I'm with everyone else here. It depends on the personality of the camper. Some kids can't stand to be away from home. Some kids can't stand to be AT home.
Honestly, I can't say a whole lot about resident camps since I've never worked at one. However, I believe anything taught at resident camps can be taught at day camps as well. It may take more or less time, as well as different methods, but it can be done. That's my personal opinion anyway.
Jake, I'm not quite sure what happened that made your day camp experience more like babysitting that camping, but I can tell you not all day camps are like that. The campers seem to bond really well at my camp with the counselors. We have full schedules during the day, but there's also free time built in to counselor's schedules so they can do what they want. This helps the counselors tremendously because they can use this free time to get to know their campers.
