Emotional problems that arise in boarding school often come from the total displacement of familiarity and order. When teens move into a boarding school, they lose their ability to interact daily with their parents or guardians, thereby losing the constant feeling of being in an adult's care. Suddenly, these teens find themselves in a new hierarchy in which there is no related caretaker. In this new hierarchy, the student is abruptly placed at the bottom. The interactions between the displaced teen and her classmates and superiors may give rise to certain emotional problems.
Lacking a true caretaker and finding himself in a new environment that is often hostile, a teen in boarding school may protect himself through violence and aggressiveness. This kind of behavior may arise as a response to other aggressive children in the school, such as bullies, or it may arise as a way to divert negative emotions onto other students. High school boarding school students are virtually adults and are capable of adult-level violence.
Nick Duffell created the term "strategic survival personality" to describe children who create disguises for themselves as a way to avoid conflict in certain situations, such as moving into boarding schools. These disguises include bullies, class clowns, loners and victims. A teen employing strategic survival personality may appear to have a certain personality, but this is only on the surface; the teen is in fact hiding her emotions as a way to remain safe. Strategic survival personality is potentially dangerous, as teachers or counselors may misinterpret the student's intents and ignore her needs.
High school students sent to boarding schools while going through puberty are prone to a variety of problems resulting from the changes in their bodies and thought processes. This holds especially true for single-sex institutions, because students do not have the ability to learn about the opposite sex, leading to an impractical understanding of post-high school courtship. Also, the lack of sex education in most boarding schools can lead to confusion in teens regarding the changes in their bodies and thoughts. This may result in vulnerability to bullying or pedophilia.