That’s a little defensive given that the title of the thread is “Is boarding school worth it?” and OP (who has sent kids to boarding school) acknowledges the “boarding” part of it may not have been worthwhile. Since we’re throwing out quotes, how about “doth protest too much?”
There is a spectrum: home schooling kids, sending them to day schools, and sending them to boarding schools.
I am sure you have an opinion on the first one although you’ve never home schooled your kids, so, like it or not, sometimes in this world we come across opinions that are different to our own.
And my kids are highly independent and function just fine.
I think HelicopterParent1 raises an excellent argument to my point, and this is a great forum to discuss it civilly.
Personally, I find that I don’t talk with my BS kids as much but, to gardenstategal’s point, the conversations we have are more meaningful and touch on larger issues. I think we have deeper conversations than we otherwise would, perhaps because we aren’t talking about logistics as much. That said, every family has different kids, and different dynamics.
Yeah, its funny, but I have much better interactions with my BS kid than when they were here at home giving tortured answers to “How was your day?” before escaping to their room.
They reach out proactively (particularly around sports, where I get nearly daily updates on practice and the team dynamic, etc.) and as enewton implied, the engagement is much richer overall than were they here at home. Almost like they’re wanting to show how smart and mature they are. Wouldn’t have happened if we were just the same wallpaper
The biggest surprise is they listen to the advice I give now and actually, like, you know, do it. I get feedback on what suggestions are working and not working, but the cake seems to bake better with this dynamic.
So not raising a stranger. I’d argue we’re having more impactful and rich relationship and are more connected than if they were home. And they’re growing in a way they wouldn’t if I were helicopter-ing them. It’s a two-fer.
If only having a kid at BS entitled you to have an opinion about BS, nobody could rightfully ever decide to send, or not to, their kid to BS, because they don’t have a kid at BS.
My intent was to open the discussion and while in retrospect I could have worded my comment a little better, the reaction surprised me.
And I’ve learned something in the discussion that ensued. I’d never considered that aspect.
I don’t have a kid at BS but I do have a kid at college. It’s not directly comparable to BS – one is sending a kid, the other an adult, etc. – but it’s not a meaningless comparison either. Since going off to college two years ago, my son responds to texts after several days and phone calls are even rarer. We’re finding it hard to be a part of his life. This not bad. He’s busy and (my screen name nothwithstanding) highly independent. He’s not a touchy-feely kid and communicates with us when he has to. However, I could not imagine having this sort of relationship with him throughout high school. That would make me very sad. And that was the basis for my opinion.
@HelicopterParent1 , my kid - now quite a few years out of college, is cut from the same independent cloth as yours, so I think I understand where you’re coming from. I like to think he is just very present wherever he is. He is fully engaged with us when he’s with us, and fully engaged with other things (and not us) when he’s not.
With that said, extrapolating from college behavior to BS isn’t that accurate. Here’s one example: My college kid came home at breaks with plans and things to do and ways of doing them, and we weren’t a big part of that. Or he didn’t come home at all because he had a job somewhere else. In a nutshell, he was out of our orbit. My BS kid (same person, just younger) was all ours on breaks, whether to travel, hang out, whatever. And we were all excited to do things together. So it really wasn’t the same. (Although we still use fun vacations as a way to get him to spend time with us now that he has limited PTO.) As a BS student, he expected us to be parents in that way parents are, and over his college years, he expected us to back off. The relationship changes more with age than where they live. But I know that he has always known we love him fiercely and are always there for him - whether he was 14, 24, or older.
My hunch is that one of the biggest obstacles for BS is that parents aren’t ready to let go - even when a BS could be the best option .
And lastly, it sounds like your kid is high-functioning and independent, so congrats on a job well done, even if it’s a little heartbreaking.
Our S24 is still very present in our lives despite being a college sophomore around 9 hours drive away. He likes to come home on breaks, except Spring Break which he does with a club sport team. He texts and calls. He is happy when we visit or chase him down for tournaments. I think he just really values home and family in various aspects.
I am a little worried our D30 (the one looking at boarding schools) will be more like me. I had serious wanderlust as a kid. I was off like a shot to college, happy to be going a good distance away from home. I was not in regular contact with my parents during college, unlike my siblings who stayed physically closer (although this was the days before cellphones and email to be fair). I did come back most school breaks except Spring Break, but spent summers in a different city. I suspect this was all harder for my parents sometimes.
And yet . . . should they have tried to keep me closer? Or were they good parents for letting me do all this the way I wanted?
I think the latter, and I do think that applies to my D30 as well. I hope her story, including thanks to modern telecommunications, is a little different from mine. But it is ultimately her life to live on her terms.
I think this is true in his case too. When he’s engaged with something, he’s fully engaged. Nothing else matters.
This is all we can hope for as parents. The alternative – which we often hear from friends – is a kid calling everyday sobbing on the phone how lonely they are. I rather have what we have.
There is a saying: “If you want to keep your children, let them go.”