My 2 kids go to boarding school, AMA

[happylady1982]

My kids are 14 and 16, they both go to boarding school. Weekly boarding. This means they come home every weekend, and during the half terms and the major holidays too (Christmas, easter, summer).

Right now it's the summer holidays so they are home.

I wanted to do an AMA cause I think people still have negative stereotypes about boarding school.

No ‘well done’ needed.

OP hasn’t answered my question or several regarding finances. As other posters have said, she’s been opaque but has disclosed her DH’s family is well off.

She married ‘well’ (& he can therefore afford a bloody good divorce lawyer 😂)

And people who can afford boarding school fees are wealthy even if the money comes from wider family money as opposed to just income.

A state run school.

What an odd way to describe state schools.

At 11 they seem to have had warped way of looking at schools.

Who runs their current school?

She sort of answered me when I asked directly, with a 'my DH family has money'.

I'm in a similar position, but I'd never pretend that our lifestyle comes from our household income, which is considerably higher than OP's but still wouldn't be possible without the huge advantage of the family pound.

Why do people on Mumsnet constantly abbreviations.

My question was what is AMA but now I am effectively stuck in a loop

Well weekends its a compromise to completely making them strangers as full time boarders balanced against good school and commuting

Don't think that's the reason you posted it basically I'm got loaaads of manay post

'When they were younger and couldn't have their phones as often, they would tell the staff and the staff were always kind enough to let them have their phone and contact me or my husband'

Oh yes how very kind of Miss or Sir to let your own young child, living away from home and upset contact you. Hearts of gold! . I mean most parents have a chat at bedtime <or whenever they like> without permission from anyone but gotta think of those sports trophies.

Of course me and my husband have spoke about moving. We've also asked the kids. But overall moving would not be best for our family. We live in a place where there is a lot of activities everywhere, the community is great, our family live nearby.

If we moved closer to the school my kids wouldn't live as far away and would probably not board, but on the weekends and during their long summer holidays (8 and a half weeks) and all the breaks they get during the year, they would be bored out of their mind living in a rural area. They love coming home to living in a city. All their old friends are here, the public transport is brilliant. We weighed our the pros and cons, we realised all of us would be more miserable living in a rural area

It stands for “ask me anything”.

But you could have picked a different school, nearer to home. Why did it specifically have to be this school?

Because the schools nearer to home weren't the schools my kids wanted to go to. Private schools tend to offer a lot more opportunities. This private school has a good mixture of art, theatre, music and sports whereas a lot of the private schools close by ended up not having as many options. The private schools nearby also had schedules that my kids didn't particularly like. They didn't want to go to a state school either.

When we found this school, my oldest daughter was immediately sure about this school. My husband and I did have to remind her of the school hours and what that would be like. And we did have to explain the option of boarding, she decided to board. Obviously she was nervous but she ended up loving boarding. My son saw how much his sister loved that school so he decided to follow her path and board at that school aswell.

That is insane. You must have money to throw away?

Thank you. What career does you daughter think she'd like to get into? And do you think boarding school will give her an advantage in going down that path?

Whether you will admit it on this forum or not, there will be times your children need your emotional support and you are not there to give it to them. Does that bother you?

I think of the conversations I have with my dc around the house, on car journeys to clubs, on dog walks etc where I find out the little details, thoughts, worries etc and I can’t imagine that that would all be shared in one go over a weekend.

I’ve seen a few of these AMAs on here over the years, they’re not uncommon and the OP is never willing to admit that their child is anything other than blissfully happy and well adjusted and never misses them or wishes they were home. I never buy it, not for the whole time they are there and not without some loss of closeness to the parents.

That is part of family life

Why is everyone pretending they’re full boarding? They’re home every weekend, half term, Easter, Xmas, Summer…

My daughter would like to have an art career. And boarding school has definitely helped build her confidence in regards to art!

@ParsleySageToiletDuckAndBinBagsOf course you parent your dc! You see them every weekend! Or at least every 3 weeks in term time and you get very long holidays. No one else parented my dc. You seem to have no understanding of modern boarding and just parrot outdated and wrong info. Boarding parents parent!

I don’t like it from a safeguarding and emotional perspective.

Your parents are there to raise you, not look after you two days a week. And you haven’t been around to protect them from abuse. Childcare institutions are like honey to bees, how do you accept the increased risk their boarding creates?

Pretty sure if my parents spent 90k a year sending me to private school they would be pretty furious if i chose a career in art....

I will never be upset about my kids career choices. The reason my daughter wanted to go to this school is because of the wide range of extracurricular activities. If mine and my DH only concern was maths, English and Science, we could of just sent the kids to a private school near our house.

Yeah but your reasoning doesnt stack. Kids may want to only eat chocolate for dinner but as adults it’s up to us to do the right thing for them.

Your additional reasoning of them being Independant and confident are again wrong as going to boarding school doesn't automatically mean those things.

You are justifying and negating studies which show kids don’t do as well.

And I hate to break it to you - my kids went to state. They are confident, Independant, got those grades and play elite international sport. It isn’t a given. I went to both and I wouldn't spend the money.

You aren’t asking us to AMA you are trying to justify why you did it.

Why did you start an AMA when you aren’t asking all questions put to you?

Would your DH have been happy if your dc didn’t choose boarding?

Artistic talent is kind of 'in born', you have it or you don't. Throwing money at art activities won't make a child into a good artist. You can easily support a child with artistic talent at home or at a local school.

I'd understand sending your children to private school if you were dead keen for them to pursue a very academic career choice where you need the highest grades to get into a top university. To me, that would be worth the 90k.

He would have supported their choices. If you asked me when my kids were 7 and 5, if I would send them to boarding school...me and my husband both would have said no way. But as they got older we realised that as parents we had to make more difficult decisions in order to make sure our kids are happy.