BS experience vs. parental guidance

1012mom
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:01:23 +0000

So things have gotten a wee bit snarky on this thread. Instead of the focus on which school, it might be helpful to give the OP some insight on the impact of BS on your relationship with your child. That seems to be the more important question. OP you might want to look at some of the older threads in this forum for additional insight.

Now in terms of day students, being a day student at a boarding school is very different from being a day student at a day school. My DDs are/were day students at a school with 90% borders where probably at least a third of the day students are faculty kids and actually live on campus. One of their greatest challenges as day students is dealing with exactly the attitude that was displayed here – that they are somehow not fully part of the community and are somehow cheating the system by not living at school. Yes my DDs had “the crutch” of parental support at home. Generally that lasts for about an hour each evening after they get home at 9 pm, and for a few hours Saturday morning and Sunday evening when they are not at school. They have all of the same responsibilities of boarders, but they really have to put themselves out there to be part of a community that often treats them as outsiders. On top of their BS schedule they have a half hour commute to and from school. A full additional hour on their day. Before they get their licenses they have the added complexity of managing carpools and pick-up times and dealing with last minute lacrosse practice schedule changes and 8 PM extra study sessions. They spend many nights sleeping on the floor of a friend’s room. I am not complaining, neither do they, they are grateful for the opportunity. However, please do not imply that they have an easier road or do not learn very similar lessons about independence, being proactive, and advocating for themselves.

We also live in a community where nobody sends their kids to BS, and very few send their kids to any kind of private school. Most of my kid’s friends could not imagine why they chose not to attend the local public HS. D2 has one good friend in town from her MS days – a girl who went away to BS. Otherwise their friends and lives revolve around school.

OP, you will have to turn to others for advice and insight on the impact of boarding on the parent child relationship. Distance is an issue. In particular, there is a big difference for parents if it is easy to go to the Saturday soccer match or orchestra concert. For all parents who send their kids to school outside of the community there is some distance that develops between the neighbors who you have known because your kids are in school together. That said, the choices you have both offer an amazing educational opportunity, both around academics and around life skills. It has been a truly transformative experience for my girls, and even dealing with the negative bias toward day students has been a learning experience. We all would do it again in a minute.