Helping Your Child Adjust to Being Home After Sleepaway Camp – 417

That shift can be even bigger for a child coming home from sleepaway camp, whether they were gone for one week, several weeks, or the entire summer.

If your child recently came home from sleepaway camp or will be coming home soon, you know how much anticipation can build around your reunion.

Along with the excitement, you may have a whole list of questions you can't wait to ask.

It can be tempting to start asking them before the duffel bag even makes it into the car.

The reunion may not go quite the way you expected, though.

Kids often come home exhausted, disappear into their rooms, give one-word answers, complain that there's nothing to do at home, or get annoyed the first time you remind them to put something away.

It's easy to make that kind of behavior mean that they didn't miss you, they're ungrateful, they've forgotten how things work in your family, or that camp changed them and not in a good way.

But before you start making it mean any of those things, I want to talk about the adjustments kids make when they go from sleepaway camp to home, why those changes can create friction between you, and how you can help without hovering, interrogating, or trying to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible.

Your child may come home different from the child who left.

They've been living in a completely different world.

They may come home more confident, capable, and independent while also feeling more tired, irritable, sad, or overwhelmed than before.

Several of those things can be true at the same time.

That shift can be even bigger for a child coming home from sleepaway camp, whether they were gone for one week, several weeks, or the entire summer.

If your child recently came home from sleepaway camp or will be coming home soon, you know how much anticipation can build around your reunion.

Along with the excitement, you may have a whole list of questions you can't wait to ask.

It can be tempting to start asking them before the duffel bag even makes it into the car.

The reunion may not go quite the way you expected, though.

Kids often come home exhausted, disappear into their rooms, give one-word answers, complain that there's nothing to do at home, or get annoyed the first time you remind them to put something away.

It's easy to make that kind of behavior mean that they didn't miss you, they're ungrateful, they've forgotten how things work in your family, or that camp changed them and not in a good way.

But before you start making it mean any of those things, I want to talk about the adjustments kids make when they go from sleepaway camp to home, why those changes can create friction between you, and how you can help without hovering, interrogating, or trying to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible.

Your child may come home different from the child who left.

They've been living in a completely different world.

They may come home more confident, capable, and independent while also feeling more tired, irritable, sad, or overwhelmed than before.

Several of those things can be true at the same time.