u/Most_Poet

My 11 year-old has been going to day camp at the YMCA for a few years now. The camp is the same length as a school day and generally involve swimming, outdoor activities, lunch, and some chill time inside. My husband and I both work full-time and absolutely depend on this camp for childcare during the summer.

My daughter has just announced she doesn’t want to go. She says she doesn’t like the other kids who go, the camp is too chaotic and loud, and it’s always really hot outside. She also said that kids tend to spend a lot of time on their smart phones and she only has a flip phone so she feels excluded.

She is definitely a more nerdy, intellectual type of person who would much rather be involved in an academic discussion about anime than run around engaging in a water balloon fight with screaming kids. I’m the same way so I get it. I wish we could send her to a fancy camp at one of the college campuses in town, but we quite simply can’t afford it. So YMCA day camp it is.

My husband thinks we should just allow her to stay home because there’s no point in spending money just for her to be miserable all day, but I think she’s too young to stay home and she should have brought this up earlier if there was an issue. My compromise is that she has to go this year, but as a family, we commit to exploring other options next year and applying for scholarships if needed.

I think there may be some social anxiety at play, but I don’t want to reward that behavior by allowing her to skip camp because it just communicates that avoidance is the solution (which will make her anxiety worse).

What should we do?

I know this maybe an obvious question, but please be gentle.

My middle child is on a very close knit sports team. It’s a club sport, so it includes kids from grades 7-12 and pulls from several schools in the area.

She has been doing this sport for three years and this past year, drama was at an all-time high. Multiple times per week she came home crying because of interpersonal conflicts among the girls, complaints about coaches, a belief that she is being treated unfairly, etc.

My daughter is a pretty calm kid who doesn’t have any of these issues at school or with other clubs she’s a part of. It’s literally just this sports team. Based on my observations, I think part of what’s going on is that unlike her friends at school (who are good communicators and treat each other maturely/kindly) her teammates are just kind of immature? There’s a lot of indirect communication, passive aggression, gossiping in private chats, pitting girls against each other, just immature behavior that doesn’t reflect good communication skills. The coaches are all older guys who don’t seem to want to get involved in the interpersonal dynamics at all and don’t really understand how to tackle these sorts of issues.

I know part of this is normal for a teen, but I can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t actually a healthy or positive environment for her. Sometimes she talks about wanting to quit. Other times she absolutely loves the sport and says she can’t imagine her life without it.

If this specific group of girls was a group at school, I would honestly advise her to stay away, but because all of this is tied up in this one sport it feels more complicated. What should I do as the parent in this situation? I’m dreading another year of this…

My daughter is about to finish eighth grade and has been on a club sports team for the past two years. This team has two levels: JV (middle school) and Varsity (HS). On Saturday night there was the official moving up ceremony for all the eighth graders who were going to be on varsity, and then on Sunday morning I dropped her off for what was billed to me as a “team bonding” activity.

When I picked her up from one of the older girls houses in the evening, she smelled terrible - like tuna. She had clearly been crying and just looked off. I literally had to throw away her shorts and T-shirt because they smelled so bad. After she spent a lot of time in the shower and had dinner, she briefly shared with me that she had been made to wrestle the other new Varsity girls in a kiddie pool filled with cat food, ketchup, and other gross food items. I asked her if she enjoyed the experience and she said no, but that apparently the varsity team does it every year and it’s part of team bonding.

I just about lost it. It is absolutely insane to me that this behavior would be occurring in this day and age, much less occurring at a home where there were adults present (mom of the older teammate). My daughter then freaked out and said I can’t say anything. I asked her if coaches were present and she said no, this was completely organized by the junior and senior girls on the team.

I am still seeing red over this and it’s been a few days. Setting aside the questionable judgment of the teenagers doing this to other teenagers, I am at a loss as to how adults allowed this to happen in their home, and why coaches weren’t a part of the conversation at all. I am deeply concerned about having her continue on this team because these are not the values of our family or the values I want my daughter to have.

At the same time, I don’t want to overreact (my daughter is definitely on the sensitive side and has big emotions) or jeopardize my daughter’s social circle - all her closest friends from school are on this club team, and she has historically struggled to make friends outside of the team.

Does this sound like hazing to you? Have any of you ever dealt with something similar?

EDIT - in response to a few questions:

1. She wasn’t forced in the sense that no one held her down and forced her to do it, but every team member was there and expected to participate. No one opted out.

2. She was crying out of embarrassment (and she was grossed out). I think she’s also upset that girls she looked up to treated her this way.

3. She does not view it positively nor does she feel more bonded. I think she’s still kind of in shock that it happened? The older girls seemed to view it positively and had fun.

4. This is a club sport that happens completely outside of school and brings together girls from different middle and high schools. The school is not involved whatsoever, and does not have any authority over what the kids are doing with the sport outside of school hours. The club does have a board, but I am not in the social circle of any of the board members, and I am not confident my complaints would be well received by this particular group of people. If she didn’t love the sport so much I would pull her out. I don’t think the people in charge are very positive role models.

I mean this genuinely and respectfully.

Looking at the careers of Adéla and Karlee is making me wonder whether the best outcome for all the DA girls would’ve been getting on the show, but not actually making it into Katseye. Hear me out:

1. Adéla and Karlee get to have creative freedom to come up with their own songs/concepts, release them on a timeline that genuinely works for them and their health, and follow their passions, as opposed to executing someone else’s version of passion.

2. At least in the west, audience is seem very attuned to what they perceive as genuineness and authenticity. I have a sense that part of what’s holding Katseye back from their true potential is how artificial their work seems. It is very clearly created by a large company, and I know that applies to the majority of Western artists nowadays, but for some reason, it seems so much more obvious with this HxG project in a way that feels very forced. I also just have a lot more respect for someone who has to come up with their own song, outfits, etc. completely by themselves.

3. The DA girls who didn’t make it are free to let friendships and career collaborations unfold organically, driven by actual chemistry, and are not forced to be in a pressure cooker of female friendship in which group dynamics and money/success are intertwined. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to maintain relationships within the group as the public pits them against each other - and in some cases, their parents pit them against each other.

4. When I actually think about the trajectory of each of the Katseye girls, I don’t think they needed the group to achieve their dreams. Manon never really wanted K-pop fame and already had a following/several projects under her belt - which is how HxG found her on Instagram in the first place. I think Daniela would’ve probably make it big as a dancer in the industry. Yoonchae would likely experience success in Korea and get to debut with some other group. Lara was scouted as well; purely based on her vocals and aura I think she would have found success as a solo artist. Sophia was always going to be successful in the Philippines with her family background and pure talent. Megan is the one I am actually not sure about… I think it’s 50-50 she would have had her breakout moment vs remained a little more low profile (but extremely talented).

5. None of these girls actually seem that happy? Their level of exhaustion and overwhelm is pretty evident, and I just don’t see how this consistently continue for much longer. I also wonder whether some of their Katseye AI slop music, bad performances, and questionable styling will permanently damage their careers if they choose to go out as solo artists.

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I’m not sure if any of this makes sense but I guess I just feel really disillusioned with the direction HxG has taken this group. And it makes me wonder whether any of this was really in the girls best interest. I know we all assume fame is the ultimate goal but seeing how things have unfolded makes me question that, at least for these girls specifically.

I’m looking to add some flat, paved, scenic, and safe running trails to my rotation! By safe, I mean I can run alone as a woman and not be concerned about someone sneaking up behind me.

My two favorites in the area are Lake Montebello and the NCR trail.

Others I’ve tried but don’t love: Druid Hills Reservoir (maybe I went at a bad time, but it just felt like I was in the middle of the city), Centennial Park in Columbia (gorgeous but so many hills).

Are there others I’d recommend? It’s kind of hard to tell on AllTrails, especially in terms of safety.

We did a standard graduation party for my oldest, and it didn’t go well. All his friends were also having their parties on the same weekend (we couldn’t move his because the other weekends were busy with other parties too). Turn out other than our extended family was low, made worse by my expectations of what a grad party should be based on social media.

It was also a huge time and energy suck at a very busy time of the year that was already fraught with emotion.

My middle child is a junior now, and I’m thinking ahead to next year. I was thinking of doing a nice dinner out for her and a few friends. Or, maybe a dinner for her and our extended family? Either way, it would be in the evening and something that is much smaller so people would be likelier to attend. But I’m not 100% sure this will solve the turnout or stress issues we experienced the last time around. We live in a community where everyone is expected to graduate from high school so - I say this as respectfully as possible - a lot of the kids think it’s kind of weird to celebrate something that’s an expectation everyone they know has fulfilled.

Basically, have any of you had some sort of graduation celebration that was genuinely fun and low lift? I want my daughter to feel celebrated, but the expectations around this event are making it one that feels very stressful rather than celebratory.