"Nevermind" wrote in message
m...
"Rosalie B." wrote
I personally would let him go, but ask the other mom both to make sure
he gets time alone if he gets cranky, and also to let you know so he
can come home if he gets too homesick. But DON'T tell him that
because I think that will mean that you expect him to fail.

Actually, he can't come home if he gets homesick. Only in an emergency
would we drive that far away to pick him up before the trip was over.

I feel more inclined to let him go, but my DH really doesn't. I feel
my DH is overcautious and too loathe to let go (he didn't want him
going on overnights until he was 8 -- he's our oldest), but the fact
is that I don't want to force the issue and then have my DH spend the
week feeling extremely nervous about our son. The issue of missing him
is one I think we would have to accept; it wouldn't be fair to prevent
him from doing something good for that reason alone. But my DH just
doesn't think he should be away from us for that long, that far away,
at that age. I will talk to him one more time about it today, but if
he still feels "no" as a gut reaction, I guess I'll have to go with it
even if I don't quite agree.

This is one of the few cases where I feel the child has a big
say into whether he wants to go or not. My kids did go away
for weeks at a time at a younger age. (Sleep away camp,
for a week, at age 7) But, I only let them go if they begged.
They had to really, really, really want to go. And both of them
did. The begging helps convince both parents, and they are
on their best behavior for the trip. My oldest's first sleep
away camp was 10 days, at age 7, with a friend, to a camp
I hadn't heard of but her mom checked out through her
Catholic school (my kids are not Catholic). The bus picked
them up and they were off. After 3 days I still hadn't got a
letter, so I called the friend's mother and the friend answered!!!
She was gotten kicked out for being too homesick, but my
daughter was still there, doing fine. As the girl said "Oh, she's
POPULAR!". We never did get a letter until after she got
back, and she came off the bus looking like pig pen from the
peanuts comic strip with a huge smile. This summer she's been
gone 6 our our 9 weeks of vacation, she's now 14. Our 10
year old is leaving this morning again, she will have been gone
half of the 9 weeks of summer vacation. Yep, we miss them
terribly. But darn it, they grow up no matter what we do.