My primary thought reading the piece was ‘boy, it takes a lot of parental discipline to make sure that the students benefit from boarding school distance.” Parents interviewed for the article seem to be doing well.

“…(Sean) Woo’s sons are part of a small but growing trend of private school students who board locally. Some families say they think the combination of a crawling D.C. commute and a heavy homework load would make it impossible to attend such schools any other way. Other Washington parents say they’re too busy to have the kids at home. And some value the boarding school experience but don’t want children 500 miles away in the anxious post-9/11 era. For many, it’s a combination of all three… …Woo said that he and his wife — a consultant and a physician, respectively — weren’t interested in their sons being far away but that they liked the idea of boarding schools. “They mature a little bit,” he said. “And where can you get 24-hour supervision, seven days a week, for just a nominal increase over the tuition?..”(WP)

Todd Van Hoose whose daughter attends Madeira School told Birnbaum told that his daughter benefits from the independent experience of boarding school:

“With kids’ schedules and our work schedule, frankly, we’re only missing each other at dinner…You get the best of both worlds. We make all of the soccer games,” and his daughter benefits from the independence of boarding school, he said.

“Students Head for Boarding School” is the accompanying slide show. Click the image below to visit the Washington Post’s photo gallery:

We love the concept.

If I were a betting soul, I’d put my money on the notion that The Log Blog represents the future of school publishing.

Take many of the routine publishing functions and voices traditionally found throughout the school- events calendar, news, sports, photography, chapel talks, and podcasts. Bring them together in a single web based vehicle. Give the project leadership in the form the school Communications Director, make the work an official school function, and set the students to work.

Tabor has made the ultimate boarding school commitment to The Log Blog by assigning faculty supervision and time to the project. It’s an official afternoon activity just as athletics, art, etc. With time, resources, and the blog format, The Log Blog is, essentially, a continually refreshed community newspaper with all the parts of school life covered.

If you made me editor, I’d add occasional longer feature articles that require some time and resources and, voila, full coverage of the community.

I even went so far as to wonder aloud; ‘do they still publish a student newspaper?’

This may be only The Log Blog’s second year, but, in our minds, you see a living school newspaper hosting a variety of voices, timely and directly relevant to the entire community- faculty, students, alumni, and friends. The Log Blog gives readers a reason and way to stay connected to Tabor’s daily narrative and, from an admission perspective, a clear window into the school.

Mr. Broadhead currently serves as the Head of The Elon School in Elon, N.C. He will join Webb at the conclusion of the school year.

Our congratulations to Mr. Broadhead and The Webb Community.

Read the full announcement of Mr. Broadhead’s appointment by downloading the The Webb School announcement or visiting their site.

Photo credit: Kents Hill School

What is not to like about this wonderful school? It’s in a breathtaking setting. They have their own orchard where we were able to pick up avocados, and a superb geographic location.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. My tour guide, Remy, is a terrific, four year senior. She accurately described her school and what it means to be a Thacher student as well as why she chose Thacher in particular. She chose the school for the following reasons: challenging academics, motivated and talented student body, broad and diverse student and faculty body, comfortable, warm, friendly, caring, horsemanship, camping and mountaineering program.

Thacher also has a fabulous visual and performing arts, athletic teams, daily challenges, and an honor code. Students learn responsibility by adhering, daily, to Thacher traditions in everything they take part. Yes, I was totally impressed that Thacher is so focused and pointedly on its mission statement to “help students live for their own greatest good and the greatest good of those around them”. They continue to maintain their strength as a Western, outdoor and camping school that has great academics, and most importantly development of character.

Tuesday night Thornton Wilder’s nephew presented a lecture to the student body speaking about his uncle. Wednesday morning he addressed the School Meeting (3x weekly, Monday, Wednesday and Friday).

Thacher instills a love for learning and the joy of hard work in each individual student. From the class room to the playing field, and through many outdoor experiences whether camping, hiking or riding a horse. I asked Remy what she would change at Thacher if she could. Her reply: “absolutely nothing, I just wish it could last longer”! Another student told me “I have never worn shorts in November”, and spoke about her part in the upcoming play and passing her horsemanship so that she and a friend can trail ride. A third student spoke about the Abroad Program and filling out her application in hopes to spend her junior year in Italy. Students, faculty, staff were all friendly, made eye contact, and spoke to all of us during our tour.

I left with the feeling that not only are these students happy, they are healthy and in a very safe environment. This is truly one of the best if not the best. Parents, please think outside the box of New England when looking for a boarding school for your child! Congratulations Thacher on a job well done!

Visit the school’s website to learn more: www.thacher.org

Visit AQ Educational Consulting to learn more about Marylou and her boarding school placement services.

Photo credit: The Thacher School

Attended by educational consultants, boarding schools, colleges & therapeutic programs, the conference provides an ideal opportunity to strengthen connections and stay in tune with the opportunities offered on each organization’s campus.

This time around AdmissionsQuest’s conference participation takes on a decidedly social media flavor by partnering with the IECA to highlight & broadcast the stories coming out of the conference via their social media channels.

Check out our official announcement (originally posted to the IECA blog) below for all of the details.

Hope to see you in Charlotte and if you can’t attend, make sure to tune into our updates to keep up to date with the conference.

Our three articles closest in subject to Battersby are:

Accepted Student Re-Visit Days

Boarding School Interviews

Boarding School Tours

All of our older articles are available at: Prep School Articles & Resources & Boarding School Notes

Bronson and co-author Ashley Merriman do something to which I’m very partial. They go back to the research look, at the data, and demystify and debunk some modern parenting perspectives that we’ve allowed to become conventional wisdom.

Most importantly Bronson, Merriman let the research lead us back to the most important piece of structure and parenting that we all know but can’t always uphold- consistency. Given the right combination of setting, opportunity, external pressures, and/or personal fatigue, it’s mighty tempting to open a negotiation and compromise with your child when you know you shouldn’t.

Parenting perspectives aside, good parenting boils down to setting clear expectations and being as consistent as possible in expectations, demands, and consequences.

This kind of solid parenting is something at which good boarding schools have always excelled. Clear expectations, consistent expectations, clear consequences, and an ability to resolve conflicts stand as hallmarks of the best boarding schools.

On Parental Conflict

Mr. PO BRONSON (Co-Author, “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children”): Mark Cummings’ lab out of the University of Notre Dame is looking at this very phenomenon very closely and he has parents simulate arguments in front of their kids, or he has kids watch videotapes of arguments and he has parents as conspirators in his experiments. And normally when a kid watches a fight between parents, an argument, a quite heated conflict, that kid will then lash out afterwards or during it and act aggressive. But there’s one thing that happened in those experiments that makes all that aggressive behavior in the child go away: it’s watching the fight get resolved, it’s watching your parents work it out in a constructive way.

And when I read this, I understood that taking it upstairs, you know, I might have a moment of conflict with my wife and I’ll say that according to Cummings’ data, you know, parents are bickering to each other seven to eight times a day and the kids are a witness to it. It’s wrong to imagine that kids aren’t seeing this and feeling it. But when we take the arguments upstairs, the kid sees the fight begin but never sees it amicably resolved, and that’s hurting kids more.

In fact, Cummings’ work is now showing, this most recent data, that kids who are exposed to constructive conflict, and it can be quite heated, but when it’s resolved and worked out in front of the kids, those kids are being reported by teachers as having better well-being and better social skills, and sort of more adaptive in their environment at school. We need to – parents need to model for kids how to work through arguments – how to work it out.

GROSS: So are you suggesting parents fight in front of the kids and then hopefully they’ll reach an end of the argument, have an amicable resolution, and the kid will learn from that?

Mr. BRONSON: Mark Cummings would never say, hey, go out and fight in front of your kids, it’s a really good thing to do. He would say that, more that, don’t pretend your kid isn’t seeing some of your conflict. Parents believe they are sort of hiding their kids from this conflict but the kids can feel it. And so the important thing is to be aware when you did start something in front of your kids to then really try to model, for the benefit of the kids, working it out. And that might mean holding your tongue and enthusiastically trying to compromise in front of the kids so they can see from their parents how to do this with their own friendships…(NPR)

Pitfalls of Modern Daddydom

GROSS: In your book “NurtureShock” you cite a really interesting study that compared, quote, progressive dads, traditional dads and disengaged dads, in their styles of parenting. What is meant by progressive dads?

Mr. BRONSON: Well, these are the modern fathers who are co-parenting, who can change a diaper one-handed and pop up the port-a-crib in 30 seconds and know how to, you know, feed the baby and put the baby to bed and are very actively involved in their children’s lives.

GROSS: And a problem that emerged in this study is that the fathers who came under this category of progressive dad are having trouble – some of them, anyways, were having trouble disciplining their children. They didn’t want to hit their children or scream at them of course, but they weren’t sure what to do instead. What was the discomfort that they had with the idea of disciplining their children?

Mr. BRONSON: Progressive dads – they imagine this wonderful, you know, tight bond with their kids, and they haven’t really thought about the fact that disciplining their kid is going to be part of the job. And they don’t necessarily – they know how to be great to their kid and nice to their kid but they don’t necessarily have a strategy for disciplining. And as a result they experiment as discipliners. They – one day they’ll say well, you know, no dessert. And the next day they’ll act really mean to their kid or angry or offended, trying to show their kid what they’ve done is wrong. And then the next day they’ll withdraw some other privilege or say you have to go to bed early and it becomes very inconsistent.

And the science of disciplining your kids says the one mistake to make is to be inconsistent. Any form of consistent discipline is better than inconsistent discipline where you’re losing your cool and you’re confused. And as a result the children of progressive dads, when they were rated by teachers and others at their schools, were acting out or being just as aggressive as the children of disengaged dads…(NPR)

Read an excerpt from NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children.

Po Bronson’s New York Magazine archive.

Through its year-round lacrosse program, Bridgton Academy (Bridgton, ME)- a post graduate student only boys boarding school- offers a great opportunity for focused lacrosse players working toward high-level collegiate competition.

Students in the program work and grow through Bridgton’s college preparation academics along with fall and spring lacrosse seasons. The Wolverine lacrosse team plays nine fall games- against competition ranging from other PG programs to college clubs and tournaments and, of course, a full spring slate.

To get a feel for Bridgton Lacrosse, I recommend reading the team blog, Wolverine Lacrosse. They do a nice job of chronicling the current team and following alumni who’ve gone on to great accomplishment in the Lacrosse world.

Even in light of the fact that the program has produced high-level lacrosse players, the folks at Bridgton tell me that players in the program come from a variety of lacrosse backgrounds and levels. If the Bridgton program piques your interest, the school has an Open House (must RSVP) Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11th. If you’re interested, contact coach, Garrett Bamann: orgbamann@bridgtonacademy.org to explore the possibilities.

Photo credit: Bridgton Academy

In the category of “was this in the job description?” – we had a live auction scheduled after our community dinner on Parents’ Weekend, and the auctioneer called in ill earlier in the afternoon. When I was approached about what we should do, I said I would do it. Well, let me tell you, it was one of the more exhausting experiences I have ever taken on. You cannot stop talking from the time it starts to the time it ends. But once again, I was energized by the experience as well. And by all accounts, I may have sealed my fate for future years of having to do it. In some ways, being thrown into the forefront of the auction allowed me to better understand what we are trying to accomplish in our fundraisers. It also gave our current parents another window into me as a person and a leader of the school.

While I will only have to be the auctioneer once a year, another addendum to the job description came about this summer when our Director of Communications, Maryann McArdle, suggested I write a blog chronicling my first 100 days on the job. I hesitantly agreed to do it, and while the pressure to get blogs out is frustrating at times, it has been an interesting medium through which I have reflected regularly on what is going on here at Vermont Academy. “BrennanBits” is regularly visited by parents and other visitors to our website, http://brennanblog.edublogs.org/. Having never blogged before, I was initially skeptical, then daunted by what it entailed; however, now I am really into it, and I expect to continue it after my 100-day “sentence” is up. Also noteworthy, we have a pair of students who are beginning their own blog, and we are encouraging other students and adults in the community to do the same.

As November is now upon us, July 1st (my starting date) seems so long ago, but the time has flown by. We will open our newly renovated Learning Center this week, and our performance of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” will debut in two weeks. Before we know it we will be on Thanksgiving Break. It has been an honor to take the reins of Vermont Academy, and I look forward to blogging, auctioneering, and leading for many years to come.

About Sean Brennan
Sean Brennan joined Vermont Academy in July as the sixteenth Head of School. Sean taught English, coached football, and served in various administrative roles at Brunswick School, Salisbury School, Millbrook School, and Hotchkiss School spanning 17 years.