To not understand parents who send young kids to boarding school?

Its none of your business what other parents do. I'm sure many people would not understand some of your parenting choices.

Total abandonment?? Who does that? Virtually no child is abandoned for weeks. Some military personnel abandon their dc for months and dc don’t see them. Who complains about that? I saw my dc every three weeks and sometimes more often. I am happy I was a good parent and my DDs wanted friends around them.

Home education would have driven us all mad. I don’t see it’s necessary to have dc around every day. My DDs did go on a school exchange to South Africa for a term in y9 aged 13. They were very keen to go. It meant a lot to them to be chosen. I don’t cling to my dc or ensure they fulfil my dreams regarding keeping them close. They don’t have friends all over the world - mostly everyone is in London!

'Help' is often the answer. Sometimes local authority, sometimes grandparents but there may also be other forms of help I'm not familiar with. I was teaching rather than Bursary.
A school I knew had a child who had a parent in prison, family was rock bottom, financially and pretty chaotic too.. Child joined for 6th form, thrived and went to university. School was absolutely a safe place for her. No idea how the finance worked.

I feel that it is. There may also be emotional damage from lack of parental input in the nanny scenario, that would depend on child and circumstances, but it is different to the total abandonment of being sent away.

I don't agree with it personally. But it's not my concern what others do in regards to their kids' schooling.

My uncle was a teacher at a boarding school and lots of the kids seemed really confident and happy. I'm sure plenty also weren't.
But if someone's got loads of money and that's what they think will help their kids then fine.

I would personally allow my child to choose if they wanted to move schools once they can make informed decisions. People do want to form their own paths and parents should allow that to an extent.

A few days a week at most in the majority of cases. Kids in childcare from 8-6pm will be with the parents (awake) for maybe 3 hours tops on weekdays, most of which will be spent eating, bathing, dressing etc. Prep school boarding houses are not anything like what most people imagine. There's plenty of interaction, cuddles, stories, v little screen time . I get irritated when people are so set against something based on zero first hand recent experience.

Stephen Fry explains in his autobiography that although yes he was homesick at first, if his parents hadn't sent him away to school he would have experienced that as a far worse thing, as it would have signalled that there was something wrong with him. Going away to school was simply what happens, as natural and accepted as any other normal stage of life. In families where that's not the tradition obviously it feels unnatural. You don't need to understand it, it doesn't affect you.

That's a post full of judgements.
Perhaps ask a few parents why, or ask kids who've boarded what it's like.
So folk who want kids can only live and work in jobs that do not involve overseas postings?
And (rich) parents cannot make decisions about how best to educate their children, only people who send their kids to day school can?

I am sorry you are unable to understand plain English. Show me a post where I said you had to stay at home all day, every day with your children. A child having a longer day, most of the week, outside their home rather than in it, and a child who lives outside the home are being parented by strangers.

I agree. Even if it were non-stop Disneyworld and candyfloss, with all of their best friends there with them, I still think it's damaging to a child's development to be apart from their parents for such long periods.

Irrespective of whether all boarding schools have changed, my personal opinion is that it is damaging to send very young children to boarding school away from their parents.

So no childcare is ok then? One parent must be at home until children are at least of school age? Great, let's tell the global economy that and all sorted.

I'm sorry your dad was emotionally blunted by boarding school, it certainly doesn't suit some people - horses for courses. It made my sister strong and independent with some boyfriends over the years but nobody she was prepared to change her life for.

No need to be so confrontational. Parenting doesn't mean passing your children onto someone else for them to parent for you.

So what is? Are you saying there is only one correct way to parent? And what is that? Please tell us so we can all fit in and do it right 👍

Woah, that's a bit sexist - I clearly said both parents are in the forces, nothing about mums following dads.

Pro and anti beliefs about whether or not families in that situation should use boarding schools or not are all valid but there's no need to make it sound like the mum isn't even working.

Both scenarios aren't parenting.

Of course it is. As has been repeatedly said, young boarders go for a few nights here and there, not weeks or months at a time. Is using 8-6 childcare for toddlers also not parenting? Are you only parenting if you are a SAHP?

Sending them away isn't parenting.

Exactly this. These people were at school at a time where corporal punishment was allowed. There are plenty of adults who went through the state system who remember being physically punished and who have trauma into adulthood because of this. All schools have changed.

Those men were at school decades ago. People keep telling you of school experiences NOW and the response is "oh well let's see in twenty years" . This isn't a discussion, it's people who have already made up their minds and aren't interested in hearing anything other than what confirms that. Why bother posting if you aren't interested in hearing anything alternative view?

Maybe but in my experience what kids really, especially teens even if they don't know it is their (decent) parents presence .