Parent Blog-Distance Parenting 101

20 September 2012kim.willick

This is our second submission to our Parent Blog Forum.
A group of our current parents will be blogging intermittently to help prospective families discover more about Brentwood by sharing personal stories, insights and advice.  At Brentwood, students choose to be here; this blog, written from a parent’s perspective, is designed to help families better understand the transition. If you would like to send us your own blogs and stories, please email karen.reburn@brentwood.bc.ca

Distance Parenting 101

Wow, as a 5 year, extremely proud, parent veteran of Blaine (2013) and Gregory (2011) one would think my tears would have stopped flowing by now, but as I read the Blog, FB, Twitter and so many other social media options, I cannot keep up with the tears that flow. I have come to understand my tears are the product of loneliness, happiness, and an appreciation of how lucky we are to have this school work for our family.

I have to appreciate the feelings this distance parenting has created. “Distance Parenting” is a term I came up with upon hearing others here in our little community judging our educational choice. I needed a handle to try to have people realize that, yes, we are parents with teenage sons who are living very far from us. It is different from the norm here, but it is a choice our family made together. While realizing it is not for everyone, but we stand by our choice and after getting through those awkward first months, we live it!

What a horribly wonderful choice it has been. As parents, our job is to nurture and care for our children and ensure they are on the right path both socially and educationally. How can it possibly work out when one does not control their safety, health, and happiness? How can we help them through the tough days of childhood and young adulthood from so far away?

To be truthful, it is extremely hard.

When I think back to how hard it must have been the first year for our eldest son who had to put up with my phone calls, demands for information, attention, and my crazy emotions, as well as his first year at a boarding school, where, let’s be honest, every day is not great. Those teenage years can be tough. 

I laugh now thinking of how my “Distance Parenting” has changed and how I try to really listen to what is being said instead of trying to make things better by inputting too much. I wait a bit further into the conversation and see what type of solution my child has come up with. I now realize, from a distance, that it is impossible to micro-manage and make decisions for my boys when they are in a situation where only they know the whole story and can make an appropriate, sometimes incorrect, decision on how to deal with the situation. I will make suggestions and encourage with hope that, in the end, that inevitable phone call from Mr. Felix is re-routed to some other time in the year. I cannot explain the feeling when, in the middle of the day or at some weird time, the Brentwood # shows up on the Call Display.

But that is a notation for another Blog, probably one solely on the topic of Phone Calls from Mr. Felix. 😉

We, after 7, almost 8, student years at Brentwood, still don’t have it totally figured out. Thank God our youngest is such an understanding young man who allows me to screw up occasionally and cry as he gives me his good-bye hugs. He is also not embarrassed by my loud and sometimes inappropriate cheering (his brother warned him about it); he loves me for all my not-so-great moments in “Distance Parenting”

But this thought enters my mind so often when I consider Brentwood and the education and life experiences my children have had in Mill Bay. I so wish that every child could have this experience. Every child deserves this quality of educational opportunity. I am thankful for our family’s opportunity to be in The Brentwood Bubble.

Kim W, Distance Parenting from Fort St. James, BC since September 4, 2007