Hi all - My son just got back from a week work camp through our church. (They are a part of REACH ministries, and go to economically depressed areas of the united states and work on repairing and fixing up homes - middle and high schoolers primarily.) My point is that as tough as it is to have your kids leave you for a time, I believe that having encouraged times apart from us has been extremely important to our son's independent development. As an only child, it would have been very easy for him to be quite dependent on us, but would have been a real diservice to him later in life. At 17 and a half now, he's got the confidence in himself that is so important in this time of looking to go away to college, etc.