<p>Hello fellow parents. DS (age 14) is doing GREAT at boarding school & loves it...he is thriving & all is well. He had fallen in with a very bad local peer group before going...started experimenting with all the usual parents' nightmare behaviors. "Mom & Dad", despite the best of intentions, seemed to be the worst place for him...incited anger & rebellion. So...any suggestions on what to do for the long breaks (winter, spring, summer) that are coming up? The school totally shuts down. Money is a consideration, but his welfare comes first of course. Staying with relatives is not an option. Unfortunately, though we filled last summer with a variety of summer camps, he was introduced to drugs/smoking/alcohol at all of them...perhaps because he was looking for it & the relative freedom allowed it. His peer resistance, at least right now, is poor. So we cannot have him at home (bad peer group, anger at parents, refusal to obey any rules at all)...& the summer programs, though supervised, could not keep the kids totally supervised if they were bent on trouble. Any ideas? Please. He is a good kid, but going through a tough time...my hunch is that, just given a couple more years to mature & continuing influence of his new environment, he will pull out of this. In the meantime, how to keep him safe when away from school, and not willing/able to make good decisions on his own?</p>
<p>Is winter vacation the first long break?
How about a family trip away from home?
I bet the parent/child dynamics will be improved after a semester of independence.</p>
<p>For spring break, many churches in our area do mission trips or service learning trips. Do you have anything like that available? Kids come home tired and grateful.</p>
<p>Depending on your circumstances you could consider sending him to boarding school summer programs at a different campus. Not a total solution, but it might help.</p>
<p>I know that at one point Duke’s TIP program mailed us a book on every gifted summer program available. For instance, Woods Hole Oceanographic used to pair with a local school for a program where high school students combined science experiments with learning to sail a tall ship.</p>
<p>Boys scouts also does treks out to (drats, can’t think of the camp – Philmont?) where boys learn survival skills away from home. Our Girl Scouts were on the same train with several troops heading there while we on our way to a service project in Arizona.</p>
<p>I feel your pain. Maybe getting him into a local program where he can volunteer his time (and become exhausted from it) such as Habitat for Humanity, etc.</p>
<p>Hang in there…C</p>
<p>Boy Scout camps generally won’t do much good because you have to go with your troop from back home (this is one of the things I really don’t like about Boy Scouts–I have so many good memories of meeting new friends at GS camp and hate it that they’re stuck at camp with the same kids they see all year)</p>
<p>Check out camps like Widjiwagan, run by the Y–focus on outdoor survival and adventure–and I’ve yet to meet a kid who didn’t love it. Expensive though.</p>
<p>What does your son like to do? If he’s passionate about a sport, what about a long stint at a camp that focuses on his sport of choice? and does the BS offer any community service projects during any of the breaks? </p>
<p>Also, what about encouraging him to bring home a friend from BS (one that can’t travel home due to long distance) during the winter or spring breaks? The friend would be an alternative to hang out with rather than the “bad local peer group” and might also provide a buffer between you and your son? No kid wants to have a screaming fight with their parents in front of their friend. </p>
<p>He may also mature during his time away and may not be so rebellious when he does come home.</p>
<p>The update - thanks, everyone - this board is great! All good suggestions. We did do a family vacation over the long winter holiday & it worked out well. Son is indeed maturing & the teachers have commented on it. Time away from mom & dad seems to have calmed a lot of the teenage rebellion. I keep reminding myself, growing up is a process, not an event!</p>
<p>Thanks for the update…that is good news!</p>
<p>2kids–I second the “thanks for the update”. I some times look at old threads and wonder what has happened with some families.</p>
<p>Thanks for reminding me that growing is a process not an event.</p>
<p>I am truly glad for your son and his family. :-)</p>