My 10 year old (5th grade) daughter's school has a tradition of a weekend get away called Ranch Romp. They will be tent camping and preparing their own food. They will be accompanied by their teachers; our school does not have a nurse. There will be 16 girls and 3 or maybe 4 teachers. All the teachers have been trained by me and my daughter is 8 or 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 about checking her blood sugars, but she depends on me to count her carbs. She wears a pump but no CGM.
Of course, as soon as I was reminded that Ranch Romp was this year, I cleared my calendar to go. But I thought I should at least consider not going. It's supposed to be a time of developing group cohesiveness and doing challenges like ropes courses; Mom on board might cramp my daughter's full, independent participation.
We haven't had our Ranch Romp parent meeting yet, and I have not gotten the teachers' input on my going. Perhaps they're expecting me to. But before I made up my mind about what's what, I wanted to get the imput of other parents with children in this age range: would you let your child go camping for the weekend without you under these circumstances?
Last year, my son’s school did a week at outdoor school. I immediately knew that I would go with him but had the same feelings about maybe letting him go alone. The school was very happy with the idea of me coming (definitely expected), but when I talked to the actual camp, they told me that in the past the parents of diabetics have ALWAYS gone along. They had no nurse and their liability couldn’t allow him to come without me. Made my decision easy
My son goes to an all boys school and they also have a 5th grade overnight “Breakaway”. We are fortunate to have a wonderful school nurse, however she does not go on field trips, and they really did not want parents to go. We really didn’t want him to miss the trip and also wanted him to have as normal of an experience as possible. We met with the Principal and the Dean of Students before the trip with cheat sheets and other information. They kept an eye on him during the day, although our son did all of his own bg checking and bolusing on his pump. The upper school principal took responsiblity for our son as far as checking him at night (unfortunately we had some lows, so it was a long one for him, but he did it like a trooper). He (the principal) had already planned to text us after he checked him at 2:30 even if everything was okay, but actually ended up calling us a couple of times since we were chasing some lows, but it worked out fine. We had turned down his pump settings some overnight for more activity and strange food for our picky eater, but obviously not enough. That was one big lesson learned for next year.
I will admit that my husband and I were nervous wrecks, but in the end I’m glad we let him go. They were in cabins at a camp, though with a kitchen, as opposed to tents, so that is a slightly different situation, but you do have teachers that are more familiar with her treatment going already so that is a plus. I definitely wouldn’t have done it without being able to be in touch with his caretakers by cellphone, though. I managed to restrain myself from calling, but I was glad to know I could. I think it just boils down to what you are comfortable with in your situation. There is no right or wrong answer.
The biggest question is is your daughter looking forward to the challenge of being on her own for the weekend?
I have been in a similiar situation over the past six months. My son is in boy scouts and they have monthly weekend campouts. Like your daughter, he is fairly good about checking his bg’s, but, doesn’t count carbs so well, or, remember to give himself a bolus, especially when activities are going on.
The first couple campouts I sent him on his own, hoping to foster independence and self-reliance. That didn’t go so well for us. High BG’s, missed bolus, etc. The next two campouts I went along. I tried not to interact too much and shoo’d him away when he tried to hang out in the leaders area. But, he knew I was there as a safety net and I think that help calm his fears. He was able to self-treat lows and was much better about checking BG’s. That’s probably how we’ll work future campouts for a while until he builds more self management confidence.
It is a good, supervised, opportunity to foster the importance of self sufficiency. David was a little older when he went on his first weekend camp without us, still on MDI at that point. He went camping with a friend and his friends mother. We were hesitant but Judy knew, any concerns, call us. We’d stick near home and if we needed to go pick him up in the middle of the night, we’d do it. Everything went fine.
First weekend away, with a pump was six months, post pump and David had a parent with him. Problem is neither David nor his Dad had made much effort over of the prior six months to participate in reservoir changes and ran into a pump, “no delivery message” on changing the reservoir. Dad panicked as I was away at a conference at the time, but after several phone calls to me, and help from another Dad on the team, a paramedic, they managed to get the job done. Probably something as simple as not locking the reservoir in place to prime. Since then, David does all of his reservoir changes, I just step in occassionally when he is trying to do two things at once to get out the door. David found out first hand, how important it is for him to become proficient managing his pump, in order to be independant.
Well, they have to have some parents going; right? Usually, they do have some of the class mothers in attendance; at least that has been my experience. So you would not be the only parent. I would try to go, but hang out near one of the other groups, not too close by, just to keep an eye out; to be present and available but not so close she feels you are spying on her. If she will call you by cell phone with two of her teachers giving you their cell phone number and call before bolusing, text you her BS checks throughout day at times you have agreed to and if one of the teachers will make sure you get the overnight check (if you need one and with all the extra activity, you may need one or two), that is an option. When my niece goes on sleepovers, I do a minus 20 percent basal across the board and it has worked out perfectly. I would reduce more if exercising, but she drops a lot during exercise of any kind. It’s doable either way, but you must have contact with two teachers so if one does not answer the phone you can get the other. She should be allowed her own cellphone on the trip.
My 5th grader has adventure camp this year. There are 300 kids, 60 adults & 2 school nurses (ours plus one from one of the 2 other elementary schools in our district) going. I’m still going along. I completely trust her school nurse. COMPLETELY. My concern was emergencies. If another child was having an asthma attack at meal or snack time would my daughter have help with her carb counting? If a kid broke a bone and had to be rushed to the emergency room what would that do to the quality of her care? Of course, our situation is a little different in that other parents are going AND school nurses are there. Plus she’s in the first month of her pump so we’re still doing midnight and 3am BG checks. Eventhough the school nurse said she’d be glad to do those BG checks she is too good to us all the rest of the year for me to feel good about expecting her to do that at camp as well. Whatever you do, I hope you find comfort in your decision.
I’ve gotten more information and have made my decision. Ranch Romp is greatly changed this year from past years. In the past, numerous teachers went, it was 3 days long, and the group stayed in some sort of facility like a church camp. This year it’s two days and one night at a state park, only two teachers are going, and it’s the combined fifth and sixth grades - 24 girls. Twenty-four girls, some of whom have surely never been tent camping or cooked a meal before, and two teachers. Well that made it easy to make up my mind.
Thanks for your input everyone. I glad no one thought I’d been bumped in the head - hard - to consider not accompanying her.
