President Barack Obama's Malia was just 10 years old when the family moved into the White House.

WASHINGTON — A milestone has arrived for President Barack Obama: Daughter Malia is graduating from high school.

The 17-year-old is receiving her diploma from the private Sidwell Friends School today. Malia Obama was just 10 and longing for a promised puppy when her family moved into the White House. During seven years of growing up in the public eye, she has gotten and shed braces, learned to drive and even spent brief stints away.

Presidents are parents, too, and it hasn’t been easy for Obama to watch as his daughter — “one of my best friends” — has grown.

“I’m not going to talk about the fact that my daughter leaving me is just breaking my heart,” he said last week.

Months ago, the president blamed his emotions for declining an invitation to deliver the commencement address at the elite school where Malia is among 127 members of the Class of 2016. Younger sister Sasha, who turned 15 today, attends Sidwell, too.

What’s next? Malia is taking a year for herself before enrolling at Harvard in the fall of 2017.

Neither Obama nor his wife, Michelle, has said what Malia has on tap for her “gap year.” But delaying the start of college could keep her close to her tight-knit family as it prepares for another big transition next year: the end of Obama’s presidency. The Obamas plan to stick around Washington for several years so Sasha can finish high school here.