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By Randall Grayson, Ph.D.
What is Homesickness?
You guessed it – you miss home. About 95% of all campers report at least minor homesickness – it’s normal. Roughly 20% have moderate homesickness, and 7% have it with severe symptoms. Symptoms include: being withdrawn, body complaints, and feelings of missing home.
How long does it last?
It doesn’t get better by itself with time. Actually, without good intervention, it just gets worse. If a child starts camp with moderate homesickness, we are on top of it fast!
What kind of kid tends to get homesick?
- Little or no previous separation experience – never spent a night away from home
- Child was forced to attend camp
- Child was worried about coming to camp and those feelings weren’t dealt with appropriately ahead of time
- Child has trouble handling his/her emotions – low emotional intelligence
- Anxiety or depression were already present before camp
- Home life without an attentive, loving parent
- Parent told child that s/he might have trouble at camp
- There is instability at home (moving, divorce, sickness, emotional trauma, etc.)
- The child’s first impression of camp isn’t very positive
Preventing homesickness before camp – parents’ role
- Have your child spend a night away from home with a friend
- Involve your child in planning for camp, and thinking about all the fun that will be had
- If your child tells you that s/he is worried about missing home, talk about it. Talk about what the child can do to not miss home so much before going to camp (e.g., sleep at friend’s house). Talk about what the child can do to not miss home so much while at camp – write letters, bring something from home, get letters from parents, make lists of all the good things about camp, talk to the counselors, and other things you’ve taught your child to do when feeling a little bit of stress.
- Go through the website and look at all the activity pictures. Have the child start planning their top eight choices for clinics, and what cabin activities they’d like to try.
- Don’t tell your child that s/he can call and come home if s/he doesn’t like it. Children who are told this have an extremely hard time getting over their homesickness, and fun and independence are rarely gained.
Preventing homesickness at camp – our role
- Know their names and use them often
- Play some bunk name games. If there is time, do a full cabin activity.
- Create a cabin contract (rules) so the child knows what the expectations are
- Help the child unpack
- Play some pickup games in dead times
- Give a tour so that children know their new surroundings
- Pair a new child with a returner
- Get to know something meaningful about each child and share some things about yourself
- Provide choices whenever possible and let the child know what is going to happen as far into the future as the child would like to know. Post schedules in the cabin.
- Talk about the cool clinics and what the child enjoys. Talk about the cabin and camp games to come.
- Have the camper write home during siesta – write about all the great things happening at camp, and what the child can look forward to
- Have the child share a talent they have, and/or teach them one of their talents
- Address any fear they may have (e.g., darkness, being alone, getting picked on)
- Safe touch (pat on the back, high five, side hug)
The child is pretty homesick . . . the doctor is in
- Prevention tips on previous page
- The above prevention points will help an already homesick camper as well
- Set goals
- Cabin activities, clinics, unit activities, and the weird and wonderful world of camp provides a ton of goals for the camper to focus on
- Work on the child’s coping (Success Counselor)
- What do you want?
- To have fun
- To miss home and still have fun anyway
- Note that parents must love them very much to given them such a great opportunity. THEY want the child to have fun, not be sad, and grow from this experience.
- What are you doing? (Assess the child’s coping)
- “Tell me all the things you think or do to help make things better when you're feeling homesick”
- If nothing, note that and move on
- Is that working?
- Do you want to miss home so much that you can’t have fun at camp?
- Is your homesick camper coping by trying to change something that can't be changed? Or has he given up completely, thinking that “nothing” will help? The most effective way to cope is to adjust to things you can't change (such as the actual length of a session) and change what you can (like whether you participate in activities or not). It works!
- “Well, if you were feeling the way you want to, happy, what would you be doing?”
- What are your choices?
- Doing something fun to forget about homesick feelings
- Doing something (writing a letter) to feel closer to home
- Talking with someone to help them feel better
- Thinking about the good side of things (activities, friends) to feel better
- Thinking that camp is actually pretty short to make time go by faster
- Trying not to think about home and loved ones to forget about homesickness
- Thinking about loved ones to figure out what they would say to help.
- Pick a choice and check back with the camper soon to see how it went
- Ask for help from your Village Leader, and/or the Director
What doesn’t work?
- Wishful thinking
- Giving up
- Getting mad
- Running away
- Bargaining – if _______, then I’ll do _________
- Making promises you can’t keep
- Calling home – almost always makes it worse!
- Candy, Food
- Special privileges
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