From the head

Jan 30 2026

To reach the deepest potential in students, you must influence the influencers in a young person's life. Our faculty spends a large part of each day helping to inspire and build a peer culture that will stand strong when the adults are not around. But we also know that the role of the parent is a key influence in the growth of a student. Parents have always been Hyde's secret weapon. Parent participation is not just on the periphery; it is integral to the curriculum at the school. When parents focus on their own potential and strengthen their parenting skills, students are inspired.

Some recent highlights of parent involvement at Hyde include the following:

- Parents and faculty members participated in a Zoom discovery meeting to explore the theme of "Setting High Expectations and Letting Go of the Outcome."

- Parents have shared their entrepreneurial and business skills with the EntreX classes.

- One parent discussed coaching in the spring for another year to help our athletes.

- A group recently returned from an outdoor family workshop at Lennox Lodge, where families spent time together and learned about one another in nature.

- A group of families shared their parenting lessons as material to be added to the Biggest Job Family Program, which is being digitized.

A young man who returned from the outdoor trip with his mother had this to say, "While I always loved my mother, we didn't always get along in previous years. On this trip, we talked a lot about myself and my future. We are closer now, and the trip really showed us that."

Some of the parent stories also inspired us all:

A father of daughters shared:

I think the main thing for me, as a father, was to try to take a longer view. When my daughter was 16, and I was in my 40s, I learned that my role was not to try to get all of her problems “fixed” before the end of high school. I realized that I will hopefully live another 40-50 years, so I get to spend 40 or 50 more years with her. And so I have time to get my part right to help things work out for all of us. So, I try to get off the timeline mindset and realize that I’m going to be a parent to this person for the rest of my days. And so, I try to take the time to work with my family and work things through for the long haul. I try not to jam things into an artificial deadline.

Another father wrote about social media and parenting:

I think we were really lucky because our kids weren't into social media. I mean, it was around, and I do remember that they both had Snapchat, but they weren't really interested in posting about their lives and were not obsessed with having people “like” their posts. Looking back, that was a blessing. But we definitely had to do a lot of teaching around what is an appropriate social relationship, and how do you navigate this online texting and messaging and things that you can send and receive... I could not count the number of times we said, “If you wouldn't do it in a room full of people, you shouldn't be doing it on the phone.

A father shares, realizing that we all need support and challenge to be our best:

As our son hit the teen years, we began to experience, well, teen problems. There came a moment when we realized: We can't do this by ourselves. He needs a bigger structure, a better pedagogy than what we can offer at home and what he's getting at public school. That led us to pursue an option we had resisted: boarding school. And in our case, it has made all the difference. We had to let go of our need for control in order to give him what he truly needed. And not only is he excelling, but our relationship has never been better.

Hyde's parents are first-rate people, and their involvement in our learning process makes all the difference!

Laura D. Gauld '76

President