Dumbest thing?

[Skater Bubbles]

Ok, I know we have all done it, so what is one of the dumbest things that you did as a counselor that you are willing to admit.

I definetly have one, it was the last night of the seeion and I had a particularly rowdy bunch of girls and the ring leader of the group was a real trouble maker, but she was a real fun kid that I have to say I really liked. Anyway this ringleader decided that during our cabin party we should pull out all of the glow braclets and necklaces that her mom sent her(she had like 65 of them!!) so we got them out and cracked them so they lit up. Then this camper decided that we needed to cut them all open and splatter the liquid all over the cabin. I was curious to see what effect this would have and I was willing to go along with this crazy camper. So we cut open all of the glowsticks and splattered them and it looked really cool, so we were having a good time and then one of the girls stepped on one of the shards from the glowstick and cut her foot, then another girl got the liquid in her eye! So I had to send them both to the nurse and that week we happened to have a nurse who didn't know anything so she was so worried about the stuff in the girls eye that she called poison control and everything! Then I had to explain to my camp director and he wasn't really mad he just laughed about the whole situation! Sufficed to say I will never let my girls crack open glow sticks in the cabin again- even though it looked cool!!

[Dave]

The dumbest thing I ever did was during our division's late stay. All of the kid in our bunk were scheduled to stay for it except one. So his friends told him to go hide while everyone else went to the busses. He did. Our senior counselor was out that day so I was in charge. I had to make sure he got to his bus. Well when it was time to go I couldn't find him. So I asked the kids in our bunk if they've seen him. They all told me Melissa (the advocate to a handicapped kid in our bunk) took him to the bus. Advocates aren't allowed to take any campers other than their own anywhere without telling the counselors in the bunk. She never said anything. I asked every kid in our bunk (and even some kids that weren't in my bunk) if they saw him. They all said the same thing. So stupid me, I assumed he must've gone to the bus.

Well the busses all left and we were now at camp. While we were walking to the pool for our first activity, the kid came up to me and we started talking. Then it dawned on me that he was still at camp when he shouldn't have been! I told the other counselors in our bunk and we told our division head. Well she was mad. She called his parents and arranged to have his friend's parents take him home (his friend was also in our bunk). So in the end it all worked out.

To this day, I'm still surprised they were able to come up with such a scheme. They're only seven. The next day our division head apologized for yelling at us. She said that we weren't fully to blame. The bus counselor should have known he had to be on the bus. He/she didn't do anything though so they were to blame as well. So that was good.

[camper]

mine was last summer, it was dumb but also really funny and the picture from it is the picture on my desktop.

so it was a random night at camp and we were going to a play in the amphitheater for evening activity. my bunk of 7th graders decides that they're going to invent their own color war team with them as the chiefs and assistant chiefs called "blue barbies" during freeplay. well i wanted to be in it so they were like "obviously, but we're all chiefs so you have to be an assistant" so i was like "eh ok i can settle" haha so they all get in one version of the camp uniform and write "blue barbies" on pieces of paper, and then they all put on blue soccer socks. i did everything except the socks. at first i was like, "you girls are going to have to take the stuff off before lineup" b/c they had to be in a certain uniform for evening activity. it was the one they were wearing, but of course without the soccer socks. then i was like "oh whatever, no one is going to get them in trouble for wearing fun soccer socks as a bunk" so lineup blows and we're starting to walk out, when a grouphead from another group comes over. she was like "ummm are you kidding??" when she looked at me w/my girls laughing as we're walking to lineup. and i was like "what?" and she was like "you were going to let them go to lineup like that?" and i was like "well i tried to get them to change..." so she gives me this look as if to say "oh come onnnn" and points to my shirt w/the blue barbies piece of paper on it. i was like "ooops, girls go change!" i was thinking to myself, wow, really professional of me, haha. i realize now that i should have just told them before, "seriously girls, this is fun but when lineup blows we have to be in normal uniform" haha.

[who_stole_my_loofa]

hmmm well i do a lot of stupid things but i think one of the dumbest wasnt what I did.. but more what I let happen. We had this one girl in our cabin and she's there are summer and like all her 5 brothers and sisters go to our camp and they all stay all summer and she was 11 years old and it was already her 6th summer at camp. She's a tough kid, very athletic- also beautiful. She's one of those kids that has more friends that are counselors than campers just becuase she's got such a crazy personality. Might I add she's also very agressive and I suffered from hundreds of bruises from her this summer.

So anyway...first session we were all hanging out in the cabin and she was in a totally normal mood and like joking around like always. So she gets up and goes into the bathroom and the girls decide to play a prank on her. My co and I were just on the bed talking and we didn't really care cause it seemed pretty harmless. So the girls decided to hold the door closed so she couldn't get out. At first it was really funny and she was laughing along too and we were laughing and jsut letting them. The girls were like looking over the wall into the bathroom and taunting her and it was like really funny- she didn't seem to care so we didn't stop them. Nearly 10 minutes later she suddenly starts screaming and we finally tell the girls to get out of the way. She comes out and she's like in tears and she's screaming at us "You're the worst counselors ever, how could you let them do that to me" And like there was no way to really console her because we were letting them do it but we just thought she was laughing(she plays a lot of pranks and she's usually a big team player). So pretty much we just felt really bad and she forgave us like 20 minutes later but it still sucked.

I'd say the lesson learned is don't participate in your campers pranks... but we really didn't participate- we just let it happen.

Loofa

[rockinsmiles]

Oh ive done some pretty dumb things over the summers. Probably more without campers around (like stuff i shouldnt have done with the staff. haha). But one sticks out in my mind. It happened this past summer during our SOS week. a lot of the campers in the SOS groups are child deliquints and have a rough home life. still a lot of them can be really fun and nice people. Except for the majority of my girls. It was confirmed that i had the worst group of girls that week....maybe that summer. still when it started out i treated the girls like any other group. which i was pretty proud of considering some of the counselors were afraid of the girls. Also when i corrected them i tried to be as nice as possible.

However there was this one girl who was really nerve racking. she was extreamly disrespectfule to the staff and other campers. we were in the cabin getting ready to go to supper when one of the girls came to me saying that the other girls were calling her names and a lesbian and it was really starting to hurt her. she didnt tell me who but i could figure out who at least some of the girls were. but i didnt want to call them out so i just talked to them all about being respectful and name calling and so forth. i told them i didnt care who was doing what. well the one girl who was being a pain all week went off. she said i was disrespectful, playing favorites, and being racial. that i just expected for it to be them. i tried to keep my cool as i explained that that was not true. however then she walked to the other side of the cabin and kept shouting and not listening to me. instead of letting her cool off i started yelling at her. i was really pissed at this moment. it didnt take long and we soon got stuff some what sorted out. however i felt like i had stooped down to her leval and acted very childish. it was a big learning experience for me.

[Skater Bubbles]

Ya I understand RockinSmiles, It is so tough sometomes not to get upset at your campers!!