Homesickness is a common hurdle for campers who will be away from home. Whether it is your camper’s first time or their fifth summer, homesickness can creep up and have the potential to dampen spirts either way. A proactive plan can make the transition smoother and preparing starts well in advance. More Than Paper carries a huge line of summer camp items and all of us at More Than Paper are personally connected to summer camp. Whether we’ve worked there, attended camp ourselves, or have children who go to overnight summer camp, we have practical, hands-on tips to help our readers. Here’s how to prepare your camper for homesickness (and some fun items to purchase along the way!)
Practical Exposure
Physically practicing separation will lay the foundation of this independent time. Start with shorter trips or overnights apart and increase the duration as confidence grows. This can be time with grandparents or trusted family friends, but having your camper accustomed to time away is a great way to start setting the stage for what is to come. But remember, just because a child is not successful at separating for an overnight does not mean he/she won’t be successful at camp. The level of support a child will get at camp, typically in a bunk with multiple counselors and campers is different than being in someone’s home alone with parents sleeping in another room.
Pack a Comfort Kit
Create a familiar anchor to help ground your child in times of homesickness. Pack mementos like photos, a stuffed animal, blanket or pillow in their trunk. You can also create a short and simple book of messages to send to your camper, one that they can flip through and read when they are feeling nostalgic. Or pre-write a couple of letters and stick them in their backpack. Tell them to open it on days when letters don’t arrive from you or they are feeling homesick. We love this “Hi from mom” stationery pad, perfect for just this!
Let your camper create their own super soft fuzzy blanket to help them feel cozy and make their camp bed homey!
Trust Camp & Talk About It
Counselors and camp staff are well-trained on homesickness. At our son’s camp, they are taught to lean into their campers’ feelings and help them express gratitude. Rather than say, “oh, you’re fine! You will see your parents in a couple of days or weeks!” (which dismisses the feeling), they will ask, “What about home do you miss? Describe to me what it is like at home.” This is often followed by comments with the overall sentiment “what a privilege it is to miss a home you love so much.”
You can talk about that before your camper leaves, too. Discuss how lucky are that they love where they live so much and that it is ok that they’ll miss it. Talk about how camp is a time to gain independence, confidence, and grow. Even if they do not retain all of it (and likely that they won’t), we’re estimating at least some portion will get through! Camp is so much more than just sports, traditions, and making new friends – we often see the greatest developmental leaps made at camp.
Also, let your campers borrow your confidence. If you show how much you trust camp to take care of your child, your child will start to have trust too.
Ensure you have what you need
Don’t skip the packing list. Take time to thoroughly read through the camp manual and review the packing list with your son or daughter. Ensuring that they have exactly what they need will help ease the transition and keep their experience smooth. Start together by reading the packing list with your camper, line by line, so nothing essential gets forgotten or duplicated. Mark off items as you gather them in a central location. This builds your child’s confidence about what they’ll bring and gives them ownership so they don’t leave things behind. If your son or daughter is required to make their own bed and change their sheets, show them how to do this before they leave, if they have never done it before. If you are packing a specific piece of equipment, make sure they know how to use it before leaving for camp. (We have a funny story about our son….When we invested in a sleeping ground pad for the overnight camp out, it came home in the original packaging unused. He decided to sleep on the ground rather than use the pad because he didn’t know how to inflate it—and the directions were nowhere to be found! Lesson learned: make sure they know how to use the equipment and items you pack!)
If you find yourself needing camp items found on your list, More Than Paper carries thousands of items for camp. You’ll find personalized stationery, water bottles, activitie pads, bunk décor, labeling supplies, slippers, storage containers and so much more. Visit our camp store and see all that we have to offer!
Help your camper make their new space feel like home
Campers are learning to live separately from their parents—and it can be a big adjustment. However, one thing that will help is giving your camper items to make their space in their bunk their own.
Whether it be with the bedding or decorations, let your child really have some independence here and help fulfill their wishes.
These oval cling-it stickers are great for decorating and remove easily.
Encourage letter writing
Trading letters back and forth from camp to home will surely ease homesickness. There’s nothing like going to the mailbox and getting a letter from your camper or receiving a letter from your parents when the counselors are delivering mail during rest hour. We have plenty of camp stationery, notepads and envelope sets that make letter writing a little more exciting. Some of our favorite style options are shown below. We have fill-in the blank options for younger campers or lined notepads for older ones who are ready to write more details. Right now, many of our notepad sets have envelopes and include return address labels. To make letter writing easy for our campers, we have a personalized clipboard that stores all letter writing materials such as pens, pencils, stamps, and addresses inside. To make things even easier, rather than pack an address book, we pre-print self-adhesive address labels with recipient addresses. We tend to do 5-6 to us, a couple to grandparents, and 1 to friends but you know your camper best. (Also, we always over-estimate how many letters our campers will write to us!!) When your camper sits down to write a letter, they can peel and stick the address on the envelope. No need for them to write it out! This has earned us many more letters that we would have received if they had to write out our address themselves on the envelope.
We hope the transition is smooth for your camper this summer and homesickness is at a minimum. Most of all, we hope that your camper has the experience of a lifetime and gets everything they want out of this summer. Wishing you good luck and some fun along the way, too!
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