I saw a post on Facebook where the writer said "Boarding school is the bleeding ground for lesbian and gay," and I couldn't agree more.
Not because everything about boarding schools is bad, but because I believe that the environment a person grow up in has a lot of influence in their behavior and habits they formed especially in the aspect of relationship with others. It is easy to point fingers at the society, social media or even the government, but sometimes we fail to see the bigger picture of what is really shaping our children.
Yes, there are concerns about badly raised teenagers whose interaction and understanding of relationships seems distorted. But ignoring the role boarding school plays in the formation of teenage behavior, is like ignoring an elephant in the room.
I admit that parenting plays a huge role in shaping a child foundation, but you see boarding school eh, it's something different entirely because this is where the teenagers learns how to communicate with peers, build social habits and learn about relationships. Now, imagine doing all that in an environment where there are no opposite sex, limited guidance, and in a time of their highest hormonal development. What do you think could happen in such an environment?
Some parents send their children to boarding school for various reasons. Some because they are too busy with work to have time for their children. Others send them because of academic excellence, while some believe it makes a child more discipline. But what most parents failed to realize is that the social development of their child at this critical stage will have an impact on their future.
How do you expect a boy who spent all his formative years in all boys school to naturally understand how to interact with girls in the real world. This is the issue I am talking about, a boy who has spent all his teenage years surrounded only by boys could naturally been attracted to the same sex. Same thing with a girl who spent her teenage years in all girls school. And when the school in question is a boarding school where supervision is minimal, the likelihood of developing affection for the same sex is very high.
I am not saying boarding school make people LGBT, but that it is something parents should not ignore when dealing with their children. The environment we exposed our children to during their formative years plays a significant role in shaping their sexual orientation and general development as adults in the society.
As a parent I am most very careful with children and how they behave. My first son who is 18 years old spent most of his secondary school days in a boarding school, and I could see the effects in his behaviors even though he was only there in the last two years of his secondary education. He doesn't feel comfortable around girls and tend to avoid conversation with the opposite sex.
Now, at the university, he still feels shy around females and struggle to initiate a relationship with opposite sex. One day when he was at home, I accidentally saw a call coming on his phone while he was outside the house and I picked the call and the caller was a girl who was complaining that he never answers her call nor cares to call back. I called him immediately and asked who the girl was, but he denied knowing her from anywhere. At this point I know what the problem was with him. I asked him to tell me the truth about the girl and he admitted she was a classmate who has been trying to get close to him but he doesn't know how to respond to her advances.
I told him to call the girl back and speak nicely to her. How can you be a young man, handsome and clean and do not know how to relates with a girl who is clearly interested in you. I told him to invite the girl for lunch for me to talk to both of them.
There are many young men out there who are struggling with the same issue all because of the environment they were exposed to during their formative years. Some of them ended up confused about their sexual orientation because they were locked up in a boarding school where they only interact with the same sex during their developmental years.
