Parents of boarders - please help! (Re: homesickness)

Sirvix, it sounds as if you had a hard time of it. Boarding certainly doesn't suit everyone -I had friends who never settled - I wonder if your experience was more about the school than boarding per se? Although I think I was certainly more independent than my non-boarding siblings, I'm closer to my parents than they are. And I co-slept and breastfed my baby too.

DH and I were both boarders, and FWIW, I would send my ds to boarding school if it was what he wanted, but I'd rather he didn't, it's not necessary for our family and he doesn't like the idea, so it isn't an issue.

I've thought more about my boarding experience lately, so this thread was strangely pertinent. I was only a boarder for a year. My parents had never been keen on me boarding, and they moved house to be near the school. I was homesick, but I was also a cheerful child, so I got on with it, and I would have been considered happy by the school, I even considered myself happy, at the time.. However in hindsight I can see that it changed my relationship to my parents, particularly my mother. I had learned to live without her, and I never quite restored the closeness. It also made it really hard for me to readjust to being a daygirl, which affected my work, and had repurcussions for years down the line. I didn't turn to my parents when I should have, during a terrible time in my 20s. I've only come to realise now, 40 years later, quite what a devastating effect it had on me, to live day to day without love. I still remember the suffocating lump in my throat feeling when a letter came from home. The holding it in and not crying.
Not a single girl I was friends with has sent their own child to board. I have co-slept with mine, breastfed for years, and I think that is in part because of the pain of distance from my own mother.
I thought more about this thread after posting op. And I would say that no education is worth the separation. Weekly boarding might be just about ok, for older children, but anything else is too much time away, too many small intimate moments that you will never glean back. Relationships are build on the casual, the everyday caring, as a pp said-the kiss on the back of the neck as you walk past your child. The holding them tight after a nightmare. No school, however child-friendly, can give that, because the people caring are paid to care. They do not love your child.

Thanks former

You have given me food for thought and many thanks for sharing.

I think your story is just as relevant to others, it could be the decision to be a Lawyer rather than a Doctor for other parents. Banker? Business owners?
Yes, this still happens every year. Some decide they want to do something different recently linguistics and science spring to mind.

Just one other thing to add - more relevant to newlife than to other worried Mums, perhaps - but I didn't end up going into a career in music. At 16, I decided I wanted it to be a hobby, not my life, but I have never regretted going to a specialist music school. Careerwise, I chose myself a different kind of rat race altogether, but have always continued to play and it has opened some amazing doors - overseas tours, an education my parents wouldn't have been able to afford to pay for, free tickets to every event at uni because my band played for an hour or so, friends for life and a hobby I can lose myself in, alone or with others.

formerboarder

Thank you. I will most definitely keep my eye on the practice room and thank you so much for sharing
She hasn't really given home much thought but she is so busy finding her feet, well arse from elbow really it might come later.
I'm glad we see her over the weekends.

I was very much like newlife's dd - I won a DES scholarship to one of the specialist music schools in the 80s. I desperately wanted to go - I was the youngest of 4 children, who had all either left home or would do so soon after - with quite a controlling mother - I wanted to go partly for the music and partly to avoid being smothered.

I was completely taken by surprise by my homesickness, which hit me like a freight train. It lasted until I made really good friends - which took me a while. I had expected to find lots more kindred spirits amongst musicians, and it came as a shock to find that just because someone shares your passion, it doesn't make them your soul-mate. I used to shut myself in my practice room and cry. I'm not sure how long it went on - I remember being happier in the second term, happier still in the summer term and feeling much more settled in my second year. I think the homesickness was exacerbated by a really strict housemistress, who was ex-army, very strict and thought that warmth was unhygienic. She retired after a year and the new regime was much more homely, sympathetic and humane. And warmer - we were allowed duvets!

Then I settled and made friends, amazing, wonderful friends. We brought each other up and we still - 30-something years later - see each other regularly, understand each other completely, pick up as if it were yesterday. My brother was my "responsible adult" at my 18th birthday and met many of my friends for the first time. He commented that it was a surreal feeling, as if seeing me in a room full of siblings that he didn't know.

It took me a while to settle in, but I did and it ended up being the happiest time of my life. Hugs to you and to your DD - it's a difficult time - change is always hard - but she needs to give it time. I think you've done the right thing in letting her know that if she really doesn't settle you won't force her to stay there, but she does need to give it a chance.

I appreciate there are all sorts of different reasons but I haven't heard of anybody who didn't think they were doing the best for their child.
Even at schools like dd there are those who don't fit, and leave.
So when the fit was deemed so perfect initially, it is obvious to say that you never can tell.
I don't mean necessarily from a homesickness pov, although I know this is the most important to begin with and the OP's problem.
I think under the circumstances we help the OP and not think the worst tbh.
This must be heart breaking for her.
My dd would be homesick if she couldn't call us, that's ridiculous. I would be on the phone immediately and breaking my heart.
Poor love probably only needs the reassurance she is allowed and to call when she wants.

Wreckingball- be grateful. Our family days out in the 70s were walking up Beacon Fell (or sometimes just driving past it.) In the rain normally. I would have killed just to have even glanced at a water slide.

Oh and by the way I think exceptional circumstances can be when the school and the child are such an obvious fit that if you can do it you should do it.

I hated boarding.I never got over the homesickness, but you get more resigned to it.
The school drilled into you that you were selfish if you burden your parents with your misery when they are too far to do anything about it.sad, sad, sad.Would never inflict it on my own DC

"reasons are any better or worse than anyone else who decides on boarding school, it's the same"
With respect, if isn't. It was a child led decision- and she is not far from home....

Thank you I think.

My dd wanted to join this school from being 7, originally we said 14/ y9 but she wore us down.
We took her out of school at aged 8 because she said it interfered with her music. It has been the centre of her life well before this and she is very talented.
When we speak to her she tells us she finally feels as though she belongs somewhere and her friends don't think she's a freak or weird to want to do more music practice, because they are the same.
She knows what she wants and said she would never forgive us if we didn't let her do it.
Our decision was one of what we thought best for dd, but we are also glad that she will get a suitable academic education as well, but this is the bonus rather than the rationale.

We live in a deprived area and the schools are notoriously bad. There are two outstanding secondaries throughout our borough, a few good schools but mostly not very good.
She is part of MADS the gov scheme that provides education for talented musicians and dancers at the specialist schools throughout the UK. We could never have afforded the fees and the scheme is means tested so anyone irrespective of income can apply/attend.
She could have been a day pupil but wanted to board.
I miss her so much I can't tell you all, but we believe it would have been very selfish not to let her do this.

I don't think our reasons are any better or worse than anyone else who decides on boarding school, it's the same.

Wicksteed park was not any sort of Nirvana in the 70's.
They did have a water slide thing though but we weren't allowed to go on it and anyway the queues were a mile long.
The last time I went I took my kids, we stood behind a young girl in a queue who had the worst nits I have ever seen.
It went down in our family history, poor kid.

Your poor dd. Not being able to speak on the phone seems so harsh. That would send me into a spin if I felt that homesick.

On whether it gets better, I don't have boarding dc, but did board. And only weekly at age 12. It took about 2 years for it all to pass. Yes I had friends, and yes it was all very active but when you want to be at home it is different to speaking on the phone or skype.

Exceptional circumstances? Well, there is a poster in here whose child's boarding is completely driven by the child because of an exceptional talent. Extremely complicated family circumstances. Weekly boarding is sometimes a good option when both parents work very long hours (my godsons go to school on Monday morning and come back on Friday evening, which they both prefer to the live in nanny they had before- both parents have long hours high pressure jobs) Apart from that? Nah, can't think of any.

I too would like to know the exceptional circumstances.

OP - It is hard the first 3-4 weeks. I would send a big parcel of sweets and treats like poptarts along with some nice magazines. Yeah it's junk but it will give her something to share with the other girls.

I would be calling the housemistress at this point and if things have not improved after half term you need to consider another boarding school, ideally one that starts at 13. She will only be a term in so relationships won't be as firm.

Whore I respectfully wholly disagree with you. My father was connected with me in a way that he knew from my breath down the phone what my mood was. He called 3-4 times a week no matter where he was in the world and sent postcards almost daily along with long letters about once a week to all 3 of us that enabled us to connect to him.

Having 13 years ago been to Disney in Florida - Wicksteed park looks like Nirvana

You say you are more closely familiar with their daily school routine than most families are at a state school? But what does that translate as exactly? You have read the course layout, seen lesson breakdowns, read detailed reports from teachers, presumably?

But if you live with your child, you get their personal feedback on lessons. Face to face. Every day. With those subtle intonations and mannerisms that just don't really translate through Skype.

I know exactly what my dd is doing at all times, the results of tests and exams, behaviour, timetable, concerts, academic reports, in fact everything she does, reported daily. My other children had the most awful education, so this is wonderful.

Unfortunately, the personal feedback we got from our other children were tales of horror tbh. My experience of the schools in our area were also of horror. My only regret is that I knew nothing of H.ed until dd came along.

Skype manages to put my mind at rest that dd is indeed happy, enjoying life and completely in heaven. This translates beautifully through Skype, face to face. I only have to see her face to know this, we are very close.

Exceptional circs are when your DP get's a bit part in The Simpsons and you can't afford the school Brooklyn Beckham goes to.

Disneyland?
We thought we'd done good if we got to go to Wicksteed park once a year.

How would you define "exceptional circumstances"?

Not saying you don't care. Not saying you don't love.

Am saying you can not be physically hands on and physically present in the same way as an engaged parent who lives under the same roof as their children year round. You just can't.

Skype is clever. But it's a pale photocopy of sitting next to your DC on the sofa and chatting about your day. You can't hug via Skype. Neither, via Skype, can you absentmindedly kiss the top of their head as you walk past.

If you live with your child you never have to find out, remotely, hours later that your child was sick in the night. You know. Because you were there, holding their hair out of the way as they threw up into a bowl, and then sat at the end of their bed at 3am while they fell asleep. And this isn't being suffocatingly controlling, or trying to micro manage your child. You're just there. Taking care of them.

You say you are more closely familiar with their daily school routine than most families are at a state school? But what does that translate as exactly? You have read the course layout, seen lesson breakdowns, read detailed reports from teachers, presumably?

But if you live with your child, you get their personal feedback on lessons. Face to face. Every day. With those subtle intonations and mannerisms that just don't really translate through Skype.

Human communication is only, I think, 20% verbal? If your main communication with your child is via Skype, email and texts, no matter how often, that's an awful lot of communication you are simply not engaging in.

If you live, day to day, with your child you can tell what sort of school day they've had simply by how they walk in the door. There are 1001 tiny gestures and interactions which create a really textured family life. A quick smile across the kitchen, hearing them singing in the shower, a quick hug as you pass them on the landing. It can be spontaneous, and haphazard but it's happening and building every day.

It's not the slightly polished and performed Skype interaction or the digital text chat or the flickering cursor on an email. It's real, and there's warmth and feeling in it.

The fact there are horribly dysfunctional families in the world ( and God knows there are) doesn't make the case for sending your child to boarding school any stronger or more pertinent.

Obviously we'll never agree as we argue from totally polarised views. There are so few things I argue passionately about but boarding school is one of them ( unless in exceptional circumstances).

I went to boarding school in the 70's, it was a totally different world then, my parents lived overseas and we all grew up knowing we'd probably go to B/S for secondary and while it was not perfect it really wasn't that bad, I still have friends from those days who I am in touch with.
My parents were/are great though, we had fabulous holidays abroad and if they argued or smashed each others stuff or chucked each others stuff out of the car window they did it when we were not around and school never made us do embroidery for the village church kneelers.

I occasionally show my son (full boarding - which actually means in practice it is at most 2 weeks if that between me seeing him) some of the threads on Mumsnet where people say that it is not natural for a teenager to board. He just laughs, in a kind of a "Mum, someone is always wrong on the internet" way. Maybe it is me who is wrong. But really truly I believe that my DS has had the best past 5 years he could. He thinks it was great. School stuff and home stuff. We are a close family. It isn't like the Pevenseys where they go off and spend 20 years in Narnia before you see them again. The 2/3 of a year is misleading. And the last time I looked, boarding isn't compulsory , so if it doesn't work for your family, don't do it.

That said , after a sensible period of settling in, if a child does not take to it or is unhappy - of course have another plan. That surely is common sense, but 10 days doesn't seem to me to be that period of time.

OP - is this a school where most start at 11? If so, in wonder if that is the problem. New starters en masses will tend to have a whole programme set up for them, whereas your DD will be more of the odd one out and trying to break into established friendship groups, which is particularly hard for girls at that age. Hopefully the staff get that and will manage to help her find a way through, but I feel for you all in the meantime.