By Lisa Gottman
Sci-Tech Parent and Community Care Specialist
“My kid is not responding to my e-letters.” is a common concern I receive as a Community Care Specialist at Sci-Tech Academy. However, this one was odd. I knew the kid, he loves to talk hard to believe he wouldn’t reply. I saw him at a meal, asked about it and he said, “They didn’t ask me any questions. Why did I have to respond?”
I had to laugh. As the parent of a neurodivergent child, I heard this from my own kid. After days of silence, I wrote “Why aren’t you writing to me?” and my kid said “You didn’t ask me anything.” My kid read what I wrote, made note of it and went on with their day.
After that I made sure I worked a question or two into my e-letters to get a response. Then I started doing pop culture trivia with my kid; I send a line from a play/movie/musical/song and ask my kid to name where it came from.
I also made sure there was white space on my letter. A camper once asked for help reading an e-letter from home, it was a block of text from top to bottom and side to side. I gave the camper a piece of paper and suggested she use it to help her read a line at a time. Crowded e-letters like that can be stressful for our campers.
Ask your camper questions about their experience. Make sure to break up text. Tell them what you are up to, but be sure to ask them what they are up to and maybe just maybe you’ll get an email with the subject line “<your kid> Replied!”
Lisa Gottman is a URJ 6 Point Sci-Tech parent of a long time camper. For the past two years Lisa has worked behind the scenes in the summer camp office as a community care specialist.