^ Less important than what?
Less important than the boarding life experience that she is looking for. Leaving the nest. Living experience away from parents who has been always so close to her with homeschooling.
Also, being able to be with friends from wake up until the bed time, or even during the bed time with double rooms.
She has well adjusted for taking full time community college during the last 5 semesters. There, she can be academically as challenged as she can, and continue to have an excellent EC at college ceramics lab with her favorite professor who taught her the whole time, and 3~4 retired adults semi-professional artists who use the ceramics lab as their hangout location.
She might or might not get the same level of challenging education and excellent EC at a boarding school, although we are sure that it will at least be well satisfactory. That was the price we chose to pay for the boarding benefits.
I can clearly see that being a day school totally works the best for your child and your family. We just have a different situation.
Thank you vegas1 - sounds nice.
Something not often mentioned here but when they leave our nests and live with their peers they are dropped in the deep end of the world of teenagers. Maybe unique to our situation, but that was a huge adjustment for me as a parent ( and Deweykid too). Im not talking about negative situations just rather a major shift from ‘before’
@jdewey I am very interested to hear more about that. Do you think you could elaborate on that thought?
I’m sure @jdewey will elaborate, but I second his post and will say that living with “youth from every quarter” (and A/E do NOT have a lock on that one) is eye-opening. Your child will be exposed to all the diversity that the admissions process creates: students from all over the world and their varying cultures, student from various SES levels, from various types of families, from various political, religious, and sexual persuasions, and so on. Your child will see many things s/he did not see or experience at home – s/he won’t be in Kansas anymore. Our son was almost unrecognizable when he graduated from the kid we dropped off in 2011 and not just due to normal physical growth and exposure to the rich curriculum. His world view and way of interacting with people had matured from exposure to all the diversity he had embraced. He became much more thoughtful and respectful of various behaviors and opinions. His circle of friends was wide and interesting. OTOH, he was also exposed to the baser side of teenage behavior and its consequence, but that was an education, too.
We drive an hour to see our kids on the weekends when there are games or performances (was somewhat more often back when one was playing soccer for two fall seasons). Between those weekends there isn’t much communication, as the girl will text occasionally and the son hardly at all. The idea of “independence” that was abstract before BS will become a lived reality the terms of which I think every kid negotiates for him or herself. For our two, that lack of communication really was their idea. We’ve all learned to deal with it. I suspect that they feel it’s best for them. Our love and physical nearness are manifest, but this is what independence means. And they’re so busy, neither one relishing chit-chat about nothing, nor wanting to take tens of minutes to explain the details of their lives. Presumably, older parents are not needed to help with their problems, or their problems don’t rise to the level of needing help from us (perhaps when other helpful people are available right there).
When they are at home, I do feel our relationships are enhanced, sort of in an “absence makes the heart grow fonder” kind of way. My relatives, in years past, pre-BS, used to warn us about the difficult teenager we would inevitably manage, but that never happened. Both kids are relatively happy, balanced and self-reliant. BS was a gamechanger in so many positive ways. I do feel that I lost “shared” time with my son, especially as he heads off to college 330 miles away in August, but know there’s no telling how doing any school from home would have played out. No regrets. We’ve been given an advance on getting our own 50-something lives in order, and that has been challenges enough. ~O)
@GoatMama I would have completely lost it if I were you. What a pretty song.
I had a moment of realization for my kid’s needs for independence, personal space or something;
Two years ago, her ceramics professor successfully convinced her to submit to a juried art show for the community college’s students. She was chosen as a finalist and was invited to the opening ceremony, even though she didn’t win a prize.
We all went together. Near the building, kid asked me and my wife if we could pretend to not know her. We had to wait two strange hours after the ceremony, while kid was socializing with other students, professors, and other guests about her displayed work and other art courses in the college, while completely ignoring us whole time.
It was a rather upsetting experience to me. I even told her that I won’t be even coming to her next exhibition. But another homeschooling parent convinced me that it is very hard to maintain two personas, an independent and brave young women as well as a daddy’s sweet 11 years old girl. She needed the space.
Since then I learned that presence of parents may undermine her perceived independence from her own society, and we could be, at times, a hindrance to her development. As Hesse said, ““The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.”
To some kids the moment comes when they reach college age. To mine, her needs for the space has grown fast and the moment came earlier. All in our family realize that this is the perfect time for her to leave home.
Sure the actual daily routine of a boarding school, especially at 9th grade may be far from being free. But it will be away from home and free from parents when she needs the space to reestablish her new self, and experience negotiating with a new environment without us looking over her shoulders.
That’s our biggest reason for boarding school.
@sculptordad I guess you do have a different situation since you were spending a lot more time with your child because of homeschooling. Its a bit more gradual for the non- homeschooled kid. As they proceed from lower school to middle school, they get busier and more involved in school activities away and spend less time hanging around the house. High school continues that gradual separation. I just find that sleep away BS ends that closeness that will eventually come in college. I’m (selfishly) glad we still have it (albeit in very small doses, especially on week days). For you it must have been tough going from homeschool to awayschool - but like anything else, I’m sure you’ve gotten used to it and know that you were able to give your child what they wanted.
@GoatMama that song would make me teary-eyed, for sure.
After 3 weeks of residential summer camp last year, not only we felt our relationships was enhanced, but also she came emotionally as a full teen. She was a pre-teen just three weeks ago. So we have a high hope for boarding school experience in that area.
@suzyQ7, you are right that I spent more time with her. More so because I personally taught all her academic subjects until 2 years ago. So perhaps I am less reluctant for loosing that close tie. I completely understand that other families have a different situation, and bs might not be the best choice for neither the parents nor the student.
I believe that, sooner or later, we will have to accept end of the current relationship and form a new, more equal and friends like relationship that will last our lifetime. Of course, it doesn’t have to be now. Enjoy the remaining 4 years! 
Sigh. 70% left brain apparently doesn’t rule out mushiness.
GoatMama, that is a beautiful song. If my kid had done that i think I would have fallen apart. I hope you were able to record her performance.
@cameo43 I did record it. That’s what kept me together - had to hold the camera steady… The song is played in La Famille Bélier, a movie about a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her deaf parents. She is given a chance to pursue her talent for singing but she would have to leave her family who depend on her daily. The parallels were so obvious (other than the deafness - well, literally; figuratively, my kids probably think I’m totally deaf) it just knocked me off balance. Apparently they were intentional, too. Gotta love these kids of ours, all of them! With all the YouTubing, video gaming, earbuds-in-headphones doubling, and the rest we don’t understand, they’re unbelievably deep and perceptive. Just need to let them fly!
But SuzyQ7, how do you know that “sleep away BS ends that closeness”? I get that being day students seems to work for your family, that’s great. My kids chose to go as boarders, even though there are several great boarding schools close enough to us where they could have been day students. That was completely and utterly unappealing to them, and I wouldn’t say at all that them being 150 miles away has changed the closeness we have (indeed, if anything it’s improved it).
To add to what @soxmom says: there are many families for whom boarding school works very well. It is not unusual for certain (independent-minded?) teens to chafe at living in close contact with family. In those cases, boarding can actually make families closer as the time at home is usually spent on less contentious things than the “homework reminders/chore requests/butting in by nosy parents” kind of thing. I am being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I think you can see what I am saying. There are many kids who want to get on with the process of growing up and being independent. In those cases (and in ours), boarding school provides a safe, controlled environment for that sort of kid to spread wings.
As I have said many times before: there is no one way to raise children, just as there is no one schooling solution that works for every family. The key is to treat each child as an individual and to try very hard to meet their individual needs for growth. The number one job parents have is to raise functioning and contributing adults. How you get there varies widely.
(from earlier post) lovely description of big changes Choatie Mom… my point ( maybe for Sculptor Dad especially), I was just putting emphasis on the teenage social dynamic. Before high school life was very mellow and predictable. Living with teenagers was a huge adjustment for my kid at first. Young adults are complex, evolving, inconsistent. That’s not something we read about much here. High school is a huge transition from middle school, and to live it 24/7 takes real grit.
I think that’s a good point, Jdewey.
I don’t think BS precludes kids being close to their parents, not at all. But the quotidian, physical closeness is obviously foregone. And that has it’s own value, especially in retrospect.
@jdwey, I understand and agree. I think my daughter has that grit, if not, I hope that she will build it there. If it turns out bad, she will be welcome back at home. But she had some residential experience and liked it. Even though she has been homeschooled, she has been hanging out middle to high school kids, as well as college students. So I am hopeful.
She had 3 hours gap in today’s classes. My wife was waiting in the school library for her so they could spend the 3 hours together. Daughter came to the library after her first class, only with a big teen boy probably at least 5 years older than her, hushed my wife’s waiving, and disappeared into the library. My wife texted me in shock, I advised her to get used to it.