While this can manifest in a number of ways, the following behaviors are the most common signs that your child needs attention beyond what a traditional school can provide:
Defiance and disrespect of parents, teachers, and/or other authority figures
Sudden and/or unexplained outbursts of anger
Violent behavior toward parents, siblings, peers, and/or others in the child’s life
Drug and/or alcohol abuse
Theft, vandalism or other illegal behavior
Truancy and/or lack of motivation towards school work
ยท Running away
Breaking curfews set by parents and/or police
impulse control problems
Lying, manipulating and/or blaming others for their behavior
Why a boarding school?
When most parents think of boarding school, the first things that come to mind are images from movies like “Dead Poets Club” or thoughts of stuffy rich kids. However, the reality is that there are several boarding schools geared specifically towards helping troubled teens and tweens.
The first advantage is the child’s separation from the peer group and other environmental factors that may be contributing to the child’s behavior problems. While there are “alternative schools” in most districts reserved for those with persistent behavior problems, once a child is out of school for the day, they find themselves right in the middle of a peer group who, most It’s probably part of the problem. By enrolling your child in a boarding school, your child will be away from troublesome peers who spend evenings and weekends undoing alternative school work to correct the troublesome kid.
Smaller classes are characteristic of most boarding schools geared toward troubled youth. In a public school, even in an alternative program, the student-teacher ratio can be as high as 20 to 1 compared to a boarding school where most programs focus on one-on-one teaching and tutoring. This allows your child to receive the individualized attention he needs to permanently correct behavior problems.
Traditional classroom instruction is designed around books and lessons. The fact is that many children, especially boys with behavior problems, do not function well in this environment. By contrast, most boarding schools include outdoor work and/or farming/ranching as part of the curriculum. This not only allows her son to fully explore her distinctly masculine nature, but also instills a strong work ethic.
Finally, a Christian boarding school will incorporate Bible lessons into the curriculum, something prohibited in a public school. When it seems there is no hope for your child, hope can be found in God and his Word. By using the Bible and biblical principles as the centerpiece of its curriculum, a boarding school can undo the damage caused by cultural and environmental factors that may have caused your child’s behavior problems.
A child with problems does not mean that you are a failure as a parent. However, it is a situation that must be addressed, not just for the sake of your child, but for the sake of your family and society as a whole. A Christian boarding school geared toward troubled teens and tweens is an ideal way to turn a lost child into a soldier of God.
