We try to focus the conversation - to the extent there is one - around “best fit” or match for our kids rather than any other ‘best’ because we’ve found that it helps somewhat to lessen what is often heard as implied comparison with their kids.
We don’t expect to change the minds of other parents. Either they get it or they don’t. I personally view the comments of other parents as THEIR defense of a perceived challenge to THEIR values.
Funny how many parents respond with “I just love my son/daughter too much to send them away to boarding school”. To which we now respond simply “not us”, and enjoy the awkward silence while they try to figure out exactly what we meant…or were we kidding.
May as well have fun with other people’s hang ups.
@Calliemomofgirls I had the same reaction when we got our first acceptance. I knew what the package meant but my poor innocent child had no idea. I tried to be secret with my recording her reaction but that didn’t work. I just have watched that happy crying video a million times to reassure myself that this was the right decision.
@cityran…Everyone is correct about the kids being kept busy and finding a group. My kid was off and running pretty early on with a group of girls. All the kids are so excited that they just group up.
We also got roommate info a couple of weeks prior so that helped. They texted a ton before school started.
As far as leaving…definitely don’t linger. We booked a flight out that night because I wasn’t sure I could be in the same city and not see her again. I also would not let myself cry. If I started I would make myself stop. I knew once I started I wouldn’t be able to start. I know shoving down emotions isn’t the best for most but it was what worked for me. I still haven’t cried over her leaving. I would also just focus on the amount of time until I would see her again. I think it was 7 weeks until parents weekend so that is what I focused on. I would tell myself that I can do anything for X amount of weeks or days.
@southernfemmom…We have been lucky and haven’t had to deal with any comments or questions. I struggle sometimes with telling people. I feel like people are judging me or think we are super wealthy or whatever random thing pops in my mind. ?
@DroidsLookingFor @Altras @vegas1 @CateCAParent and all for the good ideas about how to answer the questions about why we are doing this (… fingers crossed for M10).
We have for 10 years had a transfer into a neighboring public school district which is, by every objective factor, “better” than our own. So we had the uncomfortableness of answering these questions way back when when DS was entering K. For us to say the truth back then ("Well, district xyz has A & B math programs that are better than the one in our [your!!] home district; they get training from a UW Madison professor & his team (btw, rated top 5 best School of Ed. in U.S.) who fly out to keep the teachers on the right path; they have a science lab the LPS doesn’t have, etc.), would have been very awful to say, though those were our reasons. It would basically have been telling the neighbor who inquired that we feel the school they have sent their own children to is not that good.
So back when DS entered kinder, every time this came up, I just fibbed (to spare their feelings) & said it was because the transferred-in school was “near my husband’s work” or “right off the freeway on DH’s way to work” (that 2nd response, which ended up being my go-to, was not a fib). I guess for boarding school I will have to find a new excuse!
Giving the reason that it’s “right off the freeway” is not going to work anymore!!!
In my experience negative reactions arise from
-Concern that you think your kid is better and smarter than theirs, that you look down your nose at the LPS.
-Concern that they’ve screwed up and missed the boat by not considering prep school, that you’ve given your kid an advantage they’re missing out on.
-In areas where BS is uncommon, honest misunderstanding about why someone would send their kid to BS.
I usually found it best to say something complimentary about the LPS then say that the school kiddo will be attending is a better fit for them. If there’s a concrete reason that doesn’t apply to the other person’s kid you can add that in. “Smalltown high school is great and she’ll miss her friends but the German curriculum runs out after German II. Prepville Academy will allow her to take advanced German classes.” “He has a LD and the school will work with him on that while still allowing him to take advanced classes. He wouldn’t have been able to get that help while still playing football at home.” Whatever you do don’t say anything negative about the LPS even if it’s terrible in your estimation. Be prepared to smile and nod when a few parents get defensive about their decision to send their kids to the LPS.
My HS junior is in need of some guidance and I am not sure how to guide her. She is currently holding the a Presidential role in a small/speech and debate club at her HS. She has been inducted this spring into NHS, Spanish Honor society (HS) and Math HS. She is unsure if she should re-run for president of the smaller club or run for a cabinet position in the honor societies. Which would
Look better on her college resume? Thoughts?
@Kre8tiv in our experience the position that she feels most passionate about is the right answer. Where does she contribute the most, learn the most and feel the most at home? Those are the qualities that matter more in admissions then some random value judgment on what club is better/ bigger/more prestigious. This could even be a topic for her common app essays about staying true to her passion vs trying to conform to be a “perfect” applicant.
Thank you for this! I forgot that in our area, most schools high schools do not have enough of the world language we really need for family reasons. I’ll weave that in when they ask.
Though, in my experience, BS is so extremely uncommon where we live (or at least in our class/social circle) most people don’t even ask why. Their eyes just get wide (and/or draws drop) and they stare at me stunned, silent for several beats. It’s awkward! But then I jump in and say something, they nervous laugh, and we move on.
Dropping off your DC: I think as many parents mentioned it’s very normal to get extremely emotional, my wife and I made sure to make our goodbyes when he/she was surrounded by other students, this way my wife would do everything in her possible not to cry, thus making it harder for our DC. We got in the car turned the corner and let the sobbing start, it was one of the hardest moments of our life. We keep telling ourselves this is what he chose, and we are letting DC live the life that he/she has chosen.
On the other questions parents can make the comments they want, we just explain to them that this wasn’t our choice we just learned as parents to support the wishes of our children and offer them the opportunity to discover and become who they want to become in life.
Reflecting on it, there is a FOMO component to these discussions. These days, people are so anxiety-ridden about kids getting into the best colleges, and see high school as a competition. People design their kids’ lives around it from birth. Finding out that there is a whole other level to “the competition” they could have accessed had they known about it is very upsetting to some people. Honestly, people are more self-conscious about their own decisions than they care about ours.
So I try to steer away from discussing college matriculation (which isn’t as important to me as it is to them anyway). That way they just think we are insane for spending the money on high school and abandoning our parental duties, when we have a perfectly good public option right here. If that is their takeaway, fine with me.
There are four years of kiddo coming home for breaks, and he is the best evidence for how our decision is working out. True friends want your child to succeed, and you will know a lot more about who your friends are by next summer. My experience has been great - people are very supportive. If he is happy they are happy.
In terms of dropping off I’d suggest if your kid has any chance of participating in preseason grab it, even if you’re fairly certain kid won’t make varsity. At our school strong JV players are also invited to preseason. It gives kids a chance to settle in and get to know the school before the majority of the kids show up and makes the transition easier all around.
We have friends who never miss a chance to comment on the “super wealthy school” our kids go to. I admit that it still irritates me as our town is far more wealthy and FAR leas diverse than either of my kids’ schools, both of which are renowned for their amazing FA and investment in diversity. I can’t help myself pointing that out every time I get the “well, at such a wealthy school as …” Other parents can’t help but fee that your smacking the lps in the face when you move your kid to BS. And frankly, we kind of were. The LPS was fine and we were tired of fine. I usually just say “kid really wanted to go to school in a certain environment and found it at X school.” Luckily both kids had a best friend who also went boarding, although sadly out of state, so at least one old friend/family got it.
Realistically, if your kid was your main connection to these folks, you will probably find that over time , you will be moving further and further out of the orbit of their lives. I would definitely prepare for that. They will be involved with events at the LPS, local sports leagues, whatever and unless you had a close friendship independent of kids, you may find yourself a bit adrift socially too.
This won’t be the case for everyone but it seemed to be a common refrain among parents we knew who left the local district.
So I would broach the subject, to the extent it comes up, with care. You don’t want to give folks reasons to ostracize you when the natural flow of things will make this happen anyway to some extent.
@one1ofeach OMG the FINE word. If one more person tells me the LPS is fine or our kids would be fine there or it’ll all work out fine my head is going to explode!
@DroidsLookingFor
And the thing is, I do know kids for whom the public school is fine. There are plenty of kids who can’t handle more.
Just not my kids.
In some BS, particularly 100% boarding, preseason is not an option for freshmen, even for those who will play on varsity.
And to be fair, I also know kids who wanted something from the LPS a BS could not offer.
Our LPS is gigantic and generally fields one of the best football teams in the state. And the best players on that team are getting football scholarships to big D1 programs. BS football just isn’t at that level.
But my kid isn’t a football player. And he doesn’t do coed cheer. Or marching band. Or any of the things our LPS offers that few BS do and that kids get scholarships for!
I understand what @DroidsLookingFor is saying. I too did a lot of tongue biting when we were going through this. But as you sit warming up your refresh finger, remember that your kid will be fine. Your kid knows that you are supportive of their education and that wherever they land, they’ve got parents in their camp who believe in them. They hustled through BS applications. They’ve thought about what they want from their next four years. They really will be fine, wherever they land!
Our DS is a Freshman at our LPS (a great fit for him) and DD is applying to boarding based on her own choice to do so. You would think this would somewhat insulate us from commentary such as this about WHY our DD needs to go to boarding. We are obviously not opposed to the LPS. Yet it doesn’t. “I could never let my daughter leave home at this age”. I just remind myself of what DD said when I suggested to her that her older cousin had done great at the LPS and gotten into several top notch colleges, “Mom, I don’t want his HS experience, I’m not him. We are both smart but what I want is different”. And that’s that.
@Meisan We have (had) one at LPS and have one at boarding school. Lots of people spend energy, time and money finding the right fit for college. We felt the right fit for each kid was just as important for high school!
Re:pre-season. If this is a possibility for your kid and at your school, contact the coaches! Pre-season before 9th grade was a fantastic transition to boarding school for my kid!
@CateCAParent parent, I think you and I live in the same town, based on your description, and my DS just got into Cate!
I think that some people who say that they can’t imagine sending their kids away for school at HS age are under the belief that BS is like college in terms of supervision and discipline, and it’s not. There was another thread on this, but BS kids have a very rigid schedule and are kept busy (in some cases 6 days/week) and have a lot of eyes on them. Depending on the location and proximity to a town, many can’t leave campus without an adult and parental permission (and relatively few kids have access to cars). There are multiple dorm parents/families in every dorm and adults everywhere. If you walk around a BS campus during school hours, it’s quiet, because everyone has somewhere to be, and most kids don’t skip class. At least in our experience, BS really exemplifies the “village” that is so constructive for teens. It’s probably harder to talk about that facet before you’ve experienced it, but it is so valuable.