Top boarding schools are full of city kids

news.com.au ^ | 3rd August 2009

[naturalman1975]

HUNDREDS of parents pay more than $28,000 a year to send their children to boarding school in the city - although some live within walking distance of the college gates.

More than half of the boarders at prestigious St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill are from families living in Sydney, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Parents' busy lives, the long school day and arduous bus and train rides across Sydney were cited as major reasons for the trend.

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His choice ... Ian Town and wife Stella Reuter with their son Patrick who is a boarder at St Josephs College Hunters Hill

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The news comes as experts warn parents are becoming irrelevant in children's lives and fathers need to take a more active role in raising their kids.

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Hamilton told the Australian children's entire life experience was being shrunk down to the classroom, television and computer games just at the time they need more emotional maturity to cope with the difficult choices facing them.

And parents, while aware of issues such as cyber-bullying, the impact of violent images on young boys' behaviour and the sexualisation of children at an ever younger age, were hopelessly ill-equipped to cope with the technology so influencing their children's lives.

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Meanwhile physician and parenting author Dr Bruce Robinson says fathers leave too much to mothers, despite research showing that those with uninvolved dads were twice as likely to abuse drugs later.

Dr Robinson said too many fathers avoid interacting with schools and going to information nights on subjects such as drugs, the Herald Sun reports.