|
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 Symptoms include: being withdrawn, body complaints, and feelings of missing home.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?
- Young children
- Children with little or no previous separation experience
- No experience at camp, and/or child was forced to attend camp
- Child was worried about coming to camp and those feelings weren’t dealt with appropriately
- 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 the child might have trouble at camp
- There is instability at home (moving, divorce, sickness, emotional trauma, etc.)
- The child’s first impression of camp wasn’t very positive
- Older children who arrive at camp thinking camp is lame and they won’t have fun
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
- Learn your campers’ names immediately and use them often.
- Make a bunk name poster and have the campers decorate it.
- Play some bunk name games on Sunday.
- Create a cabin contract (rules) so the campers know the expectations.
- Help the campers unpack.
- On Sunday, give a tour and do whatever is necessary to help the campers get to know their new surroundings.
- Pair a new camper with a returner.
- Get to know something meaningful about each camper and share some things about yourself
- Play some pickup games in dead times.
- Provide choices whenever possible and let the campers know what is going to happen as far into the future as they are interested in. Post schedules in the cabin.
- Talk about the cool clinics and what the campers enjoy. Talk about the cabin activities and all-camp games to come.
- Have the campers write home during siesta.
- Have the campers share a talent they have, and/or teach them one of your talents.
- 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? (needs)
- To have fun
- To miss home and still have fun anyway
- What were your reasons for coming to camp?
- What do you think your parent’s reasons were for sending you to camp? How do you relate to that?
(Be careful not to word it like “Do you think your parents want you to miss home so much you can’t have fun? Do you think your parents sent you to camp so you could have fun?” as this could imply guilt for the kid not meeting these expectations. Also be careful not to phrase this as a “why” question.)
- What are you doing? (Assess the child’s coping)
- What are you doing to help make things better when you're feeling homesick?
- What are you thinking to help make things better when you're feeling homesick?
- Is that working?
- Do you want to miss home so much that you can’t have fun at camp?
- Is your homesick camper trying to change something that can't be changed? Has s/he given up completely, thinking there's nothing that 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 (participating in activities). 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 positive 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
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!
- If a child thinks the choice of calling home and having the parent come and pick him/her up is an option, it will be difficult or impossible to the child to move on to other choices that will actually help.
- If this is ABSOLUTELY the child’s hang up, it MAY be appropriate to call the parents and confirm with them that they will not pick up the child and that they do want the child to stay and have fun. This choice is removed and the camper can then move on. They now know that their parents want them to stay and have fun.
- Candy, Food
- Special privileges
|
