According to the American Camp Association (ACA), there are currently about 7,000 overnight sleepaway programs to choose from in the U.S. And the number of day camps, where kids return home each evening, has increased 90 percent since the 1980s, to roughly 5,000 today in large part because they re now offering extended day sessions to meet parents needs and are accepting younger children. But picking the right camp for your kid can be daunting: Of the 12,000 or so options, only about 2,400 have ACA accreditation, a voluntary process in which the camp meets more than 300 different standards. (Visit the organization s website, www .acacamps.org, for its Find a Camp database of accredited programs.)

While other, nonaccredited camps may be perfectly legitimate options, you ll need to do a little more homework to be sure. First, check out the Web directory KidsCamps.com, where you can search a database of camps based on geography and interests. To get a better feel for how a camp operates, call its director and ask about staff screening procedures whether the camp does background checks and its staff return rates (anything over 50 percent is good). Then ask about the staff-to-camper ratio: Look for 1-to-4 for very young kids and 1-to-8 for older campers. And make sure the camp has a state permit or license that requires it to meet minimum safety requirements. Most important, get references from a prospective camp. Ask for people in your hometown, advises Christopher Thurber, a New Hampshire psychologist and coauthor of The Summer Camp Handbook. That means they can t handpick the people you talk to.

Camp advisory services, which advertise online or in the yellow pages, can help streamline the process of choosing a camp by doing the legwork for you. They tend to be long-standing momand- pop operations, and they re free. Jill Tipograph, founder and director of Everything Summer, says she keeps records on more than 2,000 camps and teen programs around the world. Parents don t know if these programs are safe or what their reputation is, Tipograph says. They prefer to work with programs we have been sending children to.

These companies have to make money somehow, however, and guess who pays? The camps. That s not to imply that all advisers recommend only camps that pay them. Tipograph, for one, says she has referred parents to nonclient programs. You should ask advisers how they charge: If they re paid a set fee, regardless of how many referrals a camp gets, that s good. If they re paid based on how many kids they refer, that s less reassuring. When you contact a camp, ask about its relationship with the adviser who sent you, just to double-check.

In an effort to attract business, some camps can be notorious about flipflopping on their supposed philosophies, says one East Coast camp official. I ve called up camp X and said, My kid is Jewish. How religious are you? [Because] my kid hates services. And they say, Oh, he ll be perfect here. And then we call again and say, How religious is the camp? My kid is very religious, and they say the same thing.

Specialty camps, a fast-growing area, can be big culprits. Naoko Halloran realized she d made a mistake in choosing the art day camp her then nearly fiveyear- old son went to in Maui. He was the youngest one there and found the day too long, she says. While her son came home with some amazing oil paintings, Halloran says he felt lost hanging out with 10-year-olds.

To avoid such misunderstandings, be honest in evaluating your child s personality, and be sure to check the referrals a camp provides. Ask, How would you describe the typical kid at this camp? According to Stacy DeBroff, author of Sign Me Up! The Parents Complete Guide to Sports, Activities, Music Lessons, Dance Classes, and Other Extracurriculars, Matching the culture of the camp to the personality of your child is the formula for success, period.

Camp registration rates have been growing steadily for years: In 2005 a record 10 million children attended day or resident camp, according to the American Camp Association. As a result, it s become increasingly difficult to get your kid into his camp of choice. The entire period of time for signing up has shifted dramatically, says Laurel Barrie, who owns camp advisory company the Camp Connection. Some camps fill up as early as August of the previous summer.

Philip Margolis, of Glastonbury, Conn., found that out the hard way a few years ago, when he and his wife decided to send their then eight-year-old son, Jacob, to an overnight camp affiliated with their temple. They registered one or two weeks before the camp s March 1 deadline, but their son s age-group was already full. Jacob s enthusiasm after hearing the camp s presentation [less than two months earlier] made our first decision easy, he says. When he didn t get in, we had to go back to the drawing board.

Still, if you get stuck registering close to a deadline, don t panic. There are plenty of camps available, says Nancy LaPook Diamond, president of KidsCamps.com, but act quickly. For best results, start researching camps by January 1 and make appointments to visit camps in early April, advises Barrie, before the more common deadline of late May. But what to do if your first-choice camp is already full? Ask that camp s director what other programs he or she recommends; then, if need be, get on wait lists at your preferred camps. Registered kids often change their minds about attending.

The most popular alternatives to traditional camps these days are sports specialty camps. But for kids who don t have NBA or Olympic dreams and abilities to match many may be too hard-core. Several summers ago Dayna Bergman, a stay-at-home mom in Bucks County, Pa., was a chaperone at the cheerleading camp her then 11-year-old daughter s school squad attended. It turned out that the camp, chosen by the school coaches, was geared toward high school girls who were serious athletes. They were getting up at 7 a.m. and working out until they couldn t walk, Bergman says. The kids weren t very happy.

Before registering your child at a sports camp, ask the director to describe a typical day and the level of competition. Say, If my child is tired at 4 o clock because he s been playing lacrosse for five hours, can he sit down? suggests Rick Echlov, former summer programs director for Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., which runs 17 camp sessions of one to three weeks for soccer, basketball, baseball, and other sports. The answer might be, No, he ll be in the middle of a game. Also, ask who s going to be coaching your kids. Many sports camps feature a former college or pro athlete or a big-name coach. Stars attract a huge enrollment, which means your kid may get little face time with a featured athlete. Make sure that whoever works with your kid most of the time is more than an enthusiastic counselor and is a coach with solid experience and training.

The basic cost of camp can range from reasonable to resortlike. Tuition at an accredited day camp ranges from $100 to $300 per week, according to the ACA, and overnight camps run about $597 per week. The median rate for overnight camps in New England is the highest, costing $780 per week.

But more often than not, costs don t end at tuition. Stacy DeBroff thought the $6,000 she paid to send her then nineyear- old son to a seven-week overnight camp would include everything, so she was shocked, to say the least, when she received a catalog of required clothing including camp-logo T-shirts, sweatshirts, mesh shorts, and sports jerseys. The required uniform included 17 things! she says. It added about $300. Another unexpected extra: a $30 fee to have the camp print out the e-mails she sent her son.

KidsCamps.com s Diamond advises parents to ask about extra fees before booking. Activities and extras often not included under tuition, she says, are swimming lessons, horseback riding, transportation, uniforms, and even food.

Struggling to afford camp for your kids this summer? Try asking for a discount. In a recent survey by the ACA, 49 percent of accredited camps reported offering campers some level of financial assistance. Called camperships in the industry, discounts often depend on income; some camps provide partial camperships because of a family medical crisis or if a parent is in the military. Ask about these as soon as you begin contacting camps.

Even if you don t qualify for aid, many camps offer discounts of 5 to 10 percent for early registration, full-season enrollment, or enrollment of multiple family members. Marci Rose, an artist and mother of three in Churchville, Pa., saved $300 off a $6,800 tab by signing her daughter up for camp on visiting day during the previous summer. Because her other daughter was attending, too, Rose got an additional $400 sibling discount.

Poison ivy rashes, head lice, and sore throats are staples of camp infirmaries. Make sure your kid s camp is equipped to handle such basics. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that overnight camps with more than 50 kids have an onsite registered nurse with access to a supervising M.D.

But whenever groups of kids get together, more serious ailments can become an issue. When Nancy Springer sent her then 14-year-old son, Nick, to an overnight camp in Massachusetts, he contracted meningococcal meningitis after sharing a water bottle with campmates, including one who was an uninfected carrier. We sent a healthy child away to summer camp, Springer says. Two weeks later he was on life support. In a move that probably saved the boy s life, the camp s doctor recognized the purple rash, started Nick on an IV of the right antibiotic, and called an ambulance. Other campers haven t been so fortunate: In 2002, a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl who was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis after attending a Girl Scout camp in Joplin, Mo., died.

While cases of meningitis are rare, the conditions at camps sharing close living quarters as well as food, water bottles, utensils, and even lip balm put kids at greater risk for the disease. What can parents do? Tell your child not to share such personal items, and consider having him vaccinated. Menactra, manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, protects against four of the most common strains of meningitis. For more information, visit the National Meningitis Association s website at www.nmaus.org.

When one New York mom received a phone call from her daughter s camp director saying they had a serious disciplinary problem, she was shocked until she heard what the problem was. She got in trouble for writing her name in toothpaste on the bathroom mirror, which I didn t think was such a terrible thing to do, the mom says. The camp disagreed, considering it harming public property. She was really demonized by the authority figures, the mom continues. She was docked from evening activities and had it marked on her camp records. She was in tears.

Rule breakers no matter how silly the infractions may seem to parents are often sent home, so make sure you know the rules ahead of time and that you feel comfortable with the repercussions. What happens, for instance, if your kid raids the girls cabin or gets caught using a cell phone? If the offense is bad enough for him to be sent home hazing and drinking are two obvious ousters parents can get punished too, at least financially. If you bring certain things to our camp, like fireworks, says David Phillips, president of Maryland s Capital Camps & Retreat Center, you re going home, and you re not getting your money back.

A whopping 95 percent of kids who go to overnight camp feel some degree of homesickness, says New Hampshire psychologist Christopher Thurber. But chances are you won t hear about that from directors. Camps want to help kids adjust, he says, but they re hesitant to bring [homesickness] up, because that doesn t sell slots.

Thurber recommends that families prepare for separation by having the child practice spending time away at a sleepover, say and honing coping skills. But also ask your prospective camps about parent-child communication policies before booking. Most resident camps allow few or no phone calls, and that s a good thing, Thurber says. In case it s needed, make sure the camp provides counseling you approve of should your kid end up with more than just a day or so of the blues. Some camps provide [staffers with] specialized training in homesickness and adjustment, but others don t, Thurber says. Specifically, counselors should be able to recognize signs of distress and be trained in talking to kids about homesickness. Just don t expect them to offer any consoling hugs. Fearing accusations of inappropriate behavior, Thurber says, many camps are training their staff not to hug kids. Some think the only acceptable touch is a pat on the shoulder or a high five.