Returning home from a wilderness program can be a jarring and complex time for teenagers and young adults. It is a returning, often exhausted, from an intense and life-changing sprint towards health and healing to something much slower, changed, and abstract. In order to reconnect and attune to your child during this time, it’s important to deepen understanding about what this can look and feel like from their perspective. Cindy Ross, a backpacker, thru hiker of the Pacific Crest Trail, and author describes the sensation, "Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking. You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits." In this post, I’ll share more about what your child might be experiencing as well as offer a few ideas around how to support them through this tricky time.
Transition is jarring.
This transition from the wild to home, is marked by stark contrasts regarding sensory intake, nutrition and sleep cycles, and the presence of choices. Students returning from the wilderness often experience significant sensory overwhelm. They have grown accustomed to the crickets, rain, and the same 10 people’s voices. They return to check-out lines, lockers slamming in school hallways full of people, and movie theaters. Take a moment of silence to take in the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations around you. Not only are they likely different than wilderness sounds, but they are louder, stronger, more intense, and happening all at once. Parents can support their child by planning slower, quieter transition activities. Think card game versus movie theater. Dinner at home or in the hotel versus a restaurant. A smaller local shop versus Walmart.
Students often find it easy to fall asleep and sleep deeply in the wilderness. Without access to electricity or a headlamp, students quickly settle into a circadian rhythm. They experience consistent movement and exercise. Students wind down from the day with community circles or stories told by staff rather than their phones blue light buzz. While the transition home often comes with elements that would seemingly encourage good sleep - a temperature controlled bedroom and a tempurpedic bed - the circadian rhythm, movement, exercise, and wind down routine are not immediately available to them. To help ease the transition, parents can encourage waking up at the same time every day (even the weekends). They can offer to go on a hike or walk, play a VR game, or get them plugged into a gym nearby. It can also feel helpful to set times when your phone switches to a warmer-toned night mode and put them away an hour before bedtime.
Students’ digestive tracts become adjusted to healthy, consistent nutrition with a blend of vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates. There are rarely overly greasy or processed sugary foods. In addition, without distractions, students often become more attuned to their bodys’ signals and eat closer to the amount that is needed. So, as you can imagine, the digestive tract is in for a rude awakening when greasy, sugary, or even different foods are reintroduced, as well as the distraction of phones, tv shows, and diet culture advertising. A “first meal” consisting of specifically what your child has been craving is unavoidable. But, parents can ask their child to cook their favorite wilderness meal together and incorporate their favorite wilderness foods into their day-even a simple educational moment to share about impacts of greasy or super-sugary foods on the digestive tract can go along way. Personally, I like to lead a round of “would you rather” - spend time in the bathroom or out enjoying the “real world”.
And then there is the reintroduction of so many choices. Students in the wilderness experience simple, routine days where many things remain consistent and given. Clothing, gear, and meals remain the same. Students know what days they’ll be hiking, when staff will change, and when their therapist visits. There is a predictable and consistent routine to every day. From the moment of waking up, students typically know what they need to do, how quickly they should get it done, and rewards and consequences if tasks aren’t accomplished. Imagine all the choices that reenter the equation with a return home. What will I wear today? What will I eat? Which show will I watch? What picture will I post? Which filter should I use? Life is suddenly all choices, all the time. Parents can work with their child to create little parts of the day or week that remain consistent and even that mirror wilderness routines. Sunday is spaghetti night. Tuesday is Grey’s Anatomy night. Try helping them develop a night and morning routine.
Transition is emotionally complex.
Students often experience confusing ambivalence as they leave their wilderness experience. On one hand, they are thrilled to take a shower, eat the aforementioned hamburger and milkshake, and check their social media. Alternately, many students have developed some of the deepest, most authentic, vulnerable, silly relationships to date. With the return home, they’ve moved from a head-up, real life, “I see you” and “I’ve been there too” community to head-down, 2-D, 15 second surface-level relationships. In the wilderness, they’ve become leaders in their group. They’ve mastered fire and backcountry camping. They may not have this established sense of success and respect in the real world. Students are excited to return home and reconnect with friends but anxious about reputations that may have developed while away. Students have learned skills that have helped, but now must begin to translate their newly acquired skills to the real world. Coping skills learned in wilderness that became second-nature are not always easily replicable and take some figuring out. Communication skills once done at a snail mail pace happen in-person, in real time, and can feel confusing and overwhelming. Sometimes, it’s just awkward sitting across from your parents after having been so vulnerable or disclosing big information in letters. One of the best approaches parents can take as their child is processing all of these complex emotions is to simply listen, hold space, and let them set the pace. Silence is okay. Talking non-stop about inside jokes you really don’t get is also okay. Sad is okay. Elated is okay. Wanting space is okay. Wanting to cuddle is okay. Wanting to gripe and complain about the experience is okay. Wanting to bowdrill in the backyard and take you camping is okay.
Most of all, transition is a step forward; It’s getting reacquainted after the most incredible, intense, incomparable experience. It’s learning who your child is now and showing them who you are. It’s moving forward with more knowledge and just as much love and as always, doing the best you can with what you have.