Hey, Camp Fans!

Continuing our weekly visit back to the subject of homesickness, I have another excellent piece of advice for all of you anticipating parents: Keep your doubts to yourself. Whatever worries you might have about how your kid’s summer camp stay will go—those thoughts don’t need to be a part of your kid’s world.

In fact, it’s those kinds of thoughts and helpless concerning that produces homesickness. Showing your concerns about your kid’s time away at camp only plants the concept in your kid’s head that camp is something they need to ‘get through’ as opposed to something they can actually ENJOY!

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that worry can be contagious. You’ve seen it happen plenty of times with kids of your own. Maybe you can even remember experiencing it when you were a kid. Psychological research in the late 90’s dubbed it ‘anxiety transmission’. The most common form of anxiety transmission starts with parents and gets passed on to the kid.

It’s very common for kids to suffer anxiety transmission about their school life and the same holds true for summer camp.

Anything even remotely close to a concern is something that your kid should never hear. All they should hear as the summer camp season approaches is how excited they should be and how excited you are for them. Tell them how much they’ll love camp and how you look forward to hearing about all the new experiences they’ll have had.

Now before I go on, let me just say that it’s pretty much impossible for a parent not to worry over their kid’s time away from home. You have to worry! You’re a parent! Just because you have the concern doesn’t mean your kid needs to know about it.

And just because you can’t share your worries with your kid doesn’t mean you need to bottle your feelings up and carry the weight alone. You can confide in your spouse or friend, colleague—anyone who’ll understand your concerns.

Letting your worries be heard by the right person can often leave you feeling calmer for it too which is definitely an emotion you can share with your kid! Thanks for reading!

- John

Hey Camp Fans!

For today’s Throwback Thursday Blog post, we’re linking back to last year’s post from May 15, written by Dr. Thurber about how a relaxed parent begets a relaxed camper.

This post offers great advice about shaping a positive outlook for your kid in anticipation for his or her camp stay. Kids look to their parents for everything so it’s important that you don’t show any potential worries or fears you might have concerning your kid’s camp stay. Check out the May 15 post and make sure to RELAX!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

For most kids, summer camp is the experience of their lifetime. I know I can still remember my summer camp stay even though it happened forever ago. And the reason it’s so fresh in my memory is because of the impact it had on my life. One of my first experiences being away from home, it was more than just loads of fun, it was a growing experience.

However, the same reason that makes summer camp so much fun can also present challenges like homesickness. Pretty much every camper (especially every first-time camper) is going to experience some degree of homesickness. Cases of extreme homesickness are rather rare, but even so, there are things you can do to help reduce the potential of how homesick your kid feels during his or her camp stay.

Last week I talked about lessening your child’s homesickness by picking the right length of camp stay for them. But another way to ease any potential homesick feelings at camp is to set up times for your kid to spend away from home before their camp stay to help them get used to the feeling of not having mom and dad around.

This can be done easily by arranging a weekend for your kid to stay with Grandma and Grandpa or at a friend’s house. Even just a single-night sleepover or slumber party is valuable in helping acclimate your kid to being away from home. The more acclimated your kid is, the less homesick they should feel at camp.

You should use these sleepovers and weekend trips as practice runs not just for your kid, but for yourself as well. You won’t be able to call your kid on a whim when they’re at camp so don’t call them when they’re off on these short visits. If your kid is away long enough you might even want to write them a letter since this is how you’ll keep in touch come time for their camp stay.

When your kid gets back from their arranged time away be sure to talk to them about how their trip went.

Ask them about things that they would have done differently if they could have. Ask them about things that they wish had gone differently that they wouldn’t have been able to change anyway (such as the weather). Though there’s nothing you can do directly about such a situation, simply making your kid aware of the fact that unfavorable weather is a possibility can help them to cope with the idea of the things outside of their control.

Talk to them directly about homesickness as well. Make sure they understand that it’s normal to miss being home, but that they should try and focus on having a good time instead of missing home. It’s this act alone that diffuses most cases of homesickness.

As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Preppers!

One of the key decisions you and your camper will have to make about camp is determining what the length of the camp stay should be. This part of your summer camp preparation is extremely important. When a camp stay gets to be too long for a child, homesickness is the inevitable response.

So how do you know what the right length of time is for your camper’s camp stay? The age of your camper is always a good place to start. Most overnight camps won’t take campers unless they’re at least seven or eight years old.

Typically, the younger the child is, the shorter the camp stay should be. However, this isn’t always the case as every kid is different. Some seven-year-olds could go all summer away from home while some preteens may struggle with a two-week stay.

Another thing to take into account besides age is your camper’s experience in being away from home and how they seem to handle it. You can gauge this with sleepovers your kid has at a friend’s house or a weekend stay with a relative. Try talking to your kid after stays like these about any feelings of homesickness that they had and let them know that it’s normal to miss being away from home.

It’s always helpful to children when you can give them a concrete idea of how long their camp stay actually is. Letting them know that a week-long camp stay would be like the family trip that you took last year to visit Uncle Max is an excellent tactic to help your kid prepare for their time away.

Involving your camper in the decision about the length of their camp stay is also a smart way to decrease their feelings of homesickness during the time away. It’s imperative that a kid WANTS to stay the full length of their camp stay. If they feel forced to stay longer than what they are comfortable with, you are risking intense homesickness for your child.

When it comes down to it (especially when given a more ‘concrete’ idea of how long a certain period of time is) talking to your kid openly about it is the best route to take. Kids are usually pretty good at knowing how much time away they can take.

As always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey Camp Fans!

Check out today’s Throwback Thursday to get great information about co-shopping for your summer camp prep. Having your kid help out with shopping, packing, and general involvement in the preparations is certain to put a positive spin on their summer camp stay. ‘Throwback’ to April 24 of last year to learn from summer camp expert, Chris Thurber, easy ways you can involve your child in summer camp prepping.

- John