“My daughter hates being away from home for long periods of time without me and her father,” Sharifa writes. “Homesickness has always been in her. She doesn’t stay with classmates and she doesn’t know how soon to get home after school.”
Soon we will go on vacation again. Every year we go to a campsite somewhere in Europe and every year she comes along well. But she finds it difficult. It reassures her that we are there, but she still panics regularly and finds it difficult to fall asleep at night. How can I help her?”
Origin problems
When a child is homesick, it is important not only to examine the child’s feelings and thoughts – but also your own as a parent. So says child and parenting coach Tea Adema. “Homesickness problems often arise from mother or father’s unconscious fears. That is why it is important for this mother to ask herself in the first place: are you influencing your daughter’s fears? Have you always found it exciting to let her go her own way? How much can you bear as a mother if you do not have your daughter under your supervision?”
Adema has often experienced in her practice how great the influence of a parent can be. “I’ve even dictated text messages to a mother of a child who went to camp. We agreed what she would and wouldn’t answer, so as not to increase the pressure on her child. Replying to the slightest thing, “I’ll come and pick you up,” only fuels the feeling of homesickness.”
Find openings
The fact remains, of course, despite the self-examination, that the girl’s homesickness is there and does not just go away. “It is there and it may also be there,” says Adema. “Now you have to find ways to deal with it. Since this family has been going abroad for years, apparently it works. Ask questions about this: ‘How do you manage to get through the holidays?’ “What did you think during the holidays, what did you do, what worked?” Really sit down with the whole family to look for openings to alleviate the problem.”
Homesickness won’t go away
The aim is not to make the homesickness disappear, explains Adema. “This belongs to her and it’s up to her what she wants to do with it. If she doesn’t want to stay, fine. You don’t have to force her. There will come a time when she feels like she’s missing out if she doesn’t get involved, and then you can be there to help her out. At some point, a child has to wake up on her own and decide whether she wants to keep the problem or do something about it.”
“For example, there are plenty of ways to learn to deal with stress and tension. This may or may not be possible with a therapist or coach. I always emphasize: you should always do something like this together. If you send your child to a therapist, but don’t come along yourself, it’s useless. Please don’t do that to your child.”
Accept and normalize
Until then, Adema advises: “Accept, normalize and investigate what is going well and what is possible. You can help your child by not making it more dramatic than it is. For example, I once treated a homesick boy who told me that he cried so hard when he was staying with grandparents. I analyzed together with him: ‘What were you worried about? And how bad was that? You eventually fell asleep, so what was the problem in the end? I don’t mean to trivialize it, but by staying sober and normalizing you can also make a child see a lot.”
Don’t want to miss anything from VROUW? Especially for the most loyal readers, we send an email every day with all our daily highlights. Subscribe here.