Last summer, I let myself feel hopeful.
We hadn’t found a camp that could work for my son — not one, in years of looking. But he’s my energizer bunny. Always moving, always needing something active, something outside, something to match the sheer amount of energy he carries. I thought maybe, just maybe, the right combination of fresh air and structure would be the thing that finally clicked.
By day three, they were done with him.
I had to go pick him up. Again. Another program that couldn’t hold him, another reminder that he doesn’t fit in the boxes most programs are built around, another summer where the list of “things that didn’t work” got a little longer than the list of “things that did.”
I share this not because it’s unique. I share it because almost every special needs parent I know — as a therapist, and as a mother — has some version of this exact story.
The Childcare Cliff Nobody Warns You About
For most families, summer means a break from the routine. For families raising children with significant behavioral, developmental, or medical needs, summer often means the opposite — a sudden loss of the very structure and support that made the rest of the year survivable.
School isn’t just academics for many of our kids. It’s one-to-one aides. It’s a behavior plan the whole staff understands. It’s speech therapy and OT built into the day. It’s a place that, however imperfectly, has had to learn how to meet your child where they are.
When that ends in June, it doesn’t get replaced. It just disappears.
Camps that advertise “all abilities welcome” often mean abilities that look a certain way. Aftercare programs aren’t staffed or trained for a child who needs more support than a typical ratio allows. Many specialized camps have waitlists months long, price tags most insurance won’t touch, or simply don’t exist within a reasonable drive.
So parents do what we always do. We patch something together. We use vacation days we don’t have. We call relatives. We hire help we can’t really afford. And some summers, like mine, we just end up home — again — with a child who deserved a real summer and a parent doing the best they can with almost nothing to work with.
The Comparison That Stings
There’s a particular kind of loneliness in watching other families post about their “easy” summers — pool days, camp drop-offs, weeks at grandma’s — while you’re once again googling “summer programs for kids with behavioral needs near me” at midnight.
It’s not that we resent other families their good summers. It’s that the contrast makes the isolation sharper. Many special needs parents don’t get a break in summer. We get more hours of caregiving, not fewer, often with less support than we had during the school year.
That’s not a complaint. It’s just true. And it deserves to be said out loud instead of quietly carried.
What Would Actually Help
This isn’t a problem individual families can fix by trying harder or searching longer. It requires real investment — inclusive camps with appropriately trained staff and realistic ratios, expanded respite care options, summer programming that’s funded to serve kids who don’t fit a standard mold, and a broader cultural shift away from treating “all abilities welcome” as a marketing phrase instead of a real commitment.
Until that exists, families like mine will keep doing what we’ve always done — trying things, watching them fall apart by day three, and trying again anyway.
You’re Not Failing — The System Is
If this summer has looked like another canceled camp, another program that couldn’t hold your child, another summer spent stitching together care with no real support — I want you to hear this clearly: that is not a reflection of you or your child. It’s a reflection of how few resources actually exist for families like ours.
If you’re navigating this exhaustion and need somewhere to process it, I work with parents of children with special needs and medical complexity every day — as a therapist, and as a parent who knows exactly what day three feels like.
