When people asked me what my nine-year-old son, Holt, would be doing this summer, I joked that "I'm sending him to rehab to detox."

When overnight camps got the go-ahead this year, I literally cried tears of relief and happiness. I think I even danced a little! Admittedly, my first thought was, selfishly, "YAY! Mommy gets a break!"

I'm a full-time working single mother. But I think I can safely say that all mothers need a break from their kids at this point.

Of course I'll miss my son. Yes, I am worried and nervous. Although he loves sleepovers, this is his first time he’s being shipped off for weeks. I'm thrilled he's finally going to enjoy a proper childhood, with other campers his age...even if he doesn't change his underwear for days.

But, candidly, I'm just as thrilled that the dude will be getting a serious digital detox, forced to part from his best friend — his ipad! — especially after he was forced to stay behind a screen for virtual learning during the last 1,000 years.

Then I remembered: the pain of camp letter-writing!

Writing books is stressful. Writing articles is stressful. Writing original blogs is stressful. Meeting deadlines is stressful. But there's a special kind of stress that goes along with writing to your kids at overnight camp.

The pressure to write an interesting (but not too interesting) camp letter to show you’re thinking about them (but not too much) and missing them (but not too much) is an art and a science, and often feels more like an assignment.

When my daughter, Rowan, attended overnight camp, I was unapologetically THAT mom who wrote her five times a week! It took me, a writer, almost an hour to compose those almost-daily one-page letters!

I'll probably be THAT mother again this summer.

Here is an article I wrote that was originally published in the Toronto Star about the art and pressure of writing the perfect letter to your child at camp, which still holds true today. I also offer some fun writing camp letter tips for parents.

The Pressure of Writing to Campers

Like me and many other parents, mother Arielle aspires to be the “Seinfeld of camp letter writing.” She writes three letters a day about, well, as she describes, “nothing.”

Not only do her three children, who go to Camp Wingate in the Laurentian Mountains, expect daily letters, they also compare and rate them, according to original content, wit and literary allusions.

Talk about pressure! And other parents are in agreement.

“Having to write those letters is even worse than having to make school lunches!” says a mother from Thornhill of two overnighters who attend Camp Northland.

Parents send their children to overnight summer camp not just for the social aspect, but to have a holiday from the daily grind of raising children.

But the expectation to write daily letters has turned what was to be a relaxing kid-free summer into a source of daily stress, worse than packing the kids off in the first place. (You've seen the packing list!)

For some parents, daily letter writing is not a must, but many are continuing the tradition of their parents, when they were children at overnight camp receiving daily letters.

The problem lies in frequency and boundaries.

You can’t make your children think they’re missing anything exciting at home for fear they’ll get jealous. You can’t write how much you miss them for fear they’ll get homesick.

Thus, are we all writing Seinfeld letters...about nothing?

It takes me, a writer, almost an hour to compose a one-page letter. And I do this five times a week. Never before have I edited anything so much in my entire life, constantly asking myself things like, “Will this make my daughter jealous? Should I take that sentence out? OK, I’ll ask her a question! 'Are you sleeping on the top or bottom bunk?'”

The mundaneness of such questions nearly puts me into a writing coma.

One year, I sent my daughter a note on an empty toilet paper roll that read, “This is a note on a toilet paper roll. Hope you think it’s funny!” Although it said absolutely nothing else, she loved it.

Another year, after writing five letters that week and realizing I couldn’t possibly write another letter about nothing, I shamefully resorted to writing from the point of view of our dog, as well as her baby brother.

I have also copied and pasted jokes from a website, after googling “jokes for kids,” which was the easiest and least time consuming of all my letters. (“What goes up and down and doesn’t move? Stairs!")

I have also copied and pasted inspirational sayings. (“Live life to abandon!” “Be Brave!” “Now is your time to shine!”) This too, took up an entire page.

I refuse to go so far as to write what I ate for dinner, or describe the weather — the epitome of boring. I wouldn't even be interested in reading my own letters, but some parents do.

Other parents — smarter than I am — only write on pretty or funny cards, knowing there is only so much space in a card to fill as opposed to writing on an 8x11 sheet of paper.

Fern, a midtown Toronto mother with a child at overnight camp this summer, believes the act of receiving a letter, as opposed to the actual content, is the most exciting part. “I think they don’t even care to read through it but just scan over it,” she says.

Nonetheless, she sends her daughter stories from magazines about her favourite stars and actors to keep her camper up to date on her favourite celebrities.

One Forest Hill mom, whose daughter attends Camp Manitou in Parry Sound, has sent her three children to overnight camp for the past 15 summers.

“I am so over the camp letter writing. I now literally write things like, ‘It is a nice summer day. I went to Loblaws and Dad and I met people for dinner at Morton’s,’” she says.

Mark Diamond, owner and director of Camp Manitou, appreciates the difficulty parents have writing camp letters. Camps have, over the years, made it easier.

Most camps now allow emailed letters — from a platform called Bunk Notes — that are printed and handed to your children, which leads to guilty mothers (and their children) knowing they have an easy way to write, and write often.

Diamond encourages parents to ask a lot of questions about their kid's activities at camp and not tell too much about home unless “it’s how boring the city is.”

“Never say that you miss your child. It’s fine to say how much you love them and how proud you are of them, but you don’t want them to feel badly hearing that you miss them," he says.

If a child is a first-time camper or really missing the parents, he advises ending the letter with a comment that acknowledges that it takes time adjusting to the experience.

“For example, ‘I can’t believe you have been at camp more than a week and you already have friends! I bet at the end of the second week you make even more!’ ” he suggests.

Aurora-based parenting expert Alyson Schafer agrees questions are good and suggests if parents write about what they’re up to, they should make it sound like a not-so-fun experience: “Wonderland was fun, but I got sunburned. Wish you were here, but happy knowing you are having a great time at camp.”

And, finally, keep the exclamation points to a minimum! (!!!!)

7 fun ideas when writing your camper

1. Fill out the first page in a Mad Libs word book before you send it to your camper. Hopefully they will complete it with a new camp friend!

2. Write a letter from your pet’s point of view.

3. Send fun cards. A camper will be overjoyed to open a musical card, and it’s a bonus for parents, who only have a small space to say, “Hope you enjoy this card!”

4. Pick up a plain white jigsaw puzzle from an art supply to create a personalized puzzle with words or a picture.

5. Write a letter on something they would never expect — an empty paper towel or toilet paper roll, or a napkin.

6. Send jokes or inspirational quotes. Can’t think of any…surf the web. Not only are they sure to entertain, they can easily fill a page so you don’t have to think of what to write.

7. Send a glitter bomb. When they open the envelope to read the letter, glitter will fall everywhere. It’s a party in an envelope.

And now that I've re-read this, I'm actually kind of excited to write my kid. Although, unlike my daughter, I'm not sure my son will actually read my letters, let alone respond to them. But still, I will write him, and probably on the daily too!

Have any other suggestions for writing camp letters? Drop me a line here. For now, I need to go write a letter have a cocktail!

xo

Rebecca