I work in a place that provides those summer camps for the local kids. The kids are supervised all day. Even if they go to the restroom an adult must be escorting them to and fro! Even the ‘nature camps’ don’t allow for the expenditure of energy & adventure that a bit of off trail hiking would provide.
They go home at night! Yeah!
But, but, one little girl who is the daughter of the director of the camps is sent away to camp(s) nearly every week of summer. In a huge way, I feel sorry for this little girl. She doesn’t get the chance to develop local childhood friendships, her big sister leaves for college next week and they have not spent any time together. She is a lovely child, well mannered and all but appears very shy to me.
It seems to me in a lot of cases the camps are just oversized daycare centers for older kids.
My SIL put her oldest daughter in the local YMCA "camp" -- bcause it was cheaper than daycare, but they did the same things.
She LOVED it. Of course, you have to pick your camp carefully. This is a rustic-style camp for girls (there's a brother camp for the boys), which means lots of hiking, camping, swimming, horseback riding, etc. They go to bed dog tired and don't wake up til morning (except for the "potholers", who wake up at 7 am for a refreshing dip in the mountain-spring-fed lake . . . brrrrr! and the Iron Maidens, who run 3 miles before Pothole and then jump in to cool off.)
She made a lot of lasting friendships and if she has daughters I'm pretty sure they'll wind up there (I went to the same camp when I was a kid. It's been around since 1951, and the brother camp started in the 30s).