<p>@Jcdp2015 and @OspreyCV22 , I have been meaning to start a thread about this for a long time. Maybe someday. But I can’t stress the importance of this enough: Send your high-performing, college-bound high school kids AWAY for academic summer programs. Long ones. Don’t wait until college to try to figure out whether they can function away from home. Send them away over the summer in HS. </p>
<p>For sleep-away academic programs at boarding schools and colleges, they will have to apply and get accepted. This is such a great opportunity to test out essay themes, LD disclosure statements, etc. Have them apply to several programs to make sure they have options.</p>
<p>Most programs have scholarships available, so make sure you meet those deadlines (they are usually a month or two earlier than non-scholarship app deadlines).</p>
<p>There is so much to learn for both students and parents from an LD student’s participation in a summer academic program, and very little to be lost (since any grades they are given aren’t reported to schools unless you request it and students generally don’t have other students from their local area attending a far-away program with them. So, if they don’t do well, nobody knows but you and your child). </p>
<p>When my kids participated, the classroom content was largely superfluous for me. What I wanted to know was Did they wake up in time for class? Did they get to the dining hall in time to eat breakfast? Did they do their homework? Did they complete their projects? Did they do their own laundry? Were they happy? Did they wear matching clothes (at least some of the time)? How many times did they lose their room keys (and what did the lost ones cost me)? Did they make friends? Did their professors seem to like them? How did they deal with their LDs in the classroom with teachers who didn’t know them? Did they advocate for themselves when they needed to?</p>
<p>And, most importantly: Did they have opportunities to be independent and make choices about how and where to spend their time?</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of those programs where the kids wear matching t-shirts and get ushered in groups from place to place. There is very little/nothing to be learned about an LD student’s ability to function in college from those sorts of programs. </p>
<p>In sixth grade, I started sending my kids away to high-level academic summer programs. I wanted them to be able to “fall” with a soft landing (i.e.: with lots of support, but lots of freedom and responsibility, too.) By 10th grade, I knew that my kids knew how to travel safely by themselves through airports with connections and using public transportation. They knew how to explain their LDs to new teachers, and function at a high level academically without me there to prod them along. They knew how to wake themselves up, and have friends knock on their doors as they were leaving in case they forgot to set an alarm. They knew how to keep up with all of their belongings (except for keys–still struggling with that one). Etc. Etc.</p>
<p>I believe that one of the greatest gifts we, as parents of high-performing LD students, can give to our kids is the opportunity to pursue an academic career commensurate with their academic abilities and NOT their disabilities. It takes an extraordinary commitment to help them reach a point where their Executive Function problems don’t inhibit their abilities to perform well in a high-level academic environment. The best growth opportunity I found for my LD kids was not helping them along every day at home, but sending them away for extended periods in the summer to “play college”. 
LD kids need to know that you, their parents, trust them to be independent and make good decisions when they are away from you. They need to know how to cope with stressful academic situations without you there to pull them through. They need to learn to handle life away from home without the added stress of feeling that their entire future depends on the grades they earn.</p>
<p>YMMV, but for us, summer academic programs were my children’s most valuable extracurricular activities.</p>