My teenager is miserable at her summer camp counsellor job. Should I let her quit? | Ask Rebecca

Rebecca Eckler responds to readers' questions.

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Ask Rebecca is smart, honest advice to readers’ questions about life, family and relationships by columnist Rebecca Eckler. Got a question for Rebecca? Submit it anonymously on the form here. You can also send an email to [email protected].

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Dear Rebecca:

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My teenage daughter is working as a counsellor at an overnight camp this summer just outside Ottawa and she’s miserable.

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Almost every night she calls me in tears, begging to come home. She says she has a couple of friends, but doesn’t fit in with the other counsellors who stay up late partying and leave her out. She’s never been much of a partier and feels lonely and excluded.

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This isn’t like her. She’s bright, responsible, involved at school, has close friends and has never quit anything. If anything, she’s the child who sticks things out, which is why I’m taking this so seriously.

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I’ve spoken to the camp, and they’ve assured me they’re checking in and trying to include her. But my phone still rings and I hear the same heartbreak in her voice.

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Part of me thinks this is an important life lesson. She’s not going to love every job she has, and learning to work with difficult people is part of growing up. But the mom in me wants her home immediately.

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How do I know the difference between teaching a teenager resilience and prolonging genuine misery? Should I encourage her to stick it out, or let her come home? — Caught Between My Head and My Heart

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Dear Caught Between My Head and My Heart

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I was only halfway through your letter before I was mentally mapping the drive to Ottawa and your daughter’s camp. Not because I was curious where it was. I was figuring out how fast I could get there.

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Honestly? With every protective mama-bear bone in my body, my first instinct was to stop writing this, go pick your daughter up, throw her duffel bag in the trunk, stop for pie on the way home, and tell her being a camp counsellor is wildly overrated.

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Then, about 30 seconds later, I remembered that parenting is less about your first instinct and more about immediately questioning it. Then questioning the questioning.

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Go get her. Worst-case scenario, she quits one camp job. Best-case scenario, you both sleep soundly.

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Seriously, though, I’ve been that parent, lying awake wondering whether I’m building resilience or just extending my kid’s misery. Like most parents, including you, I don’t want to raise my kids to confuse “this is hard” with “I should quit.”

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Teenagers need to learn that not every boss is likeable, not every job is fun, and not every coworker is kind and welcoming. In fact, one of the least exciting lessons we learn into adulthood is that cliques don’t disappear after teenagehood — they just start emailing calendar invites.