What are the best strategies for prevention and treatment of homesickness?
My son, who has never had a day of homesickness in his life, is now homesick on day #1 away from us. He is scared and wants to be back home with us. Facetime/Skype (instead of text/phone) seems to help.
I’m sorry to hear that.
NMH Parent Newsletter had the following,
"That late-night phone call or text proclaiming intense anxiety, homesickness, desperation about social issues or status, loneliness, or isolation — remember, it’s normal. These emotions pass, especially with your help. You serve as a place where your student can unload. They might not feel comfortable enough to do that with the adults supporting them on campus — yet. It’s still early.
In these moments, it is best to listen to their complaints, concerns, and worries. Just LISTEN. When you listen, your student accesses their inner resources. Pay attention to the rhythm of the conversation and, when they calm down, ask them how they think the problem might be solved. Try not to solve the problem for them. It is important that they figure out how to solve problems for themselves.
After students unload on you, they are usually able to adjust to the situation. They will most likely prove to be resilient. If they do not, their advisor and other faculty in the dorm are great people to talk to. Suggest that to your student. Homesickness is real and happens all the time, and it usually passes. Prolonged homesickness might call for different measures, but homesickness through October or early November is common and not a bad thing.
The best thing you can do for your student in these first few weeks is encourage new activities and friendships. Try to avoid being in constant contact with them. The more they are talking and writing to you, the less they are transitioning to the NMH community and establishing themselves as NMH students. Encourage your student to seek out and connect with adults in the community who can help guide students as they learn about independence. Please don’t worry: Your students will experience growth and resilience; they will have good times with good people; and they will learn who they are in the NMH community and the world."
Is he really homesick or is he just anxious about all the change and transition ahead? This is really big stuff!! And amazing for any of our kids to be making this step long before most others. I would reassure him that this is what he wants to do and where he wants to be and that everyone is in the same situation trying to figure it all out. And when in doubt, as @payn4ward mentioned, point him to his advisor and the resources at the school.
I’ve come to realize that while I know my kid, the school really knows kids, and has a much greater pool of knowledge and resources than I do to draw from. While schools don’t always get it right (and I would never abdicate my role as parent), I do trust that they have “been there, done that.”
Good luck with Day #2. I’m sure it will get easier as he settles in and gets to know people. And a good thing for you to provide him with reassurance when he reaches out for it. Good luck.
Remind him that everything that is strange and new will soon be familiar and usual.
I will be thrilled if either of my children calls me with a bout of homesickness this year. 
I had my first night of dorm duty in the past few days, and had been given the heads up from an advisor whose parents had already called letting us know that the kid had called home miserable and “with no friends.” i created an impromptu activity for myself and some of the kids in one of the common spaces. The homesick kid was smiling and having a good time, and starting to get to know other kids on the dorm. I say this to reinforce payn4ward’s quote. Often, the parents are hearing the worst of it; the verbalization of fears and the sharing of the worst parts of the experience. Your ability to listen with love on the other end enables the child to jump back into the incredible sea of newness. It is scary and daunting, and while there’s a lot of press about “lifelong friends” at boarding school, there is little mention of the work and time it takes to build those relationships. The friendships happen, but it’s not instantaneous, like it is in the movies. I told all the new kids on my dorm to give themselves credit for every little thing over the next week. What they are doing is something they are totally capable of succeeding at, but it is something that’s hard (to join a new school community as upperclassmen.)
Behind the scenes, every faculty member on our dorm is sharing a lot of observations on the new students, and touching bases with coaches so we’ll be ready for sports cuts when those start to happen. i imagine this is pretty typical boarding school faculty behavior. We are keeping a close eye on the difference between the difficulty of that first week and early signs of a more serious crisis. We do out best to get it right, because it’s important work.
Thanks @Albion for your perspective. I think my child would tell me everything is perfect even if that isn’t true which makes me worried and trying to read between the lines. It’s quite reassuring to think that someone is keeping an eye on the situation and paying attention. It does seem scary and daunting from afar but less so if there are adults watching and caring whether the start is going well.
I have one kid who will only rant and rave about everything negative, but in the end always ends up seeing that the experience was great. My other one always tries to see the best in everything and talks about the positives, stuffing all the negative inside, until all of the bad eventually spills out. It’s hard to stay on an even keel, as a parent, with such wildly different reactions from two kids who are at wildly different boarding schools. As a dorm parent, myself (at yet another boarding school), I see a lot of caring faculty who agonize over the well being of the students in their charge. If a student is truly in crisis, we reach out to parents. But, as many have said, the students tend to dump all of the bad on their parents because their parents are “safe”.
My youngest, who is leaving tomorrow for BS, is hyper and annoying in a way that I’ve never seen before. He finally told me that he’s getting it all out of his system because he knows he can’t be this way at BS. Of course, he can be any way he wants at school, but he’s well aware that he’ll be working hard to keep it together while navigating the new environment. I fully expect to get some hard phone calls and I’m already reminding myself that those calls will be the equivalent of “getting it all out of his system” with me, where it’s safe. When he was younger, I would have called it “shaking out his sillies” before going to something formal.
My heart goes out to all you parents. It took a long while to get comfortable with the freaked out hyperbole constantly streaming via text…and there is a fine art to learning how to let your kid vent and complain without wanting to remote parent the heck out of every little detail. My best advice… offer some light humor and silliness when they least expect it. Laughter is good medicine.
Our school urges that parents wait a full week (or more) before direct contact. I see the wisdom of this, but it is best done when planned in advance and all parties understand the drill. In theory, the work done on campus to get each kid up and running, involved and starting the project of making new friends, can be set back by such close contact and pulling at the heart strings. Of course, the arguments will always be made that the contact is meant to be supportive and the kid/relationships are different from the mainstream. ~O) p.s. obviously meant more for future occasions than for heartburner
Homesickness can be so tough on parents because they are almost always at the receiving end of the very upset and often teary phone calls (or upset text messages), especially in the first few weeks. What makes it even harder for parents, I imagine, is the fact that there is rarely a follow phone call along the lines of “I was having a rough day yesterday, but today has been great and I had a ton of fun playing lacrosse this afternoon with my friends and now we’re ordering pizza and watching a show together.”
Making new friends is difficult, as is adjusting to the 24/7 atmosphere and environment that is boarding school. Rest assured, though, that there are lots of people paying attention to how your child is settling in and getting on and who will help them to integrate if they are struggling with that a little bit or finding it overwhelming.
@heartburner How’s your son doing? Is he starting to adjust and make some friends?
@TheStig2 – Homesickness way better. Now replaced with some anxiety about being average or below average at his school compared to coasting in 8th grade. I think that he was under the impression that boarding school would be more like sleep-away summer camp and less like school.
He has made some friends and is doing ok on that front.
Overall - a rough start but getting better. We will be visiting during “Family Weekend” next month.
Thanks for asking!
One thing that I’ve found which helps is to try to avoid talking to them on the phone/Skype late at night. A lot of kids will call home to touch base after study hall, right before they go to bed. But at that point, they’re tired out (even if they don’t realize it) and they’ve had a long day. When you then ask how things are going, you’re much more likely to hear the negative, and then it starts to feed on itself. If I talk to one of my kids late at night and they sound a little down, I try to make a point of finding a time the next day to talk to them before dinner, and then skip the late night call that day.
“anxiety about being average or below average at his school”
heartburner, I applaud your courage and honesty in sharing this. Over the (too) many years I’ve been active on the forum, numerous parents of kids in or graduated from BS try to communicate the potential for this situation to prospects/parents of prospects, but it often seems to fall on deaf ears.
As others have noted, 50% of the students at any given school are going to be average or below average within the schoo population. I know that there are differing POVs on whether you should shoot to be a big fish in a smaller pond on just be among the best and brightest, no matter where you might end up ranked in the class, but experiences like your son’s go under-reported here on CC…where everyone (including myself) tends to emphasize the great parts about BS and especially the BS with which we have some affiliation.
My advice, give it time…even through and past T-giving Break.
The head of my daughters school described that first year is harder to adjust for boys, and that parents may see them struggle more academically as well as with other responsibilities. She also said that there is a remarkable transformation seen in the sophomore year where a lot of those boys start to really thrive, surpassing others. It’s only been a few days at this point, anticipate the entire year to be a roller coaster of ups and downs (but drama free). A great suggestion by soxmom on the dangers of late night contact. Exhaustion and stress from such a rich experience makes kids feel vulnerable/overwhelmed. As a parent that’s the time to avoid big discussions or expect much.
Talked to son today. In the middle of a very busy day for me, I get a text: “can talk rn” after trying unsuccessfully to communicate with him over the past week and weekend. I took the call and was so happy to see him (Facetime/Skype really makes a difference for me). He was smiling and did not appear to be homesick at all. There may have been a glimmer of it when I was telling him about the great weekend we had in the mountains.
@SevenDad – I told him that average was alright with me if he was learning and feeling good about himself. I told him how proud I was of him and how I think that he is an awesome kid - he smiled and overall seemed to be in a much better place compared to prior conversations. I think that the mid-day call has a totally different feel and I agree with @jdewey about that.
This forum has helped me so much and I am very appreciative of the experienced parents’ advice.