<p>Do you currently trust your kids? When they are at boarding school away from you, will you trust them more or less? Why? </p>
<p>I'm a kid by the way :)</p>
<p>Yes before. Yes during. Yes after. Having said that, I did, do and will expect some small number of bad judgments, but not enough to constitute a pattern.</p>
<p>My views pretty much reflect those of ThacherParent.</p>
<p>^^^ Same here.</p>
<p>zp</p>
<p>If you do not trust them, then NO WAY they should go to boarding school. They accept a lot of responsibility at boarding school, everything from when to go to bed, to when to schedule homework, what to eat, when to clean their room. So having had one stay home and one that went away, the one that went away I probably trust more (I don’t have a choice). And he has made no bad choices (yet).</p>
<p>p.s. to my post above. Now that winterset has proclaimed trust in his/her children in “when to clean their room”, I must confess that I don’t trust my son at all to clean his room. He is a slob. I hope, however, that his BS will correct this flaw. I know that my wife and I have failed. Hence…one more reason to entrust your child to a BS. Let the school worry about it!</p>
<p>^^^All true. But to answer whether parents trust their kids more or less after they go to BS, know that it’s a dynamic process. Ask them on different days you may get different answers. BS is where you grow up and GAIN trust and respect. Act responsibly, take initiative and work hard, and just as importantly ask for help when you need it. That’s the way to gain trust from your parents.</p>
<p>That has been one huge, unexpected benefit to boarding school- they now clean up their rooms! Never thought I’d see the day…</p>
<p>Don’t completely deride the benefit of a clean room, especially when small animals can bred in dirty ones. I still await the day that my son’s BS forever changes his awful habit of making a hellish mess of his bed room. As of yet, no such miracle. I can still pray, however. If this BS corrects his filthy habit (and I do mean that literally), the numbling amount of tuition I paid that BS could alone almost, almost be worth the price.</p>
<p>Good luck with that, toombs! By the way, how structured is his school. Wait a minute, it’s Andover, right? Double good luck!!</p>
<p>At one school they sell mouse traps at the book store. At first all it did was entice the guys to keep the rooms filthy so they could compete on who could catch the most mice. The room inspections quickly squashed that contest. To the initial question, Yes we trust them to make the right decisions but always remind them that there are consequences, good and bad to the decisions they make. Learn from other people’s mistakes and most of all to look out for each other. Try not to let your friends do anything stupid and know when to walk away from a harmful situation. Having said that, I/we do realize they are teenagers and making mistakes at that age comes with the package. We never let up on reminding them and are quick in pointing out examples of poor judgement.</p>
<p>ops, great post! You said it much better than I could!</p>
<p>If you give a guy a mousetrap… ops your post truly made me laugh out loud.</p>
<p>I trust his judgement but I believe it will be tested more when he is home on break. Old friends develop new interests and not all of them are positive. As these changes happen, he is not here to react and add widen his circle of friends. How he will deal with it remains to be seen…we’ve only had a preview. So, I trust him but I will be alert.</p>