“We used to have homesick campers, but like everything else in the world, the words keep getting changed, so now the camper who used to be homesick is lonely”, wrote director Barbara Haggart in her report in the early seventies.
She suggested counselors look for these symptoms—poor appetite, wandering off alone, and stomach-aches and headaches that occurred at mealtimes and times of low activity and maintained the root cause of this situation was most often an over attachment between the camper and her parents. Many of the young girls felt like their parents wanted to get rid of them. Some believed they were missing something at home or their preconceived notion of what camp was going to be just did not meet their expectations.
The counselors were key to the issue of turning a girl’s feelings around to the idea that camp would be a great experience and were instructed to keep the girls busy, listen carefully without minimizing the young camper’s feelings and give her the attention she needed.
“I recognized there was a lot more payment than the financial reward and I think my campers felt it”, said Sue Wiegand (1966-67). “With the smaller kids, there was always a few traumatized by homesickness and some would go home, but the older kids were not that far removed in age from us. We knew to give them enough rein and they felt comfortable telling us their problems. The ability to relate as a counselor was so important. We realized that some of the fears they had as campers, we had as counselors. But, they knew we respected them and treated them with no judgement. Sometimes it was easier that you were not direct family. We cared and listened and it permeated Maqua.”
“There was one little girl who stands out in my mind to this day” said Tracy Topping (1962-63). “She cried and cried. I never saw anyone so homesick. She was so afraid her Mom would not pick her up at the end of camp. She liked us and she loved the activities, but the separation from her Mom was overpowering. She finally opened up to us and was frantic. I guess her parents had just divorced and her Mom had a new boyfriend. Her parents never wrote to her the whole summer. It wasn’t just homesickness.”
Alice Bishop, director from 1963-69, wrote in her report the summer of 1961 of a homesick camper in the third session. She remarked in her notes– after inconveniencing her seven cabin mates, her counselor, the assistant director and the director, she went home, due to the fact that had she remained in camp she may have become physically ill.
Most of the time the girls were placated by either staying busy with the activities, making new friends in their cabins or reassurance, which were the methods employed by Linda Doering during her two years in the late sixties. Some read stories to the girls. Sue Purdue (1964-68) agreed there was always homesickness when you have a cabin of eight little girls. “I always had a bag of caramels with me, and how do you cry when you are chewing on a caramel?” she laughed.
What was your experience as a camper with homesickness? As a counselor, how did you handle their tears?