Missing Home

Many children miss home when they are at camp. You can help by writing often, being positive, supportive, and conveying a genuine feeling of happiness regarding your child's stay at camp. Please encourage your child to stay at camp. It also helps to avoid using the term homesick because it gives the impression that the child may be sick. 

Ninety-nine percent of missing home is gone by the third or fourth day of camp, but because the mail in Wimberley is slow, if your child is missing home, you might receive letters indicating this well into the second week of camp even though the feeling has passed. Please look for up-to-date pictures of your child to see how they are doing, or use our email and response system to get a faster response time. 

Here are a few suggestions for letter writing: 

• Write a letter to your child a week before camp (our mail is very slow) so that a letter will be waiting for their arrival. 
• Please make sure that the things you say won't contribute to missing home. For example, don't mention special trips or how much your child's pets miss them. 

Our Methods:

Our staff spends time during orientation training on how to cope with specific situations, including missing home. We deal with these situations by: 

• We are training our staff to actively listen. This enables us to understand and solve the problems that the child is having. It also shows the child that there is someone who cares. 
• Teaching our staff to find out which activities the child enjoys best and encourage that child to participate in all activities. 
• Spend time daily with our staff discussing situations so that we are aware of all issues and can help a child overcome them. 
• Consulting parents—you know your child better than anyone. A unit head or the camper care team will contact you if there is a case we need help overcoming.