Why boarding is good for teenagers...

A long holiday or even half term with a teenager can test the bonds of family relations. A range of entertaining activities is offered but none is acceptable unless conducted in the company of other teenagers. At this point parents are forcibly reminded that the teenage years are about change and the shifting of loyalties. Youngsters need to start to carve out their own identities away from the powerful influence of their immediate family: the holiday dispute might just be part of this.

How does boarding fit into this family dynamic? Surely this is simply creating more distance between parents and teenager which will be difficult to resolve? As the head of a boarding school for seven years, the mother of a boarding teenager, and having boarded myself, my view is that boarding in fact helps teenagers to cope with the challenging aspects of transition from childhood to adulthood.

In order to establish their own individuality teenagers need to create some distance between themselves and their parents; they need to try out new ideas, argue for stances which may be radically different from the home view, listen to alternative perspectives on life. Away from home, students can experience independence from parents and gain from the insights of responsible adults whose role is to guide and steer their charges. The mix of nationalities that now form many boarding schools allows the pupil access to a much broader slant on life than might be gained by staying at home.

Breaking away from the security of home and the parental view is often unsettling for both parent and child. For that reason, friends take on a hugely significant role: they provide the emotional security as the bonds between child and parent are gradually loosened. The friendships formed at boarding school provide just this support and often last a lifetime.

Within the teen culture there is a desire to push at the boundaries, challenge parental views and experiment with the perceived temptations of adulthood. At boarding school the youngster is in a neutral environment where sensible boundaries are set to contain such tendencies. If youngsters fall into scrapes, the school will deal with this using their years of experience of managing such behaviour: the teenage years, after all, are their speciality.

Every summer this school says farewell to its graduates. We aim for them to leave as self assured, confident young women who have a clear idea of themselves and their goals in life. For many, the boarding environment has provided them with a safe territory in which to explore who they are and what they want to achieve: their parents and their school are enormously proud of them.