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Same here. It was different at my "camper" camp though!

yeah we can never be one-on-one with a camper. You always have to have another person there, camper, CIT, staff, doesn't matter, but never are you alon with a camper.

I remember my first year or so of DCA and my counselor left me with a camper who was crying and we talked and I figured out what was wrong and talked to another counselor (she hated our counselor and wanted to go home, so talking to our counselor was not in my list of things to do! I was 13 years old!) and we walked around some of main camp and found the DC director and everything, and no one made a fuss about me being alone with a camper. I suppose I was a camper then too, but since i had the camp name I was seen as a counselor to the campers so I technically couldn't be alone with them. At least in the coming years! but then again, that was 6 years ago!

The entire thing we talk about in precamp is the idea of another "pair of eyes." It doesn't matter what position you are as long as you are there to watch them. You can be a witness if anything should be said happened or did not happen. It is a sad thing that we really even have to worry about it.

There are times, where you are somewhat one-one I suppose for a couple of moments. For example, if you go into the infirmary to check on a kid, etc. Something like that. However, it is always safe and responsible to make sure to have another set of eyes.

I think that having 2 counselors at all times would be really hard, esp at night. We just had to make sure to being within seeing and hearing distance of another staff if we needed to talk to a camper away from others. We were only in pairs for programs so time off was basically whenever we were scheduled with a program staff IE swimming or arts.

However I had trouble remembering to keep other staff around at first when with the CIT 2's because a few of them were 18(wanted to finish up training before becoming full-fledged) and were only a year younger than me and I became really good friends with them.

But, wouldn't legally, you be okay to be around with them by yourself, since they are over 18 and are adults.

not neccesarily, sure they wouldn't get anything against for a minor, but they are still campers.

I actually was a CIT 2 who was 18. Heck I was 18 a week after CIT 1 was over! I started CIT a year late.

I remember having a co-counselor. It kind of stinks. It was at 5th grade camp and the school wouldn't allow people under 18 to be alone in charge of a group overnight. So I had a teacher in my cabin. There was definitely a feeling of not being in charge! I also butted heads with a co-counselor in trying to just figure everything out.

When you have co's it really is a balancing act cos you have different leadership styles and personalities and it can take time to adjust. I had probs sometimes with my cos and other times I didn't. The camp that I was at in 2004 I spent the first half of the summer working with one person and then the other half working with another person! Which was really cool cos we got on well together and worked well together but also worked well with the other staff that we had in our units.

Yeah, the times that I had an actual co was when I was only a counselor for a few nights, so we didn't get the time to meld together too much, but it was really fun having a co! Of course this was like 3 years ago, so I don't remember it too much. However, it was funny and kind of cool because I knew my co because she was my best friend's brother's girlfriend. Actually now they are married!

My opposition to me having a co is actually kind of pathetic. I like having my own group, not only because I don't want to have to figure out how to work together, but because I like knowing, and showing people, that I can do it by myself. It is kind of stupid, but more of a confidence thing I think. Last summer, my first week as a res camp counselor I was supposed to have 7 boys, but the other groups counselor and I needed to trade a camper because they switched one of my boys to her group. She then asked me if I would take 2 of her 4th graders since she had a lot of the younger kids. I said sure and so she had 6 boys and I had 8. I was seceretly thrilled to have more of a challenge to prove that I could do it! However, they were boys, and my first real experience being a counselor for boys and I was all by myself with 8 4th graders! None of those little 1st graders. By Tuesday I had a mini melt-down in front of my boss and my boys! eek! Luckily the boys either didn't notice or didn't see it as a lack of control! And after that it was sooo much better! But those 2 boys that I traded my 1 boy for, were the worst behaved of my group! and the one that went to the other group, one of the best behaved boys. I was soo peeved! However, I think that week has made me a better counselor and shown my CD that I can adapt to anything and be flexible and all that!! Heck, it showed me that!! I had never really had to be too flexible and adapting at camp, so this was agreat experience for me!

Sorry, i am sure I have told you that story before! I talk a lot and like to tell stories like that. So sorry about that!

i think whomever your co-counselor is a very important decision. I know a lot of counselors that bumped heads with their counselors and headed up not working as well as together. Since our camp switches co's every session, it is a lot harder to really understand each other's leadership stlye, etc.

for CIT internship, we had co-counselors, essentially.
they worked hard to try to find us all a good fit, and overall, i think our directors did a good job.
i was actually set to have one person for my 'counselor buddy'[what our co's were called]...but she had to be pulled to be a unit leader in the absence of one of the other ULs...i ended up being 'thrown' onto another counselor the first day of the session, but it went over ok. she accepted the challenge wholeheartedly, as well as the rest of the unit staff.
i'm told that the campers we had in our unit were the best i would ever have...but i've not got my hopes down for this summer!

haha, my campers with my week-long live-in were the best ever!! They listened to the rules and even followed ones that they put in place themselves. They helped each other out and hung out together! The only problem was that we had 1 3rd grader and 1st grader. The others were 2nd graders. The 1st grader was on the younger side with her personality and the 3rd grader would have totally fit in with the next unit up much better, but because of her grade level she was put with us. It turned out really well because even though the older one got fed up with the younger one she was pretty good with her!

We switch ULs/UCs every session or half session - so we get to work with all sorts of different people good or bad over the summer!

Our UC stays with the same unit but the counselors move around a little bit. Unless of course there is a firing of a UC in which case the whole balance is thrown off! Last summer our older boys UC was fired and all of a sudden our older girls UC was the boys UC and then past staff came back and was the older girls UC! It was crazy! The person who became the boys UC was a returning staff and was definitely known as the high school girls counselor, or that summer their UC. Every week she was with Pioneer for the last summer or two and all of a sudden she was a middle school boys counselor and then the boys UC. It was crazy, but she did a good job with the boys (and she had her own cabin in the unit)!

we have different girls each 10-day session, and UCs and ULs move around...so you work with a variety of people over the course of the 5 sessions.

I like switching cos every week. However, during my first session last summer my co and I really bumped heads. It was obvious to everyone around us that we did not work well together. Then, three sessions later, they put us together again! Lets just say that I was by far not the "happiest camper". I spent a lot of time ranting that week because she had already figured out how to get to me.

Poor you!

I like switching co's/UC's (I am a UL!) every session (or half session) cos you get to work with different people and if you dont get on you know that it is only for a limited period of time. But I also enjoyed the summer where although other staff rotated in and out I work with the same person for the first half of the summer and a different person for the second half of the summer cos not only did you get to know them you got to know their leadership style! And in the case of the second person I was like that with we really just complimented each other with our styles and it really didn't feel like work to work with her if that makes sense!

yeah, My counselor with my full week live in and i just complimented each other. We were both relaxed, but she was the more calm one while I was always the crazy loud and hyper one so our girls got the best of both worlds. I still im with her about "our amazing girls!"

We were both equally crazy and quiet! so we just seemed to work really well together. It was really funny cos the first year we had both been at camp we had never worked together and the spend the whole second half of our second summer working together!

my co for intern and i were in some ways the same, but in some ways totally different!
i was relaly focused on doing a good job to improve my chances for 08 hiring, so i was very 'down to business' when i needed to be, but i sometimes felt like a camper around her. it was hard to earn the respect of the staff, especially when they found out my age.
she and i definitely complimented eachother, and i really appreciated when she handed over the 'reigns' the last few days.

yeah some staff think of you more as campers than counselors, but others see you as their equal. I knw that my co for my intern definitely saw me as an equal. I mean she didn't leave the campers alone with me or anything like that when she shouldn't have, but we were equals. At the end of the week I mentioned that tecnically we weren't allowed to talk ouside of camp she basically scoffed at that and said that as far as she was concerened I was a counselor, and her co-counselor at that! I was so excited! I hope she comes back! Stupid grad school! and stupid not paying minimum wage! Stupid needing money!

we worked toward being equal. but one of the WF staff i worked with the whole session did not. [funnily enough, she was my co's twin!]

hmm interesting! We had sisters who looked a lot alike at first glance, but half way through the summer i wondered how I could have ever confused them! However, we also have twins in my CIT group! I used to have to go by their hair (one had bangs) and then one of them died her hair a little darker, but as we got into our second sumemr as CITs I could tell them apart so many different ways it was amazing! I can tell their voices apart too! Their camp names were Abrah and Kadabrah! They joked about holding auditions for Alakazam! haha but decided that Al would have to look like them too! haha! amazingness!

yeah, i suspected at first glance, then they told me.

my first real best friend and her twin were CITs together, but you can tell the difference. this past summer they worked at different camps...and now they're working at different camps again! i'm no longer really friends with the one i met first, but crazy enough, i'm good friends with the 'other' twin!

haha I know what you mean. I thought I was going to be friends with one of them more than the other, but the other twin and I have had a deep secret telling night when the other people in our room were out on live-ins!

i thought C[twin 1] and i would be friends forever, but she and i grew apart. i truly miss her friendship, but she doesn't really want to talk to me anymore for an unknown reason? now K[twin 2] and i are good friends, but not to the level that C and i were on.