soliek – didn’t say it was easy 🙁 Maybe dorming? Depends on the kid. I think a part of my point is that lots is said about the “frum community” and I wish, for the readers sakes that people would say “the frum communities on the east coast” or in the tri state area or whatever. It’s not necessarily a frum problem, sometimes its a big-ciy problem, which means there are options. Let people know life is very different in different cities.
I happen to have a kid who needed an oot place but wasn’t ready to be sent oot. We ended up pulling him out of school and homeschooling him til he was ‘stronger’ and now we are sending him to bais medrash early. He didn’t fit any mold at all, and didn’t dress in white while he didn’t have to but people judged him by his behavior and how he carried himself and his reputation did not suffer. B”H it CAN be done.