{"id":2422,"date":"2012-05-19T02:55:18","date_gmt":"2012-05-19T07:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/?p=2422"},"modified":"2016-09-15T19:45:11","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T00:45:11","slug":"yes-were-sending-our-child-to-boarding-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/yes-were-sending-our-child-to-boarding-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, We’re Sending Our Child to Boarding School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Phone\"<\/a>Generally, when the school principal calls, it’s not a good sign. When the call begins,<\/p>\n

“I’m sure you weren’t expecting this …”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… it’s usually an even worse sign.<\/p>\n

In this case, however, he had called to say that The Spoiled One was being recommended for a scholarship to a boarding school. We had never considered boarding school for five seconds. She’d already been admitted to a private, Catholic girls school with a stellar academic reputation. It was the school we had picked out for her two years ago.<\/p>\n

She’d done the campus visit, studied for her high school placement test, gone for her interview and gotten admitted. We’d even mailed in the registration fee. It was all set.<\/p>\n

So … I took a deep breath and said,<\/p>\n

“We will go visit. That is as far as I am willing to commit.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I told the rocket scientist about this, he looked as if he had been kicked in the stomach. He had waited 42 years to have a child and wasn’t at all ready to have her living somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Well, we did go visit. \u00a0The school is in a drop-dead gorgeous setting. The student-teacher ratio is 10 to 1. The average SAT scores are 200 points above the national average.\u00a0But still, she would be moving into a dorm, at fourteen years old.<\/p>\n

Impatient with all of the agonizing and discussing, The Spoiled One stamped her feet for attention and said,<\/p>\n

“I think you people are under-estimating me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"School\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It’s funny how many people now when we tell them that we are sending our child to boarding school respond with a long pause, unsure what to say. Some have even gone as far as to ask if anything is wrong. We’re not sending her to rehab, for Christ’s sake!<\/p>\n

In fact, one reason we were willing to entertain the idea of her living away from home five days a week is that she hasn’t ever gotten into any real trouble. Right now, she has a 4.0 GPA for the semester, she’s made honor roll every year, been on the student council for three years, plays soccer four or five times a week.<\/p>\n

Boarding school is not the typical choice in this country and she won’t be going to school with a lot of typical kids. In fact, there are kids from over twenty countries living in the dorms.<\/p>\n

The more we talked about it and visited, the more we could see her fitting in there. It’s interesting, when I read posts from other west coast parents they all say the same thing – they never considered boarding school, but when their child brought it up and they looked into it, it seemed like the right choice.<\/p>\n

So, no, there is nothing “wrong”.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/a><\/p>\n

Are we nervous? Of course we are nervous! I still can’t believe it wasn’t just last week that she was eight years old making her First Communion.<\/p>\n

I have tried very hard never to hold my children back in life. I have taken a deep breath and put my 17-year-old daughter on a plane to fly across the country and enroll in New York University, which I had never even seen, but which sucked up half of my income for 3 1\/2 years.<\/p>\n

I took another deep breath and sent my 16-year-old daughter to Boston to live with the best judo coach in the country, so she could train for the Olympics.<\/p>\n

I drove my nineteen-year-old daughter to San Francisco to start her junior year of college at San Francisco State. Two years after she graduated, I drove her back to LA to start her masters program at USC.<\/p>\n

So, yes, I’m used to taking a deep breath and letting go.<\/p>\n

As the saying goes,<\/p>\n

“There are two things we must give our children. One is roots, and the other is wings.”<\/em><\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

Give your child the gift of learning – clich\u00e9 but still important!<\/a><\/p>\n

Fish Lake teaches fractions, Native American history and culture. Plus, it’s fun.<\/a><\/p>\n

Runs on Mac and Windows computers.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"catfish\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Generally, when the school principal calls, it’s not a good sign. When the call begins, “I’m sure you weren’t expecting this …” … it’s usually an even worse sign. In this case, however, he had called to say that The Spoiled One was being recommended for a scholarship to a boarding school. We had never…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-de-mars-general-life-ramblings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5229,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions\/5229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejuliagroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}