Preteens grouped w/younger kids or older?

My daughter is 10.5 and having trouble fitting in with her
before-and-after-school program, which runs from preschool to 5th
grade. She's having attitude problems, but on the other hand, I have to
admit that the program she is in is designed for younger aged kids,
even though it serves kids her age. We've been planning on keeping her
there for their summer program, as we have in the past, but with the
problems she's had recently, I looked around and found a summer "day
camp" program that serves 11 to 14 year olds that would accept her. The
director asked me, "Is she mature?" I answered, truthfully, "she's
large for her age." Truth is she's tall and at least 2 years advanced
academically, but socially and emotionally, no, she's not overly
mature.

I know if we keep her where she is, she's gonna be bored and she's
gonna act out: She's bored with the younger kids and their activities,
but I don't know if she's emotionally mature enough to deal with older
kids. Does anyone here have experience placing tweeners in a summer
program or something similar? Do they tend to rise up to the maturity
of the kids around them (which I'm hoping) or is it just too much
strain on them? And yes, I know it depends on the kid. But I'd
appreciate hearing any experiences folks are willing to share. I really
don't know what to do.

Thanks.

beeswing

On 2005-06-02, beeswing wrote:
My daughter is 10.5 and having trouble fitting in with her
before-and-after-school program, which runs from preschool to 5th
grade. She's having attitude problems, but on the other hand, I have to
admit that the program she is in is designed for younger aged kids,
even though it serves kids her age. We've been planning on keeping her
there for their summer program, as we have in the past, but with the
problems she's had recently, I looked around and found a summer "day
camp" program that serves 11 to 14 year olds that would accept her. The
director asked me, "Is she mature?" I answered, truthfully, "she's
large for her age." Truth is she's tall and at least 2 years advanced
academically, but socially and emotionally, no, she's not overly
mature.

I know if we keep her where she is, she's gonna be bored and she's
gonna act out: She's bored with the younger kids and their activities,
but I don't know if she's emotionally mature enough to deal with older
kids. Does anyone here have experience placing tweeners in a summer
program or something similar? Do they tend to rise up to the maturity
of the kids around them (which I'm hoping) or is it just too much
strain on them? And yes, I know it depends on the kid. But I'd
appreciate hearing any experiences folks are willing to share. I really
don't know what to do.

No experience with exactly that problem (yet) as my son is only 9. If
she is advanced academically, you're likely to have much worse
behavior problems if she is in a boring situation than in a
challenging one. If she is smart and reasonably cooperative most of
the time, present her with a choice. Explain the options to her,
pointing out advantages and disadvantages as you see them, then tell
her that she can choose her program, but once having made the choice
is committed to making it work, without whining or acting out.

If there is more than one choice of summer camp, lay them all out for
her, but give her a couple of weeks to decide.

If there is one that sparks her interest, go for it.

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 21:44:15 EDT, "beeswing" wrote:

Does anyone here have experience placing tweeners in a summer
program or something similar? Do they tend to rise up to the maturity
of the kids around them (which I'm hoping) or is it just too much
strain on them?

I'm thinking of both good and bad experiences. I think it depends a
lot on the experience of the program staff in dealing with this age
group. A specialty program where the kids are all there in order to
get some unusual experience (the Archaeology dig, the Shakespearean
festival camp, the various tall-ship sailing programs) might have a
selection of kids who are more likely to be committed to the aims of
the camp and open-minded about accepting a younger but competent
participant, and the situations I'm familiar with worked out well for
the younger-end kid in these examples.

However, I can think of a couple of bad experiences in a sports camp
where the counsellors were young, relatively inexperienced, and
reluctant to intervene in developing social patterns, and where a lot
of the older kids knew each other from school.

Coming from the other side of this, I'm preparing to spend a month
helping to run a camp where most of our participants are 17yo, with a
few 16 and 18yo, and we've just discovered that this summer we have
one each of the ages 19, 15, and 14. We expect that this will pose
significant challenges.

Louise

"beeswing" wrote:

snip I looked around and found a summer "day
camp" program that serves 11 to 14 year olds that would accept her. The
director asked me, "Is she mature?" I answered, truthfully, "she's
large for her age." Truth is she's tall and at least 2 years advanced
academically, but socially and emotionally, no, she's not overly
mature.

snip. Does anyone here have experience placing tweeners in a summer
program or something similar? Do they tend to rise up to the maturity
of the kids around them (which I'm hoping) or is it just too much
strain on them? And yes, I know it depends on the kid. But I'd
appreciate hearing any experiences folks are willing to share. I really
don't know what to do.

When my oldest daughter was almost 11, I sent her to Girl Scout camp
(sleepover) for a week, and then to a primitive horse camp (also GS)
for a week. At the regular camp, she was in a group of 9-11 year olds
and this was a positive experience.

However the primitive camp was for 11-14 year olds and she was about
the youngest there. She was not large for her age, although she was
quite academically advanced, and she was emotionally mature, but not
physically or socially mature.

She had no problem with the primitive part of the camping experience -
they had tents, but they had to do their own cooking, carry water,
from a pump etc. She loved the horseback riding part of the camp.

Her problem was that she needed quite a bit of sleep - she's not the
kind of kid that can sit up all night and function the next day. The
other girls were into nail polish and talking about boys and were
wearing bras whereas she was still a little girl. They teased her a
bit about that, and about the fact that she wanted to go to sleep
rather than painting her toenails or something. I don't think she was
totally miserable or anything, but I think it could have been a better
experience for her.

I also had a bad week at a Girl Scout camp where I was in a tent with
a couple of girls from the orphanage who were less socially mature
than the average, and a couple of girls who were much more socially
mature than the average, and I was in the middle. I spent a lot of
time sitting out on the bluff (and got a really bad case of chiggers)
until the counselors called me in to talk to me. I remember
dissolving into tears.

This was my only really bad camp experience though out of many weeks
at camp and while it was a similar problem to that which my daughter
experience, it was not really due to an age difference. So my point
is that a sleepover camp experience depends a lot on the people you
are with, and age is only one factor.

For your daughter, I think the problem will be much less at a day camp
type place - I think the problems my daughter and I experienced would
not have been problems if we were only there during the day.



grandma Rosalie

Because my son is academically advanced 2 full years, he has no choice but
to socialize with kids that are, on average, 3 years older than he is. We've
had a few issues, mostly due to his wanting desperately to be feeling the
same feelings his friends, who have mostly passed through puberty while my
kid hasn't even started, are experiencing with regards to the opposite
gender. Other than that, he's basically much much happier with older kids
who are much more in synch with his intellectual ability and his sense of
humor. His age peers really don't get him at all.

His twin sister, who shares his very late August b'day, is also in classes
with kids at least a year older. Ditto for camp. She also fits in much
better with older kids, even though academically she might be a bit lost.
She's just more mature socially than her age peers after being with older
kids her entire academic life. This summer she'll be attending the 'teen'
program at camp, for kids 13+, but she won't be 13 until the very end of
August. Gradewise she's fine, but she is a bit immature in some aspects
socially, like being truthful and trustworthy. She's a teenage girl,
afterall!

Her brother is going away to Yale for summer camp this summer in a program
for high schoolers. He will be the youngest by several years, and it might
be challanging socially for him. He's mature in some aspects, and a real
little boy in other aspects. This might be a tough summer for him, but I
have faith that he's going to be much happier in this program than staying
with his age peers.

I guess I think that your kid, who is after all only 6 months shy of 11,
will be happier with older peers than in a boring afterschool program. I'd
definately try it if I were you.

Marjorie

We've faced this situation with a somewhat older child. Our 13 year old
(8th grader) had the chance to play with the HS varsity golf team.
There was one 9th grader and several older boys on the team of 16. I
was a little worried about how he would fit in, but he loved it. He was
treated well by the other boys and enjoyed their company. He is pretty
mature for his age, but can be quite cautious in new situations. What
helped was that he was a good golfer and the other boys respected him
for that and his place on the team. After a few weeks they all called
him "Teddy" because he is just developing some peach fuzz on his upper
lip, he is short and somewhat stocky in build--the guys said he looked
like a fuzzy teddy bear. He felt quite honored to have earned a
"name."
I can definitely understand an 11 year old being bored with the
traditional after-school program and I would at least give the
alternative a try.

chris

beeswing wrote:

[snip]
I know if we keep her where she is, she's gonna be bored and she's
gonna act out: She's bored with the younger kids and their activities,
but I don't know if she's emotionally mature enough to deal with older
kids. Does anyone here have experience placing tweeners in a summer
program or something similar? Do they tend to rise up to the maturity
of the kids around them (which I'm hoping) or is it just too much
strain on them? And yes, I know it depends on the kid. But I'd
appreciate hearing any experiences folks are willing to share. I really
don't know what to do.

One option might be for her to act as some kind of helper with the
younger kids at the current daycare. She might be bored being expected
to do what the 8 & 9 yos are doing, but she might enjoy being the big
girl helping the toddlers.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

"Chris" wrote in message
(...)

I can definitely understand an 11 year old being bored with the
traditional after-school program and I would at least give the
alternative a try.

I agree. It would be good to have a backup plan, in case things do work out,
like going back with the 8 and 9 year olds.

Jeff


chris

Kevin Karplus wrote:
No experience with exactly that problem (yet) as my son is only 9. If
she is advanced academically, you're likely to have much worse
behavior problems if she is in a boring situation than in a
challenging one.

Yup, that's what we're figuring. She'd bored in the
before-and-afterschool program now, but at least she presently spends a
few hours there a day. If she's there all day...I don't know, we've
made it through other years and did okay, and they *do* do special
activities during the summer, but still...well, this year, she's older
and even more bored. I'd like to offer her an alternative, at least.


If she is smart and reasonably cooperative most of
the time, present her with a choice. Explain the options to her,
pointing out advantages and disadvantages as you see them, then tell
her that she can choose her program, but once having made the choice
is committed to making it work, without whining or acting out.

This is a great idea! Thanks; I'm putting that into action.

If there is more than one choice of summer camp, lay them all out for
her, but give her a couple of weeks to decide.

We have two on the table for her: her current program and the Community
Center one for middle schoolers. We've told her she could do one or the
other or switch off weeks -- it would be entirely up to her, but she'll
have to decide. (One week she's going to Girl Scout camp, so we're off
the hook for that one!)

If there is one that sparks her interest, go for it.

She was really jazzed about the middle schooler camp at first. She's
backed off a little on it; it's clear that she wants to spend more time
thinking about her options.

Thanks for writing!

beeswing

Chris wrote:
We've faced this situation with a somewhat older child. Our 13 year old
(8th grader) had the chance to play with the HS varsity golf team.
There was one 9th grader and several older boys on the team of 16. I
was a little worried about how he would fit in, but he loved it. He was
treated well by the other boys and enjoyed their company. He is pretty
mature for his age, but can be quite cautious in new situations. What
helped was that he was a good golfer and the other boys respected him
for that and his place on the team. After a few weeks they all called
him "Teddy" because he is just developing some peach fuzz on his upper
lip, he is short and somewhat stocky in build--the guys said he looked
like a fuzzy teddy bear. He felt quite honored to have earned a
"name."

It sounds like a great experience for him. Thanks for sharing it.

I can definitely understand an 11 year old being bored with the
traditional after-school program and I would at least give the
alternative a try.

With both programs, you can sign up a week at a time (conceivably,
though, they could fill up some weeks). I'm thinking we should try the
middle schooler camp for a week, then see what The Kid would prefer to
do. She could even swap off weeks and move between the two.

Thanks for writing. Thanks especially for relaying the great story
about "Teddy."

beeswing