<p>If we accept that our D/S still need their parents when they are 14/15/16/17, does sending them off to BS reduces our parental guidance role too severely? This week my D had a social issue for which she wanted/needed my help--it wasn't really something she would discuss with a faculty member or her advisor or dorm parent (and the advice she'd get from peers is questionable at best, rumor-inducing at worst). I found myself limited to a 10 minute phone call after study hall, followed up by numerous emails. This morning I gave my additional thoughts by text (where if she were home, we'd talk at breakfast or in the car to school). Yes, we talk by phone, too. But really, by the time you have a teen, aren't the day to day struggles and decisions and interactions still part of a parents role? (I am NOT talking about helicoptor parenting!). Sometimes perceiving the mood or a responding to something they say in passing is important as the parent of a teen--have I given up this role too soon? How do other parents feel their role of guiding their kids by short sound bits and quick conversations? Is it okay that our parenting is sometimes reduced to emails and text?</p>
<p>I feel the same way sometimes. It’s one of the risks you take when allowing them to go to boarding school. On the other hand, they learn to manage their own problems sooner than their peers remaining at home - that can be seen as a good thing - but adolescence is definitely a minefield no matter where they go to school.</p>
<p>^^PhotoOp, well said. I am currently reading a wonderful book “Staying Connected to Your Teenager”, read from my perspective as a parent with a teen at boarding school. I highly recommend it to fellow CC’ers. I have no financial affiliation or interest in this book other than having purchased a copy. It talks about transitioning from ‘manager’ to ‘consultant’ for your teen & is all in all, highly reassuring & practical. It cites research showing that, while peers have more influence on your teen’s behavior at this age, parents remain paramount in influencing attitudes. I won’t say it is easier to do all this when the teen is at boarding school, but there are offsetting benefits for doing so, which are probably a little different for each parent, teen, & family that makes the boarding school decision. For us, for example, we are freed from the day-to-day parental ‘nagging’ about mundane issues that can be so hard on relationships & can focus the time we do have on staying connected & keeping the relationship strong. I also know parents who have ‘silent type’ kids (often boys) who, even living at home, are pretty mono-syllabic much of the time, often behind closed doors.</p>
<p>Agree. My son called with a “social issue.” Seems the kids just returning back had too much time on their hands…so “trash talk” started. In some ways, I wish he had gone to the advisor for some help, but am happy he confided in me and I gave my two cents and followed up with calls for a number of days until things subsided…it IS hard to parent from a distance…if it had gone on, I would have advised he go to the advisor to get them involved. Just some mean behavior going on.</p>
<p>Lots of things though don’t go as planned. Last night I was thinking how I was “supposed” to help my kids with homework through high school or so I thought. I pictured myself helping my kids who might be struggling or might need a little of my expert help.</p>
<p>You see I had bought a copy of my son’s honors physics text. I thought if he needed a little help…well I did some pretty good physics in my day. As it turns out, I was doing some of the assignments and problems, but dear son was spending a lot of his time on the phone explaining the answers to me.</p>
<p>When I tried to offer help to my 7th grade daughter, she just laughed citing her recent 102 on her Algebra I quest. I think she’ll be explaining Math homework to me anytime now…</p>
<p>But I can still be relied on for “social situations” and a good care package, and to run up a coat if he happens to forget it over Christmas break.</p>
<p>OMG - we started to do that “buy the text” too. lol!</p>
<p>We parent by Skype, phone calls, Facebook PM’s and texting. I actually love the texts because I can go back and read them when I’m missing her. </p>
<p>When there are problems she needs more time with, I have to tell you she calls after lights out, or between classes when there is a free schedule. </p>
<p>I’ve tried to get her to call home for tutoring (not 5 minutes before the exam when she’s panicking) and we got in some prep time during Xmas break so she could get a jumpstart on her courses.</p>
<p>As for social problems - it’s heartbreaking when she’s sad because I can’t be there to hug her - and joyful when she calls a day later to say the problem was resolved. It’s fun to have her call and then she’s distracted and giggling when people pop into her room or talk to her in the hallway. It helps me know that she’s happy. And when she’s not - it’s the same “stuff” she’d be experiencing if she stayed home - growing pains, finding her niche/clique, etc.</p>
<p>But yesterday, she called home and I could hear her munching. It was a request for more Apple chips I custom order. Just sent a case of them from Amazon so she could hoard some and share the rest with her dorm mates.</p>
<p>We knew this would be our life - but it’s a lot better than back in the day when I was a BS student. Back then we had payphones w/ AT&T’s reverse the charge loan shark rates, and snail mail letters. I can now feel the pain I caused my mother and I apologize profusely for it.</p>
<p>Not sure I have anything original to add to this good discussion. I agree, though, that there are compensations for not being right there in the room/car for those spontaneous conversations. I find that most of the day-to-day tension/power struggle is gone and that we all listen to each other better when we talk. I also like to go back sometimes and read over on-line chats. Honestly, I think in many ways our whole family is closer and more appreciative of one another now. At the same time, it IS hard to know we’ll never have that kid home full-time again.</p>
<p>I’m not much help with math and science, but can still read over essays for history and English, just as I did at home, using google docs. We can actually both be looking at the paper at the same time, and having a conversation through the comments feature in the margins. Eliminates lots of the teen-mom drama that seems an inevitable part of face-to-face feedback.</p>
<p>I’d gladly help on the homework, but our son is fiercely independent and wouldn’t even consider it. Being new to the boarding school experience, it took me until this month to realize classicalmama’s observation “it IS hard to know we’ll never have that kid home full-time again”. I have felt the pangs of that even though it is the best for our child. I just finished (yet another) great book, “The Blessing of a B Minus”, and the author concludes with some comments about the natural grief process that a parent goes through as the child flies the nest. She was referring to college. For those of us who have 14-17 year olds who have left home to go to boarding school, this process starts earlier than most.</p>
<p>Am I the only one who thinks that teenagers should not be getting help/tutoring/editing by their parents for school work? I’d argue that even in middle school a child should be handling things on their own and seeking help from their teacher if needed. Boarding school is structured to allow your child to learn successfully without parental help in academics. If your child is struggling, he/she should be seeking the help of the teacher and possibly peer tutors. One of the big plusses of boarding school is the access and availability of teachers outside of class time. Encourage your child to seek out their teachers. It helps the teachers to know that students are having problems with the material and also seeking extra help is viewed as a sign of strength in boarding school. Not every student knows everything and its important to use the resources available to you. </p>
<p>For touching base with your child, I prefer methods like the phone and skype as you can read a lot from tone and facial expressions that is just missing in texts, etc. I find my kids like to vent occasionally - safer to vent to mom or dad than friends sometimes. However, if it is a bigger issue that needs to be worked out, its time to recommend that the child seek out an advisor if its something they cannot deal with on their own. </p>
<p>Sending your child off to BS does not mean the end of parental support and guidance. However, I think, especially for academics, that the student should utilize school resources. Without parental editing, those first few essays and papers may come back totally marked up in red but, believe me, they will learn from it and will be benefitting from it long before they are ready to go off to college. Just my own experience…</p>
<p>Creative1: Writing papers for your child is one thing (to be avoided), but functioning as an editor or someone your child might share ideas with is another and seems normal to me in many situations. My daughter asked for ideas on occasion, or had me proof a paper on occasion, but more often than not, she preferred to function entirely independently of the 'rents.</p>
<p>You may also change your tune when it comes to the college application process. No matter how good the boarding school’s college guidance office is, it’s still advantageous IMO for the child to bounce the application and essays off his/her parents. In part, this is because each college guidance officer is supporting many students and in part because a parent can help spot egregious mistakes or remind the child of something in his or her life that may help illustrate a point more effectively. Of course, I oppose any effort on the parent’s part to substitute their voice for their child’s or to write any part of the essay, no matter how tempting.</p>
<p>Boarding school is much heavier on trial and error learning, socially and academically, than day school. The extra pain we remote parents feel watching our kids cope with failures, emotionally charged social choices etc is the very thing that makes them so amazing and mature by the time they’re graduated. But, it sure can be heartbreaking or worrisome to watch the process from afar.</p>
<p>I’ll stand by my belief that its better for the child if the parent is removed from the editing process on schoolwork. Of course, that’s easy for me to say as my kids’ independent tendencies wouldn’t allow for it anyway. 
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<p>Having a child who just successfully navigated the college application process, I did review essays but it was a moot point anyway. The college counselor had already reviewed them and provided an editorial eye. Parlabane, I do agree with you that it is a wise idea for a parent to review college apps. Not all college counselors may be as adept as the one my daughter was fortunate enough to have and with the college application process the stakes are much higher. Unlike a school assignment, which will only account for a fraction of a grade and, therefore, is not a life altering event, a college app essay filled with typos or poorly worked sentences can result in a rejection. I also agree with you that the college app should reflect the student’s voice and effort and only a look over by a parent should be needed. By the 4th year of boarding school, the vast majority of students have the ability to write amazing essays. The editorial review is just what one would do if making an important presentation at work - it’s always smart in such instances to have another set of eyes check the work.</p>
<p>I have to agree with creative1 on this. Again, I don’t think my son would let look at anything before turned in anyway. But then again, I’ve never asked. I read some of his Cty stuff after they came back with comments to make sure I was getting my money’s worth! He has bounced ideas off of me before but there is probably no way he’d even ask me for help on a paper. I DO encourage him to have someone else look things over before he turns things in now though and I really hope he is doing so.</p>
<p>Schools may differ on this, but Andover sent a message to the parents early on that told us not to help with homework (no editing of essays, etc). Part of this is for the reasons some of you have said above, another reason is that many students have parents who can’t help them. For us, as for some of the parents above, it’s a moot point, we simply aren’t asked to.</p>
<p>You know, I hesitated to even write that paragraph, as I knew there’d be this response.</p>
<p>I’m an English teacher myself, and I’ve seen plenty of essays that have been inappropriately “edited”/written by parents. I also know that writers need readers, whether they’re teachers, peer tutors, roommates or parents. My kid asks for my help because (a) he likes to know we’re still there acting like parents and (b) he knows I’m a good English teacher. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also ask his teachers or older guys in his dorm to read his stuff or that he isn’t fiercely territorial about his writing–he’d never let me actually change so much as a word of it.</p>
<p>I should add too, though that my kid’s teachers knew we were looking at his papers–and if the school had a policy against it, we wouldn’t. It seems a bit arbitrary to me, though, as long as the school provides adequate support to all students, to forbid parents just because they’re parents–as my kid says, I help him a lot less than the average peer tutor. Why is getting help from the math genius in the dorm legit. but from a parent not, particularly if you’re, say, a day student and don’t have easy access to that help at night when you’re struggling with something? </p>
<p>So I think, yes, there’s giving too much help but there’s also fear of helicoptering that maybe sometimes makes us afraid to give our kids any help at all. I think most of us have enough common sense to know what’s appropriate. And our kids have enough common sense to know who to go to for help when–which is why I never get asked a question about algebra…</p>
<p>But in general, for those who wonder about those boundaries, I’d say as a teacher, that you can’t go wrong if you focus on asking questions rather than giving answers. Which is why the comment feature in google docs comes so in handy–great place to ask questions without actually changing anything. I’m not sure that children have ever been harmed by someone listening carefully to them and then probing so that they’ll go deeper into whatever it is they’re working through.</p>
<p>Don’t worry, it’s an interesting discussion, and I’m sure that as a teacher you are particularly sensitive to how to help appropriately!</p>
<p>It is a good discussion, isn’t it? Just as I think CC is no longer relevant and it’s time to move on, someone goes and poses a good thought-provoking question, and there I am, once again spending way too much time posting and reading posts! :)</p>
<p>Creative?</p>
<p>Wow. Yes - BS is about being independent. </p>
<p>And I doubt any of us is having any substantial input on homework given the limited contact via text messages and phone calls. </p>
<p>However, having talked to some parents off-line, just about all the students are going to their teachers and to tutoring, or working with other students when there is something they don’t understand. But there are occasions where it is appropriate to ask for help from a parent who has an expertise in the subject matter. If anything, cuddling up over Xmas reviewing math and science was family bonding time (along with working jigsaw puzzles and her whipping my assets at Chess because she can think many moves ahead of me.)</p>
<p>I don’t think any parent here is doing much coaching. But the response made it sound like we’re faxing the answers and writing the papers. Sigh.</p>
<p>I stand by my premise that BS is not supposed to mean severing all ties. If a child in the course of a conversation asks for advice of help it’s not a sign of weakness of being bound by apron strings. However, if a student calls home often - then direct them to school resources. But I don’t think that is what any of us is implying here. </p>
<p>Sometimes students call to talk about classwork because they just want to hear the sound of our voices and don’t want to admit it. </p>
<p>But then again - the last few calls have been to talk about the upcoming Europe trip, school year abroad, and food care packages. Those work for me too! :-)</p>
<p>Classicalmama,</p>
<p>Glad to have you here. You said a mouthful when you wrote</p>
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<p>I sent away my “baby”. At Xmas I got back a young adult with confidence, aspirations beyond what the school district allowed her to have, and an end to her insistence that I not show public displays of affection. </p>
<p>Never going to have her back full time. And I’m sad and joyful all at the same time.</p>
<p>Just want to take a moment and say how much I value all the great parents that post on these boards. Each may have a different perspective & certainly have kids with different personalities & needs, but I strongly get the sense that this is one <em>great</em> group of parents. I have learned so much from all of you & having yet so much to learn. I have never parented a teen before. As such, I find much truth in the saying, “Experience is what you get just after you need it”. LOL. At this rate, I figure I will finally have some answers to the ‘teen thing’ when both of our kids are well into adulthood!. Hearing all of your experiences makes the pangs of parenting a little easier to take.</p>
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<p>So you’ll be in a great position to have your daughter-in-law ignore your advice.</p>
<p><em>Exactly</em>, Neato. LOL! Of course, I am also getting experience on the ‘older’ generation, on how they have interacted with us, the sandwich generation, so I <em>hope</em> to have some wisdom there, as well. So far as I can tell, the best of which being: be kind. be nice. they are going to remember your words long after you are gone!</p>