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Stone Mountain School
Stone Mountain boarding school for boys is a long-term residential school in an outdoors environment. Stone Mountain is a boarding school that specializes in pre-adolescent and teen boys with attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, emotional issues, learning differences or disabilities, or behavioral problems. The rustic wilderness environment in North Carolina serves as an excellent teaching tool for boys with ADHD / ADD through direct experience. Specialty boarding schools offer boys with ADD a safe, structured environment in which they can thrive and succeed both academically and socially.
Are Parents Rushing Children Out of Childhood?
American parents who believe their children are growing up too quickly are not alone. A majority of British mothers and fathers believe that childhood ends before their children turn 12.
Fifty-five percent of parents who were surveyed by Random House Children's Books said that childhood is "over by 11," and most of the parents blamed themselves for childhood's early end. Many of the 1,170 parents who participated in the survey cited their inability to overcome their children's "pester pressure" as the reason their children were engaging in "adult" activities much earlier than previous generations did.
Denise Bodman, a senior lecturer at Arizona State University's School of Social and Family Dynamics, concurred with the parents who placed the blame on themselves. "We, as parents, are really kind of pushing our children forward into adulthood," Bodman told reporter Karina Bland for a July 6, 2008 article about the survey in The Arizona Republic.
Additional findings from the survey include the following:
- 53 percent of British parents allow teenagers younger than 16 to stay out later than 11 p.m.
- 45 percent of British parents allow 16-year-olds to spend the night at a boyfriend's or girlfriend's house.
- Almost 75 percent of British parents allow their children to drink alcohol before age 18.
- 54 percent of British children are allowed to dye their hair and wear makeup before age 14
"I feel it is a real shame that children act like adults at an alarmingly early age," Wilson said. "I'm not saying all under-12s should wear puff-sleeved dresses and little white socks and tee-strap sandals but at least you could run about and play properly in them. And it seems so sad that girls feel embarrassed if they want to play with dolls past the age of six."
Like most others who offered their opinion on the survey, Wilson pointed her finger at the moms and dads who were allowing their children to grow up too quickly. "Parents need to take a stand, to tell their children, 'I don't care if everyone else in the class is allowed to do this or that. You're not,'" she said.
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