Have you been able to meet or establish friendships w/ other BS parents and families?

In our town there is a very strong and expansive network of parents who know each other from activities and events that include their children at the local high school. It seems to be a great way to learn helpful information that can be a little difficult for new parents to uncover. For example, our local HS has a list of mandatory .25 or .5 semester classes that students are required to take that can interfere with yearlong AP classes. A mom told me recently that those required classes can be taken over the summer online to allow for free blocks or make room for 2 semester classes during the regular school year.

Are there opportunities for BS parents to network or establish friendships with each other? Or I am I missing the point of boarding school?

In my experience, not really. I have acted as a mentor to families from our hometown to new parents who joined our school. Once I moved closer to the school, I watched many of the moms I mentored take over that role. Your school can match you up with parents in your town- ours has a family directory. Also I did make friends with my sons friends parents over the years. I think it depends on the school culture.

Well, I met quite a few of my BS-Parent “best friends” right here on CC ;-)! You can definitely establish friendships with other parents, but it may just take a bit more effort. Parents Weekend, drop-off/pick-up etc. are great times to socialize. I also try to meet & have a relationship with the parents of my daughter’s friends. Everyone really does seem friendly and open to it - we are all in the same boat.

It’s pretty limited. Mostly with other parents of teammates on the sidelines at games. I kind of felt that the friendships were just getting going by the time the kids’ graduated.

I don’t think you are missing the point. However, there are not a lot of opportunities to get to know other parents/families. There are event-packed family weekends or drop-off/pick up that have a certain time-is-limited, I-want-to-support-my-child air to them. If you are close enough to come up on weekends, I could see bonding with others in the same boat. Otherwise it involves more of an effort to take every opportunity to reach out to kids’ friends’ parents. I second what @doschicos said.

It’s difficult. I’m kind of socially awkward as it is, and I seem to become more so at school visits! Meanwhile, I can’t participate in my local friends’ school-related conversations and no longer see many people who I knew only through my children’s public school. So parents can lose part of their social network without gaining a new one.

Like @doschicos, we’ve become friendly with some of the other families we saw every weekend when we drove up for games. One family in particular has a boy our DS’ age (both underclassmen on the varsity team) and they have become friends; they live in our general area and the boys are making plans to take drivers’ ed together this summer. I also know a small handful of fellow alum parents from “back in the day”, as well as events. I recently volunteered to help with the M10 “congrats” calls and the revisit days; will require a day off of work but might be fun, and I’m hoping will be a good way to get to know some of the other volunteer moms and dads.

We live across the country from Choate and were only on campus three times a year, so no real time to form any meaningful or lasting parent relationships and no BS parents locally, none. CC is my BS family, and anything I’ve needed to know I’ve gotten from you all. I don’t think you’re missing the point of BS to want to have fellowship with parents who are walking this same road, but I think you can trust your child and the BS to handle the curriculum planning and minutiae of BS life and schooling. We are in the camp that that’s what we paid for and stayed out completely. Others find a different balance. If you are worried that you need a parent support group to help you help your child get through BS because, without it, you fear you or your child will take some terrible misstep, then I’d said that misses the point.

I think there are opportunities to make some friendships there, but it definitely takes some more work than if your child attends the local school down the street. I’ve connected on this forum with a few parents and then made a point of trying to meet them, even if only briefly, at parents’ weekend. While there aren’t a lot of families in our immediate geographic area with kids attending our kids’ BS, there are some and I’ve made a point of meeting most of them. We’ve carpooled occasionally, or done each other favors of dropping something off at school if we were going to be out there. Some of the moms have gotten together for dinner every now and again, which is lots of fun. We’ve also volunteered to help host admissions events for the school, both during interview season and then after acceptances. Those have all been good ways to get to know more of the parents. If we’re out at the school to watch a game, I try to introduce myself to other parents cheering their kids on, and have ended up becoming friendly with a few of them that way. If we take our kids out to dinner and let them invite a friend or two along, I always make a point of emailing the other kids’ parents afterwards – even if I don’t know them – just to say that I laid eyes on their kid and they seem happy and well. That usually generates some nice exchanges.

Basically, my view is that email is your friend. It’s way easier to make connections with other families in this day and age of email than it would have been years ago. I’ve “cold-called” (by way of email) parents of my kids’ friends to invite them to visit us, parents of their roommates – all of whom live much further away than we do – to express a willingness to help out if they ever need something from someone who doesn’t live on another continent, and parents of kids who live in the area to ask for/offer rides. I’ve also suggested that the families of their closest friends get together for drinks and dessert during parents’ weekend, which was a lot of fun.

If you don’t feel comfortable just contacting other parents out of the blue, then I’d suggest you volunteer through the admissions office. They always want current parents to help with events, make calls, etc. My kids’ school has a member of the Development Office whose job is specifically “Parent Programming” and she’s been a good resource as well for figuring out how to connect with people.

I think my advocacy for SAS here helped make “in real life” connections with some parents of kids who enrolled there after 7D1. It’s 100% boarding, so all the parents are in a similar boat…and I think many try to make the various arts/parent/regatta weekends as they can. So we’d see familiar faces every few months.

Funny story: at SAS graduation last year, a parent of 2015er that I never had much interaction with over the previous 4 years came up to me after the ceremony and said “You’re SevenDad on CC, right? I just wanted to let you know how much your posts meant to me over the years.” Truthfully, I got kind of choked up.

SevenDad: That fan parent has lots of company, I think. Count me in! I know that yours is a voice of reason on this board and that the advice given by you, ChoatieMom, PhotographerMom and ExieMITAlum was incredibly helpful to me as I went through the application process 3 years ago with my daughter… and continues to be welcome and helpful to this day. : )

@ #9, the “same boat” is on point for SAS because lots of the parents are within one to three hours driving time and would linger at the opportunities, so abundantly afforded, to socialize together. (The crew regattas on Noxontown Pond do take the cake, with so many parents cooking and getting in launches on the water.) The small size of the school and each class being about 70+ students keeps the names manageable. If all BS have an astonishing sense of “community” within the universe of American education, I’m confident that certain features of SAS serve to heighten the sense of it among the parents.

I have made some friends with my kids’ parents over the years, in RL thought not on CC. I think among us just everyone have hung around CC as a lurker and/or posted occasionally, but we’ve never talked about CC. I think most of our friends are even less active than I am on here. To us it’s an information source where anonymous posters exchange ideas, so often times we’d say “oh I read online that a parent or a student did what what… Some others suggested he should…”. I know they were talking about CC but what’s the difference. I know everyone is different but I personally never thought that an Internet board where you try every way to hide your identity is a best platform to form an “interest group” or make friends. There are plenty other more effective platforms for that purpose. Just my viewpoint. YMMV

“Kids’ parents” = “kids’ schoolmates’ parents” (/awkward )

I definitely made a few and it helped that I’m extraverted. I could see it being a bit of a tough environment for an introvert.

I was fortunate in that DS1 was a varsity athlete his first Fall on campus and that there was a very active parents group that supported the team. A group email list was quickly established. One of the local parents became team mom and since everyone knew her she made sure to introduce people to each other. I’m only 100 miles from DS1’s school, not sure what I would have done if I was across country. DS1 had friends that stacked a small house his upper and senior year. (Stacked meaning a group of 8 friends took the entire dorm). There were enough dorm functions over the last two years that we saw other parents enough to build relationships. I have been to 3 homes of DS1 friends parents and several have been to mine. I would not describe them as deep friendships and agree with earlier point that by time the relationship solidify graduation has arrived.

Not really. Best chance of doing this is to volunteer for parents association or fundraising committee.

The PM feature here has enabled me to make IRL friends. Believe me, we’re not anonymous on PM.

I’ve never cared much about anonymity. I outed my kid within weeks of joining here.

There have been a few parents we have connected with over the years - meals during parent’s weekend, facebook posts, holiday cards, etc. A few we knew from DS middle school. We did go to some JV sports games when he was in 9th grade but didn’t meet too many parents that way.

It’s one of the things I found hardest about BS. Our social network in our hometown was very much rooted in school activities and my D was the only kid in her grade (that I know of) that went off to BS. I found my circle of friends shrunk substantially. Then we moved cross country in the middle of Junior year so… We are friendly with the parents of our D’s former roommate but that’s pretty much it.

I think there are two separate themes in @Xystus OP. The first has to do with forming a new group of friends around the BS parents. On that, I’d say, maybe you can establish some friendly acquaintances, but probably not real friends unless you’re really lucky. Parents at our local HS have a history with each other that generally dates back to kindergarten, and they continue to face logistical issues (pick-ups, scheduling issues, school politics) that are different for BS parents. The CC folks (as always!) have already given a bunch of good ways to connect with other BS parents, especially through events that allow contact with the same parents on a repeated or extended basis – attending games, volunteering to help with day long events, serving on an event or issues committee. And I have used @soxmom’s e-mail method as well, especially if I’ve taken a camera with me, to send a photo of someone’s child.

If you’re asking, though, how do you get the “inside scoop” (i.e., you’re allowed to take a course over the summer, avoid Mr. XYZ’s class, etc.), the established channels may work for most of that. Our experience is that the school would rather have you take up these issues with them than wonder about or game them. (I’ve also been amazed at how often I’ve talked to someone at school about something and seen that my input is reflected in a new policy or program – I think that schools genuinely are interested in feedback if it’s not confrontational.) Teachers, coaches, dorm parents, advisors, deans – they’re all accessible.

If I had one thing to do over, I’d have been bolder about finding out what the expectations were around parental communication – with whom, how often, for what. We were very hands off, and while the expectation at BS is that your kids will be independent, I think that the schools also know that these are quite young people, and that you know your child best. We pretty much accepted the communications we got, met teachers on visiting weekends, etc. Some parents were checking in with teachers or dorm parents quite regularly – this never crossed our minds! When I’ve felt like we needed to talk to someone, most exchanges have begun with “I wish you’d come to me with this earlier” and people have been REALLY helpful with whatever it is. Chatting with other parents on visiting days, at events, or whatever has always been eye-opening, whether I knew them or not, so I’d suggest that you take advantage of these situations as much as possible. These generally pointed us toward the right channels for info rather than providing it directly. You don’t need to know people first (or maintain a relationship afterwards); remember that most parents don’t know many other parents either. Lastly, if your school has both day and boarding students, you may find that each is tapped into a different channels (for whatever reason), so don’t assume that only a parent whose kid share the same status as yours can be helpful.