Helping Your Kids With Homesickness

Home sickness is common in adults, teenager and kids. But the intensity to which it affects each age group varies. Since the teenagers and kids are less matured than the adults, the anxiety level is higher in them. Home sickness is psychological, a feeling of loneliness experienced on parting with favourite objects, parents, friends, familiar environment and moving to a new one .

Some people get over it fairly quickly and adapt and adjust to the new environment while others take a long time. Some develop emotional, cognitive or physical disorders too. In extreme cases, physical health problems come up. There are many cases where people have developed suicidal tendency too.

Homesickness Cures

Every problem has a cure so does homesickness. To come out of it the parents should encourage kids to make friends in the new environment so that they don’t miss home. Gradually with passage of time, they would come out of it.

Homesickness in children: Children experience home sickness when they go to at a new school, summer camps, sleepovers etc. It’s the duty of the parents to mentally prepare the kids to stay away to avoid homesickness. Parents must build up excitement about the whole trip in the kids. They tell them about what are the things to do see there, who all would accompany them, where they would stay etc. They should also make them understand that they would come back after a few days. This way the kids would be mentally prepared and would know what to expect and the anxiety level will come down as well. As a comforter the kids should be allowed to take their favorite stuff like pillow, teddy bear or toys etc.

When they are away, the parents should stay in touch with them. On returning after the trip, the children should be praised for their attempt.

Homesickness in teenagers: Home sickness develops in teenagers when they go to boarding schools or colleges. For them, more than the parents help, self help would be the best help. They should make new friends at college, join a library and read during spare time, walk around the place and familiarize themselves with the surrounding, indulge in some hobby like painting etc to get rid of home sickness. Parents and the children should stay in touch with each other by way of phone, cards, letters etc. The parents could pay a surprise visit to college to see their wards.

These are some of the measures that could be taken to cure homesickness. To sum it up, in kids homesickness can be solved by parents while in teenagers and adults its personal efforts that would solve the issue.