Even at 13, Boarding School Can Be Just the Thing

Q. Our beautiful, independent 13-year-old wants to go to boarding school in the United States because she's desperate to get a fresh start.

We adopted her at birth in Latin America, where we still live, but have never made a big deal about it. We simply love her because she is our daughter.

Sometimes she has a tough time accepting our love, however, perhaps because she resents her 9-year-old sister -- who is fair-skinned and who wasn't adopted -- or perhaps she grieves for her birth mom or feels rejected by her.

She also has attention deficit disorder and mild learning disabilities, but she loved elementary school and made tremendous strides until we were transferred to another country last year. Although she was quite popular at first, her new school had many cliques and she started telling stories and gossiping about others in an effort to be accepted. But soon her new friends called her a liar and stopped talking to her, even at the lunch table.

She then asked me if she could stay with relatives in the States; I said she could live there only if she went to boarding school.

She said okay and promised to come home in a year, so I looked for -- and found -- a school for ADD kids, just an hour from my mom's house and headed by someone who was adopted herself and who also has ADD.

This small coed school is quite strict -- they don't let students watch TV or send e-mails or IMs, ever -- and it has no more than six kids in any class.

The kids go to school; exercise for two hours a day; do their own laundry; clean house; help make, serve and clean up from breakfast and dinner; and on top of that, they must earn the right to see a weekly movie, wear makeup or go off campus. My daughter just says, "I'll get used to it."

I agreed to boarding school reluctantly, but my husband is devastated by the plan. He strongly believes that a 13-year-old belongs with her family; he's disturbed that she can leave us so easily and he feels backed into a corner.

Is it ever appropriate to send a young child to boarding school? Should a 13-year-old be allowed to spread her wings?

A.Boarding school would be a bad idea if you were pushing your daughter out of the house or if the school were badly run or the lessons poorly taught, but she should have a great experience if it's a good school, because it would answer her needs.

Right now she wants to break away, not from you but from her former friends and the reputation she has made for herself. And her instinct is right.