<p>I’m with erlanger . It’s easy to get caught up in the glitter of bs acceptance and fail to see the difficulty of living away from home when they’re so young. Boarding school is amazing, and a real solution for certain kinds of kids, but many others would undoubtedly be as happy or happier living at home–like our 12 yo., who won’t be applying to bs unless something changes dramatically in the next year or two.</p>
<p>We are parents who attended bs and value the education that it offers our children in and OUTSIDE of the classroom. </p>
<p>I respectfully disagree with a couple of posts -</p>
<p>1) FULL PAY DOES NOT EQUAL RICH - it might. But it also might equal - stretching our pockets and sacrificing vacation/2nd home/fancy car. Or that grandparents left an educational trust - trust fund does not equal rich either…</p>
<p>2) Not all schools are “SINK OR SWIM” - you must find the school that offers the level of support and supervision that you as a parent are comfortable with. We feel that our children have had excellent moral and academic support and guidance. Yes, there is a level of increased maturity and responsibility required - but a good school will have the structure in place to support the students and help them adapt. </p>
<p>Good luck in the decision. There is no comparison to a bs education - and I don’t mean just academics - but it also isn’t right for everyone.</p>
<p>erlanger - Thanks for clarifying. I agree that BS isn’t right for all kids. Having open lines of communication between parents and BS kids can definitely assist in the process of staying connected and providing parental guidance and support. I’ve had instances similar to the one you described on the other thread and there’s been a few occasions over the past 4 years that have required a few hour long phone calls. Doesn’t quite equal face to face time at home but they were effective nonetheless. I’ve had a few sleepless nights since sending my child off to boarding school but I would imagine I’d experience the same if my child were home every night as well. Our children no longer require the constant attention of their early years but the problems are more complicated whether at boarding or day schools.</p>
<p>mamakiwi, if you were referring to my post about full pay / rich - I agree and that’s why I put it in quotes. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought it might drive home the point to the OP’s mom that many FP kids are hardly rich, just like her. Rereading it, I realize I wasn’t very clear.</p>
<p>Poor and rich are relative terms. To be able to pay $45k plus by any means is not poor and to a lot of people it’s rich.</p>
<p>Thanks DAndrew! I haven’t been very articulate lately.</p>
<p>i have friends at boarding schools who pay full pay but are by no means rich. some parents just do not feel the need to sacrifice that much money,especially when its the only money saved up.</p>
<p>Great posts, Erlanger. I remember reading these boards during the application process two years ago. Posts like yours just rolled right past me because my son was doing so well and was so happy that I just didn’t see anything going wrong. Once he was accepted into his first choice boarding school, we were all thrilled. But the year was not a great one for him. And as independent and self motivated as he was, he struggled with living in dorms without any real adult guidance. Like you say, it was a lot of texting, hoping he’d have time to talk on the phone or on scype, but he was very busy all the time. And we never felt like we were effectively helping him with some of the social issues he was having away from home.</p>
<p>He ended up deciding to transfer back to his old school, and everything’s been great, even though we all miss the traditions and excellence of his boarding school. But we couldn’t be happier to have him home, as the years really fly by and he’ll be off at college soon.</p>
<p>BlakeRob, thanks for sharing your experience on here. I do know exactly what you mean by the lack of “real adult guidance” in boarding schools. In another post, you mentioned he was doing well academically (even made to honor roll) and had friends. Care to elaborate a little more on the “social issues he was having” (in dorms maybe?)? I’m asking only because I’ve always thought if the kid does well academically, has friends and is not breaking rules, it’d be called success in boarding school. Is it perfect? Hardly. There’s a lot more we want to see happening but for various reasons the school simply can’t provide or our kids just don’t care to embrace, which were covered in some of the other posts. Your post made me thinking that maybe there are more “social issues” that could happen or are already happening that I am not aware of?</p>
<p>I’m glad your son is doing well at his new school close to home.</p>
<p>Here’s a live real-time example. My son’s roommate had a friend who told everyone he would be rooming with him (his roommate) next year. The roommate hadn’t broken the news to my son yet, who felt a little hurt since they both acknowledged they felt like brothers to each other, having become fast friends who share a lot of the same interests, though different sports.</p>
<p>As it turns out, the roomie hadn’t entirely decided yet, but the other kid trying to force his hand, & spilled the beans to everyone he coudl trying to make it a reality.</p>
<p>This week, my son told me that the “new” roomie situations for 10th grade that kids were already deciding even before Spring term have all but fallen apart in most instances already.</p>
<p>Now with this much frenzy and focus on this social event (picking new roomies), why wouldn’t the dorm parents or advisors caught wind of it and stepped in, telling them all to refocus on what’s in front of them, and not so much on next year which will happen soon enough? </p>
<p>This is a real life social situation that I was happy I became privvy to and was able to help out, but I would have liked the school to have been better prepared and to have headed this off at the pass. Surely, they’ve got some experience with this. Bet this happens every winter term when kids get claustrophobic from being indoors too much.</p>
<p>DAndrew, I think the social issues, without getting too specific, revolved around some of the typical teenage things. Drinking, smoking pot, casual hookups with girls. The problem for my son was that somehow, he fell into friendships with these guys, (and girls) who were all decent kids, but I think he was a little overwhelmed by it. One of his friends was expelled. Another was being treated for fairly severe depression and took a leave midway through. </p>
<p>Most of our conversations with were not about how great classes were, or the team he played on, but the drama in the dorms. It was hard for him to find the right amount of distance from his friends, and I don’t think the adults were as on top of things as they could have been. Honestly, I think once he changed dorms the next year, things would have been fine. Over the summer, he seemed to have figured things out. But by then he had made the decision to return to his former school. </p>
<p>We’re from a big city, but in a way, my son was a little more sheltered. It was a little frustrating to us that he couldn’t seem to navigate or manage these social issues on his own, and there wasn’t a lot of helpful guidance at the school. Then again, he was 14 at the time, and we tried to put it in perspective. He may have been able to manage his academics, but at 14, not everyone is ready things we weren’t expecting to have to deal with until maybe college! </p>
<p>In the end, it really worked out fine. Leaving the school was a missed opportunity at what we think would have ultimately been a great experience. It just got off to a rough start, and as parents, we just wanted him home.</p>
<p>BlakeRob, thanks for the cool headed analysis. I do see how in boarding schools it takes a lot from the kids to navigate through some complex issues. I think my kid was in a similar situation the second year as your son’s. He did well academically and socially, but had similar issues at times. He was stressed over friends having to leave and how he felt that the school didn’t really “care about” them, etc. I agree that sometimes timing of a decision that has to be made determines which way it goes. He ended up staying, and got more used to his environment with time. </p>
<p>The first year is often most stressful for the parents - there are a lot to get used to, and a lot of expectations to be adjusted. For the kids, usually first year is the “honeymoon”. Sophomore year, if they are still there, they’d start looking at and living their lives more “realistically”. Many <em>hate</em> the infamously hard junior year, but when it’s senior year after all the drama over college is over, they’d love it again and may even become a little nostalgic! :)</p>
<p>BlakeRob,</p>
<p>I believe that what your son found himself in, unmanaged and eventually overwhelming social situations, is probably more the rule than the exception at boarding schools.</p>
<p>It almost becomes a survival contest where it shouldn’t be that at all. I feel that a fair amount of that can be the result of, as was mentioned, lack of adequate adult presence and – yes – supervision.</p>
<p>It’s not that the adults don’t care. But it is, I feel, that they themselves may be just a bit overwhelmed by the almost 24/7 demands put on them, by what amounts to a well-meaning but misguided mandate, called “the triple threat”. This boldly says that the staff must be teachers, coaches and dorm parents. Any one of those activties can be enough to drain one’s energies, but to juggle all three – successfully?! While some (a few) may be able to pull off that kind of pressure, it can be just too much for many others. Guess which of the “threats” is lowest priority? </p>
<p>Were it up to me, they’d drop the triple threat by at least one.</p>
<p>So true! 100% agreed!</p>
<p>Leanid- absolutely true. Boarding school teachers are stretched REALLY thin. One school we looked at Miss Porters, had dorm parents whose only job was to be dorm parents- no teaching or coaching duties. Does anyone know any other schools with that set up?</p>
<p>baystateresident: I was really impressed by that tactic of Miss. Porter’s in having dorm parents who are only there to serve in that very vital capacity. I don’t know of another boarding school that does that as it surely costs a school less $ to have one person serving as many roles as possible. I think that is a great element of MPS dorm life. </p>
<p>redbluegoldgreen: I think that the roommate choice situation you describe happens every year almost everywhere, in my experience. It certainly happened during my boarding school years, and happens now with my child’s boarding school friends. There are always hurt feelings at some point in the process, from which our children grow, but of course it can be hard for us parents. I don’t really know what a school could do to effectively manage that…oh, the fickleness of youth!</p>
<p>During our tour at Westover. we were told that they don’t subscribe to triple threat. Dorm parents, coaches and teachers are all different people.</p>
<p>I agree with the strain of the triple threat…but I know my son really likes getting to know faculty better because they’re his coaches and dorm parents. At Exeter the advisers are assigned by dorm and also serve as dorm faculty; they don’t all live in the dorm, but they all share check-in duty in the evenings in the dorm, so no one is on-call all of the time. Is that how it works at other schools?</p>
<p>It’s great to have his adviser in the dorm twice a week because he’s the dorm faculty member on duty–a good way to informally touch base–I’m not sure my kid would ever bother to hunt up his adviser if he weren’t right there. Maybe faculty as coach OR dorm faculty/adviser, but not both, would be an answer? Or just having more dorm faculty to spread the work around?</p>
<p>Classicalmama- yes, that’s how it works at most schools. We have been lucky and have had a few faculty spouses as full time dorm parents- they might also be former faculty home with a baby, or on sabbatical writing a book for example. But in general the 24/7 work schedule that a lot of boarding school teachers have to live with must be exhausting.</p>
<p>Much of this thread revolves around the difficulties of navigating BS as a frosh or soph., and I for one, am seeing first hand that we may have sent our D away too soon. Anyone want to surmise whether it settles down Jr. year and why–are they so beaten down by work that year so nothing else matters or is it maturity/experience under the belt? I am looking for some hope that the 2d two years of BS might be less painful (to observe as a parent).</p>