Discuss and Prepare:
- Share positive stories or experiences you or others have had at similar camps.
- Involve the student in the decision-making process. Have them help label and pack their gear. Here is the packing list.
- Talk to your student about the upcoming camp experience. It is a myth that talking about missing home will increase the risk of it. In reality, studies show the exact opposite. A good conversation about missing home can help buffer a student and make the feeling of missing home less overwhelming because there is a coping plan in place.
Do’s and Don’ts:
Do:
- Discuss and Prepare:
- Share positive stories or experiences you or others have had at similar camps.
- Involve the student in the decision-making process. Have them help label and pack their gear. Here is the packing list.
- Talk to your student about the upcoming camp experience. It is a myth that talking about missing home will increase the risk of it. In reality, studies show the exact opposite. A good conversation about missing home can help buffer a student and make the feeling of missing home less overwhelming because there is a coping plan in place.
- Please let your student know that this is a perfectly normal feeling if they encounter it.
- Let them know all ages miss home. The more practice a person gets with the sensations, the easier it gets for major transitions later on in life.
- Come up with strategies how to handle the feeling (e.g. talk to a staff member, write a letter home, try to list 3 things they really enjoyed so far that day and 3 things they are looking forward to)
- Help provide perspective. One’s age impacts how one perceives the passage of time.
- Have them write an encouraging letter to their future self about what they are looking forward to and put it in their luggage. It is there for them to access at any point.
- Send them encouraging mail. You can even write a letter and put a note on it that it should be delivered by the staff when needed.
- Seriously. Staff members still have the letters their guardians sent them when they were students. Mail is a very big deal for students.
Don’ts:
- Please do not promise that they can call you or you will come get them. While well intentioned, this can undermine that camp is a safe place. It significantly increases the risk of missing home.
- Don't encourage them to break the academy policies in the family manual. That underminds the safety of the camp.
- Please do not assume that someone who has attended before won’t miss home. Camp is a change to a person’s routine, and that is all that is needed. A person is not being “a baby”. Transitions are hard.
Pre-Camp Familiarization:
This is not your typical summer camp experience. This is an interactive and responsive adventure. Pre-season prep makes a huge difference in a person's experience.
- Review the orientation packet, grimoire, lore wikipedia, and family policy manual at least.
- Watch the introduction skit videos and read the artifacts deployed over Remind.
- While the grimoire provides a generic information-organization system for someone walking in off the street, this camp operates on many layers. Most participants engage with only the first two, but there are far more—over eight in total (the exact number intentionally undisclosed). Historically, some campers have used the prep season to develop their own information-management systems, arriving with Rolodexes, meticulously organized notebooks, and similar tools. The more preparation one does in advance, the greater their chances of uncovering the camp’s deeper, hidden plotlines.
- Review the packing list and ensure everything is labeled and ready to go.
Foster Independence: Things that You Can Do BEFORE Camp To Help Make The Transition Easier For Your Camper
- Practice Separation If Able:
- Gradually increase the time spent away from home leading up to camp, such as sleepovers or short trips with trusted family or friends.
- Ideally, it is best to let a camper practice separation in an unfamiliar environment with a novel routine if able. Spending a week at a grandparents is the not the same as going to an overnight camp on their own.
- Please let your student know that this is a perfectly normal feeling if they encounter it. Let them know all ages miss home. The more practice a person gets with the sensations, the easier it gets for major transitions later on in life.
- Roleplay different scenarios they may encounter (e.g. a conflict with a peer, what do if you are unsure, what to do if someone makes you angry, what to do if someone irritates you). Please teach them how to advocate for themselves. it helps their confidence significantly when you do that.
- Slowly encourage them to take on routines (e.g. making their bed, getting ready in the morning, making sure they are keeping items on them, chores around the house) if they are not already doing this.
- Two weeks out before camp, consider having them practice keeping a water bottle and day bag on them. There are five required items that everyone has to keep on them at camp: Day bag, water bottle, neck cooler, bandana, and wand. The two most commonly misplaced items are the day bag and water bottle since they cannot be physically attached to a person.
- Kapers are camp chores. Everyone, even the director, does them.
- Involve the student in the decision-making process. Have them help label and pack their gear. The packing list is on the adventurer's compendium.