<p>Has anyone done this? We have several lovely options about 45 minutes from home. It's a doable commute, but difficult, especially when you add in 2 jobs and younger siblings, so we are looking at the possibility of boarding, but love the idea of getting to stay more closely connected to our child and have wondered about boarding, but coming home on free weekends. </p>
<p>Understanding the realities of school schedules (I know about closed weekends and Saturday classes), is sort of creating our own 5-day boarding plan a realistic possibility? Is it a good idea or a terrible idea? What pitfalls should I be considering?</p>
<p>This sounds like a great idea on paper, but I suspect you will be disappointed when your child prefers to stay on campus most free weekends to hangout at the “slumber party” w his/her new friends.</p>
<p>45 minutes is great commute when you imagine being able to watch athletic events and attend other parent-friendly events on campus. </p>
<p>Back in my day, kids who went home every weekend were called 5 1/2 day boarders, and I’m pretty sure most schools got rid of this option because it was having a negative impact on the boarding population as a whole. If most kids filtered out over the weekend, a school would have trouble scheduling activities for the remaining kids on campus, etc.</p>
<p>Would I pick up my kids every weekend if we only lived 45 minutes away? No. And I don’t think they’d want to come home because they enjoy the weekend life at their schools too much. Plus, I think they get into a rhythm they don’t want to break.</p>
<p>Occasionally, (and I’m several hours away from both schools) I’ll offer to pick them up (if I sense they’re having a particularly grueling week and can use a night to relax and sleep in their own bed), but they always say no. I try not to take it personally. :)</p>
<p>…and my daughter says that hardly anyone leaves on the weekends at her school, even if they are only a few hours away, because the weekends are the best part of the week.</p>
<p>So yeah, it’s doable, but your kid probably won’t take you up on the offer very much. Heck, I think if my daughter could stay at school over thanksgiving with all her friends still there, she probably would.</p>
<p>It will also depend on the school’s willingness. My daughter’s school, for example, limits the number of “overnights” per term. In her case, she is allowed 2 per term. There are options to earn more based on certain benchmarks being met, but it would never be enough for trips home every weekend. I asked if it counted against nights spent with parents – the answer was yes. </p>
<p>So , if that is your ideal situation, make sure you ask that question during the search process… it may also be addressed in the student handbooks…</p>
<p>We have a 9th grader at a boarding school that is about an hour away (more in traffic!). He has been home 3 times since September including part of parents weekend. We have been up to visit him on a few more days, and both sets of grandparents have visited him to. We were also able to attend sporting events this fall. He would not want to come home every weekend. In some ways he initially wanted to come home every weekend for martial arts class that he does on a drop in basis when he is home. </p>
<p>His school is majority boarding, so there are activities, clubs, group projects, etc. going on over the weekend. Next term he might have sports in the evening, including Friday nights, so leaving then would be hard.</p>
<p>If there are many students who leave for the weekend it might be doable, but your child might feel even more torn about going home vs. campus life if s/he feels you want that child home (and the siblings).</p>
<p>There are some schools that still offer 5 day boarding, but they often have a small boarding population.</p>
<p>It sounds pretty ideal to offer your child the experience of attending as a boarder but being so close that you can see games, have him home some weekends and just be around his school life. I went to a BS as a day student and traveled 45 minutes to school and back everyday (in the winter it was rough as we had sports and left home in the dark and arrived in the dark…) I doubt you will get him home every weekend he is free but you will certainly have better proximity than most parents.</p>
<p>I was a boarder in this situation–bus from school took half an hour to the subway, then 10 minutes to our front door.</p>
<p>I certainly didn’t use it every weekend, but it helped get me through when there were some bad dorm dynamics in junior and senior years. Sometimes the best way to steer clear of problems is to simply “absent” yourself.</p>
<p>Again, this was by no means a routine weekend flight, but I’d guess I spent about one weekend a month at home between fall of junior year and midwinter of senior year. For me, it was invaluable.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback everyone. It definitely had occurred to me that my child may choose to stay (I would guess increasingly as time goes on) and we would have to be ready for that. We are definitely checking with schools as we go to see what their policies are. We may end up fully day or fully boarding, but I think a combo could be the right thing for us – at least at the start.</p>