help your child formulate realistic, goal-oriented plans for making friends, toasting the perfect marshmallow, or passing a swimming test.
  13. If your child has psychiatric or learning issues, don’t keep them a secret from the staff.

The article concludes with some extra tips for parents dealing with their own anxieties about having a kid go away to camp. Check out the full article for details on all of the points above.