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Article Excerpt
The goal of the present study was to investigate how the quality of the mother-child relationship, social self-concept, and the quality of peer relationships predict girls' feelings of homesickness at a residential summer camp. We expected that children with secure attachments to their mothers, a more positive social self-concept, and better relationships with peers would report less homesickness at camp. Girls were 8 to 12 years of age. Mother-child attachment was assessed with a questionnaire and an interview completed prior to camp. Social self-concept was assessed with a questionnaire prior to camp, and peer relationships were assessed with questionnaires at camp. Peer relationships and social self-concept, but not mother-child attachment, were related to homesickness at camp. Social self-concept prior to camp and peer social support and friendship quality at camp predicted subsequent homesickness, whereas homesickness early in camp did not predict later assessments of peer relationships at camp. The findings suggest that social self-concept and relationships with peers may be protective factors for homesickness at summer camp.
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Homesickness, defined as "distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home" (Thurber & Sigman, 1998, p. 903), can interfere with children's ability to enjoy experiences away from home and away from family members. There is a small literature on factors related to homesickness in children (reviewed in Thurber & Sigman, 1998). Studies have usually included children attending boarding schools or summer residential camps. To account for individual differences in homesickness, most prior studies have focused on child characteristics such as perceived control, prior experience at camp, or age. For example, several studies have suggested that children who have prior experiences with separation from home may be less likely to experience homesickness (Fisher, Elder, & Peacock, 1990; Fisher, Frazer, & Murray, 1986; Thurber, 1995; Thurber & Sigman, 1998; Thurber & Weisz, 1997). The most comprehensive and well-tested theory of homesickness (Thurber & Sigman, 1998; Thurber, Sigman, Weisz, & Schmidt, 1999) proposes that separation experiences and child attachment and control attitudes influence the development of a homesick disposition (i.e., tendency to experience preseparation homesickness), which in turn is the main factor accounting for homesickness at summer camp.
Only a few studies have considered how children's interpersonal relationships may play a role in whether or not children experience homesickness. When relationships have been examined, their presence or absence has often been the focus. For example, Fisher et al. (1986) examined whether the presence or absence of siblings was related to children's adjustment at boarding school. The lack of attention to the quality of children's relationships with others is surprising, given the extensive evidence that the quality of children's relationships with parents and with peers are both strongly related to their emotional adjustment (Contreras & Kerns, 2000; Kerns, in press; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998; Thompson, 1998). In addition, most studies examining the correlates of homesickness have included adolescents or adults (see review in Thurber & Sigman, 1998), and therefore less is known about factors related to homesickness in younger children. The goal of the present study was to investigate how parent-child and peer relationships are related to homesickness at summer camp. We examined this question for children in later middle childhood, as this is typically the earliest age at which children have the experience of attending overnight camp without parents.
One aspect of parent-child relationships that has been linked to children's social and emotional adjustment is the quality of children's attachments to parents (Contreras & Kerns, 2000; Kerns, in press; Thompson, 1998). Children who are securely attached are able to use their attachment figure as a secure base from which to explore and as a haven of safety in times of stress (Bowlby, 1982). There are several reasons why the formation of a secure attachment may in turn be associated with lower levels of homesickness at camp. As Ainsworth and colleagues have noted (1978), attachment can be described in terms of an attachment-exploration balance. When children's security needs are met, they feel freer to explore away from caregivers. Children who form secure attachments to a caregiver are thus able to use that person as a secure base from which to explore the environment (Bowlby, 1982). Studies of children in early childhood have supported this hypothesis, showing that more securely attached children more readily and extensively explore their environments even when parent figures are not physically present (see Grossman, Grossman, & Zimmerman, 1999). Therefore, more securely attached children may be less homesick at camp if they become more involved in exploring the camp environment. More securely attached children have also been shown to have less difficulty regulating their emotions (Contreras, Kerns, Weimer, Gentzler, & Tomich, 2000). For example, more securely attached children use more constructive strategies to cope with problems (Contreras et al., 2000; Kerns, Abraham, Schlegelmilch, and Morgan, 2007), and their greater capacity to regulate their emotions may also lessen their feelings of homesickness.
The hypothesis that insecure attachment predicts homesickness is frequently cited in the homesickness literature (e.g., Brewin, Furnham, & Howes, 1989; Thurber et al., 1999), yet only two studies have tested this hypothesis. Thurber and Sigman (1998) studied 8- to 16-year-old boys who were attending a two-week residential (overnight) summer camp. On the first day of camp they assessed attachment with a questionnaire, and on subsequent days they assessed homesickness. They found that boys who reported more secure attachments were less homesick at camp. However, it is somewhat difficult to interpret their findings regarding attachment because in the main analyses the attachment variable was combined with measures of control to create an index of attitudes and control. In a second study with 8- to 16-year-old girls that used a similar design (Thurber et al., 1999), girls who reported a more secure attachment were less homesick at camp. One limitation to both of these studies is that attachment was assessed during the camp stay, and it is possible that experiences at camp may have colored children's reports of relationships with caregivers.
Our study was designed to provide a more rigorous test of the hypothesis that the formation of a secure attachment is a protective factor that decreases the likelihood of a child subsequently experiencing homesickness at camp. Although the frequency and intensity of attachment behavior to parents declines in middle childhood (Kerns, Tomich, & Kim, 2006), parents are still the preferred attachment figures for children in the later middle-childhood years (Kerns et al., 2006). In our study we focused on mother-child attachment, which we assessed with both a child questionnaire and an interview, and the attachment measures were collected prior to the start of camp. Because security may promote more extensive exploration of the camp environment and be associated with more constructive coping, we expected that more securely attached children would report less homesickness at summer camp. The interview also allowed us to examine whether homesickness is related to particular forms of insecure attachment. Children with ambivalent attachments are prone to expressing distress as a way of eliciting care from attachment figures (Cassidy, 1994). In addition, children who manifest more ambivalent or disorganized attachments have been found to display more negative mood or to have difficulty regulating emotions (Cassidy, 1994; DeOliveira, Bailey, Moran, & Pederson, 2004; Kerns et al., 2007). We therefore predicted that children with either more ambivalent or more disorganized attachments to their mothers would be at greater risk for experiencing homesickness at summer camp. Because avoidant attachment is associated with a strategy of suppressing emotion to avoid the need for contact with attachment figures (Cassidy, 1994), we did not expect avoidance to be related to reports of homesickness at summer camp.
Feelings of homesickness may be influenced not only by attachments to caregivers but also by the relationships children form with other campers. This has been referred to as the peer social support hypothesis (Thurber & Sigman, 1998). Summer camp is a highly social context in which children spend extensive amounts of time with a small group of peers. A key developmental issue for children in middle childhood is to feel accepted by peers and to feel a sense of solidarity or closeness with peers (Gottman & Mettetal, 1986), and therefore perceptions of low social self-concept or perceived difficulties in peer relationships may foster or exacerbate feelings of homesickness. Thus, it may be that children who have positive evaluations of their competence with peers and who develop supportive peer relationships are less prone to experiencing homesickness. Only one study of peers and homesickness has included children in middle childhood. In a study of 8- to 16-year-old girls at summer camp, Thurber et al. (1999) found that girls who reported more homesickness were rated by camp counselors as less accepted by their peers. Our study was designed to examine associations of social self-concept and peer relationships with homesickness in a sample of preadolescent girls. Given the salience of peers in the later middle-childhood years, we expected that girls who reported higher perceived social self-concept in regard to peers prior to camp and those who had more satisfactory relationships with peers at camp would be less homesick at camp.
This study extends the literature by examining how social self-concept and several different aspects of peer relationships are related to homesick ness in girls. First, prior to camp we assessed girls' social self-concept in regard to peers. We expected that girls with positive social self-concept might be more confident about approaching peers and better able to adjust to the social demands of camp and consequently would...
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