It's summer camp season, and an AW

[akafred]

I have to AW Char yesterday. There was a big summer camp fair at a local mall yesterday. Malls and Charlotte are usually something I avoid. Let's be honest; malls are usually something I avoid period, especially on a Saturday, because of my own sensory issues. Add Charlotte to the mix and it's usually a hot mess. Crowds (noise, movement, especially indoors) ramp her up. But we decided to try. We went early, just after 10 am, and were there over 2 hours. We visited EVERY booth and she was fantastic. 95% of the booths had candy, and she (usually) just took one, didn't take anything with red eyes, asked politely for any other "extras" like little footballs and whatnot, and stayed with us with no complaints. Honest to God, she was an angel. She even stood at the end for probably 10 min to get a chance to do a "test" from one of those hoodoo voodoo brain trainer programs. By the way, the person giving the test was VERY surprised that she did better the second time, when they were trying to distract her. I was like, "She has SPD. She's been in a mall for 2 hours, and you think tapping on a table is going to be more of a distraction than she's been dealing with the last 2 hours? Lol" ok not quite so sarcastic but yeah.

Anyway, the question is has your child with ADHD ever done a focused indoor camp? She was very interested and focused really well at a robotics booth, asking politely what each of the robots was for. The man talking to her (that someone called the "doctor" so I'm assuming he's a professor; it was at a college) was really really good with her, and he runs the camp. It is for rising kindergarten up, so she may not be the youngest; they arrange by age so I assume it will be ages 5-7 in her group. She asked if she could go to that camp so I know she is interested. Of course she wants to do a LOT of the camps, including a residential camp that is $3600 for 18 days (yeah, no, lol). We wouldn't do it all summer. I am thinking we may do a nice general outside camp for a few weeks, then a couple of specialized camps (robotics, equestrian, sports, circus, etc) and then start her new school in the second summer session to help her get to know teachers and some of the students a little early, assuming she goes to our top choice for sure. But all the other camps I'm looking at are outdoor camps with lots of exercise.

[akafred]

Just realized the camp is 3 half days. We may not be able to do that anyway because of child care, but that would make me feel a little better. That's still a lot of focus (and not shutting down), but it's better than a whole week of full days.

[mamaturtle]

Wow! That is awesome!

[akafred]

Feb 8, 2015 10:22:19 GMT -5 mamaturtle said:

Wow! That is awesome!

Seriously, she was like a different kid.

Oh, AND last night after DH put her to bed, she called to me on the monitor to say, "Thank you for talking me to the mall today! And thank you for taking me to the park, and basketball!" I know she was partially trying to stall, but DAMN! I have never seen her thank me for everyday stuff unprompted before. We have been talking about gratefulness. I guess it's sinking in.

[mrsbuttinski]

DS has done all kinds of camps.

He did really well at a couple special interest camps. One he liked when he was kindie aged was a nature themed camp that had them in the woods and wading through streams all day. Another he enjoyed was an indoor K'Nex Camp. Their headquarters is near here and they rolled out some spectacular amusement park themed kits over the five days. Another highlight was that they were filming Signs on campus, so they wandered over to check that out.

His summer school program did some afternoon enrichment classes; his favorite there was the Bicycle Mechanics course where they disassemble a bike and then rebuild it. They went out for ice cream one day during that camp and came across them filming A Beautiful Mind; DS just missed the infamous Russell Crowe giving people the bird. He was disappointed.

[jmski]

@akafred Just wondering. Do you worry about red dye more than yellow dye because that is a personal trigger for C, or is there something else? My son's trigger is yellow dye 6. He gets hyper and aggressive although this has been controlled since he is taking medication for ADHD.

[akafred]

Feb 8, 2015 16:37:27 GMT -5 jmski said:

@akafred Just wondering. Do you worry about red dye more than yellow dye because that is a personal trigger for C, or is there something else? My son's trigger is yellow dye 6. He gets hyper and aggressive although this has been controlled since he is taking medication for ADHD.

Yeah she seems to do fine with other dyes except red. Red causes the hyperactivity to ramp way up for her. If I limit her artificial dyes to yellow, orange (which is usually its own color dye and not a mix of red and yellow) or blue, she has no major problems. Even sugar alone isn't so bad. But a few red M and Ms is noticeable.

[jmski]

Feb 8, 2015 17:45:08 GMT -5 akafred said:

Feb 8, 2015 16:37:27 GMT -5 jmski said:

@akafred Just wondering. Do you worry about red dye more than yellow dye because that is a personal trigger for C, or is there something else? My son's trigger is yellow dye 6. He gets hyper and aggressive although this has been controlled since he is taking medication for ADHD.

Yeah she seems to do fine with other dyes except red. Red causes the hyperactivity to ramp way up for her. If I limit her artificial dyes to yellow, orange (which is usually its own color dye and not a mix of red and yellow) or blue, she has no major problems. Even sugar alone isn't so bad. But a few red M and Ms is noticeable.

Okay. Yeah my son got into a bag of cheese puffs once that had yellow 6 and we started seeing a pattern of out of control behavior. We eliminated anything with yellow, green, or blue dyes (since yellow was mixed in those colors) and the problem got a lot better.

[anintrovert]

We've done a few summer camps and DS has been successful. They've all been half day so far. This year I have him signed up for two full day weeks of nature and science camp. One week of space and one week of mad about science (experiments and such). He's going to love it.

[anintrovert]

We also avoid dyes. I know it's not the blue but I've never actually tested whether it's red and/or yellow that turns him into a dysregulated mess.

[mirandah]

That's great she had such a good day. We haven't tried any of the indoor camps yet, but I was considering a K'nex camp this summer. DS doesn't want to because he likes to make his own "creations" with K'nex and hates to follow directions. It is for this reason I think he needs the camp, but I may wait a year until he's a bit more mature. I just discovered all the camps offered by the UMN and the choices are overwhelming! I think we're going to do a spendy camp for ASD kids for a week, a week of outdoor YMCA camp, and the rest just his usual school release care program the rest. It's crazy how our summer calendar is already planned out to the day.

[akafred]

I know! I started an Excel workbook today to plan it out.

[mamaturtle]

I can't help but be jealous you all have such nice summer camps nearby.

The most the daycare does is take the kids to the movies once a week. Daycare is expensive in the summer.

We are lucky if we get ESY in the summer so daycare would not cost us all that much.

[mrsbuttinski]

No everything has been close.

The Bicycle Mechanics was a 45 minute drive to another state. K'nex Camp was a 40 minutes away in the county seat. Scout Camp is a 50 minute drive.

We're fortunate that two of the resident camps DS did are located in our state since they draw nationally. They were 2 and 3 hours away by car.

That said DS's ESY teacher came to the house. And band camp was held on the high school campus.

[akafred]

Here most of them are either located in the city (often in one of the 100ish year old snooty prep school campuses, or at a nicer Jewish Community Center or YMCA) or are located outside of the city and have bus service to various places in the city. Because I work in richie-ville, bus service is usually pretty close lol.