Dilemma:
I am a unit head of 8th grade campers. One of my campers has desperately wanted to go home since he arrived a week ago. Twice, he even went to the office on his own with his bag packed saying “I’d like to call home now, I am ready to leave.” Personally, I think he belongs at home. This camp is not the right place for him, his personality or his challenging needs. Our social work team and leadership have been working with me to problem solve his behavior and to help better acclimate him to his surroundings. But the fact remains, I disagree with this entire strategy and philosophy and think that this camper should simply go home. It is taking a lot out of his counselors, bunkmates and me to give so much attention to one person. I want to do my job to support all my campers and to follow the suggestions of my supervisors, but I cannot put my whole self into my supervisors’ instructions nor this one camper because ultimately, I have the other 14 campers in the bunk and the 3 counselors who are exhausted in mind. How do I handle this?
Response:
This is a classic camp dilemma and a great first conversation to bring to our virtual campfire. If there is one thing that is true about camp dilemmas it is that they often live at the convergence of several different issues. Like all educational communities, camps are complex and dynamic spaces and every situation that arises is full of many issues to be considered. It will be the practice of this forum to examine the issues at play rather than offer particular solutions to dilemmas both because it is in the examination of these issues that a truer understanding can be gained and because each situation will be so complex that it is irresponsible to claim a “right solution” from across the distance of the internet.
In this situation I see three distinct issues at play: homesickness, strategic disagreement and managing staff capacity. Each of these issues is worthy of it’s own conversation as is the convergence of them in this specific situation.
Today, we will look at homesickness. Homesickness itself is a bit of a misnomer and has become a kind of umbrella term for a lot of very different issues that manifest in a common but also broad set of behaviors. When thinking about homesickness the first thing to do is try to determine what the issues underneath the expressions of homesickness are.
An important question to consider is: Is the desire to go home rooted in a sense of being overwhelmed emotionally by the change in environment or is it a well thought out decision that camp is not the place that they, the camper, want to be. Often times we assume that children and adolescent’s thoughts, especially if the behaviors that they are expressing are deemed “inappropriate”, are the irrational responses of an emotionally overwhelmed being as opposed to a rational conclusion about their present situation that simply happens to be different from what we as the adults conclude. It is important to remember that just because a camper cannot calmly express their need it doesn’t necessarily mean that the need has not been rationally concluded. They may simply be lacking the tools of expression and not the tools of rational consideration. Campers are full people with wonderful minds and while those minds may still be developing they should be treated with all the respect that would be given to any other persons mind.
This, however, does not necessarily mean that we have to defer to their conclusions. As educators and adults it is sometimes our job to push our charges beyond what they conclude they should be doing – this is actually something that we do in our strongest and most meaningful personal relationships as well – not because we are smarter or superior, but because that is how we grow as people. What is important here is that we respect the position that our campers are coming from. We can acknowledge the perspective that they are bringing and offer our perspective as a challenge that will help them with their continued growth and development. And at the end of the day we, the adults, are the responsible ones and need to be comfortable with the decisions made from these conversations.
This approach will work best when it comes from a counselor who already has established a strong relationship that has a baseline of trust and mutual respect with that camper. A trusting relationship is an essential prerequisite for making the kinds of demands that we, as responsible educators, sometimes need to make, especially if we are going to insist on a conclusion that is not one that the camper necessarily agrees with.
A next set of questions to consider are:
Is the “homesickness” a desire to not be at camp or to be at home? Meaning is it about leaving the new environment or is it about going back to the familiar one?
Are there things about being at camp that are making the camper uncomfortable? Are there issues within the bunk or any other aspect of the camper’s experience of being at camp that are making it feel like an unsafe space?
For those of us who love (or have come to love) camp, a sense of belonging is amongst the most important things we were able to find there. A very common undercurrent in homesickness is that the camper has yet to find that sense of belonging. It could be that they struggle with feeling like they belong in general, it could be that they haven’t found activities or people that they click with yet or it could be that they feel alienated from the other campers because of something that happened. Whatever the case, the feeling of not belonging is often very close to the surface in many cases of homesickness.
Or…
Is there something at home that they do not want to be away from? Is it an issue of missing aspects of their life at home – parents, siblings, friends, pets, their room, their routine? Is there something they are afraid is happening or going to happen at home while they are not there – a sickness in the family, a divorce, a vacation the rest of the family is going on, a party their friends are having? Sometimes, particularly with teenagers who spend a lot of energy trying to figure out the social navigation of their worlds, the idea of missing out on something, even if the thing they feel like they are missing out on only exists in their imagination, can become such a point of fixation that it takes over and drives their otherwise rational behavior in directions that are unexpected to them and you.
One summer I had a camper come up to me just days away from the end of camp saying that he needed to go home right away. I asked him if something happened. He said no I just need to go home. I spent most of the day investigating what was going on in his bunk, trying to find the cause of what could have been making him feel so strongly the need to go home with the end of camp just days away. Was there a fight I didn’t know about? Did something happen with one of the counselors? Was he exhibiting separation anxiety and wanting to make a more sudden and potentially cleaner break? Eventually, after speaking with all of his bunkmates and counselors, calling his family and having several counselors talk with him, it came out that a friend of his was having a birthday party in the city and since it was towards the end of the summer and the year he was getting ready to go into high school he really didn’t want to miss it. Once we found out what the underlying issue was we were able to negotiate an agreement with the camper and his family that we could all feel good about.
It is also possible, and in fact often the case, that you will not get to the place of figuring out what is causing the desire to go home. Camps are very intense environments and there are hundreds of factors that may make it impossible to get to the bottom of a campers homesickness.
Another, and perhaps the most important, question to ask when dealing with homesickness, or really any camper issue, is: who at camp has the strongest relationship with this camper and how can we use that person to make the camper feel as listened to, understood and comfortable as possible while we try to figure out what to do?
Sometimes the relationship that is built through engaging a homesick camper will, in itself, create the conditions that the camper needs in order to become ok with being at camp. Sometimes time itself will change a campers mind about leaving.
And sometimes going home is the best thing that can happen for the camper, for the group and even for the camp. Homesickness is a visible issue and it can be very emotionally triggering for camp staff. We who work at camp fundamentally believe that camp is a good place for children to be. For us to face the notion that, for whatever reason, being at camp is not actually the right thing for a particular camper at a particular moment, can feel like a challenge to that very fundamental belief. It is important for us to remember that this is not the case.
Finally I would say it is important to remember that there is not always a “right answer”. We can build up a lot of urgency around the issue of a homesick camper and it is important to remember that while camp can be a powerful and transformative place and many of us place a lot of stock in the memories (both good and bad) that come from our time at camp, we are not always going to know what the best thing to do is and sometimes there really is not a best thing to do.
Ultimately the most important thing is that the team of people figuring this out – counselors, camp leadership team, parents and the campers themselves – take the time to listen to each other’s perspectives and allow themselves the flexibility to imagine solutions that could work for the particular people in the particular situation that they find themselves.
Tomorrow we will continue exploring this dilemma by examining the tensions that come up when there are differences of opinion about the strategic approach to take when handling this kind of camper situation.
S'moreTalk 