When Campers Miss Home

Parent preparation is the key to helping your child with missing home. It's a normal and natural reaction for campers to miss their parents, pets, and yes, even their siblings.

Talking about the possibility of missing home can help your child understand how to handle it at Camp.

Talk About It

Be open with your child about the possibility of missing home. Start the conversation a few months before opening day. Explain how it might make them feel - upset tummy, a headache or lonely.

Explore our Camp Kanata website together. Look at activities and discuss what they want to sign up for to create excitement and set expectations ahead of time. Read through our first-time camper tips and cabin type blogs together.

Encourage your camper that they can make it through the week without picking them up early or talking to them every day. Trust that our staff is trained to navigate campers missing home and will contact you with any concerns. 

Let them know you are excited to see how much fun they are having in the pictures that Camp posts each day. 

Prepare

Familiarize yourself with communication from Camp (mini updates, photos, etc.). Trust that no news is good news; if we have any concerns, we will contact you. Camp counselors are well-versed in helping campers cope with missing home. Whether it's extra attention, conversation or distracting campers with all the fun activities at Camp, we are well equipped to handle it.

Send your camper with pre-addressed and pre-stamped envelopes so that they can write letters to send when they miss home. 

Bring some pieces of home with your camper to set up around their bunk, whether that be pictures, a favorite blanket or a book you read to them each night. 

Set a camp-friendly bedtime routine before your camper arrives at Camp. Nighttime is often when missing home is at its worst, and this preparation can help them feel more secure and independent.

Take a tour of Camp before the summer, or attend our annual Open House.

Send Letters

Camp Kanata has its own mobile app – powered by Bunk1 that allows families to send letters via Bunk Notes to their campers. These notes are printed off and distributed to campers each day. Telling your camper that you’ll be sending letters gives them something to look forward to each day. Plus, writing letters is a great opportunity to encourage them to keep having fun from afar. 

Camp Kanata has different levels of support for campers, from counselors to out-of-cabin leadership to our Director of Camper Life. Our out-of-cabin leadership and Director of Camper Life’s responsibilities include ensuring campers have good and successful Camp sessions and working directly with families around concerns like missing home.

After more than 70 years of experience with campers missing home, we are really good at helping campers adjust to summer at Camp Kanata.