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Wilderness Times | Autumn 2021
THE SISTERHOOD OF BOARDING
Without the aid of a forensic archivist, I am quietly confident that 2021 will go down in the historical records of Wilderness School as the year that had the greatest number of sisters residing together in our Boarding House.
The sense of sisterhood and lifelong friendships that boarders experience is well documented, but what of the impact of sibling relationships when they share time in a boarding environment?
When the School gates opened this year, nine girls joined their older sisters in our boarding community.
After a period of separation and adjusting to the shift in family dynamic, imagine the readjustment again required when your younger sister joins boarding life.
We always feel extremely privileged when a family entrusts the care of a child to us at this critical time in their development and feel even more blessed when their siblings follow. At Wilderness, we strongly believe that boarding is very much a shared experience for the entire family. It is fair to say that family life unravels somewhat when a family member leaves home to attend boarding school. Significant adjustments are demanded, not only from the child leaving but often from the younger sibling who remains at home.
While boarding together as sisters doesn’t entirely mirror their nuclear family life, having a sibling in the nearby corridor generally offers more advantages than disadvantages. Having spent three years apart and coming from Darwin, where visits home are rarer than for our regional SA boarders, Meredith Grice saw the opportunity of boarding with her older sister Annalise, as a chance for them to reconnect. Despite her age and the desire for support, she is also
