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.

Well come on then - what are your reasons? Not to pick bad habits from common folks?

Nevermind. These threads are so crap because guys like you keep hiding behind "their happiness is my priority" and similar nonsense as if we don't know why parents really send their kids to private schools

I agree entirely. I don’t know the parents’ reasons, I know they were both working with successful careers, even though this is going back around 5 decades or more, when - in general - far fewer women worked or had careers. I don’t ask about it, because I know it was a really hard time, but they have made comments on occasion which have shown how badly they were, and probably still were, affected by this decision. I know some people obviously do make the decision to do this, and I’d imagine for very many different reasons, but looking at my child at that age I just couldn’t even imagine even considering it! I had a relationship when my dc were young secondary age and he once brought up the - hypothetical - idea of boarding school. Again absolutely not something I’d choose myself, but it showed we really did have different core values and were just not going to be suitable longer term (I think it was about a 2yr ish relationship, so mid-term). I absolutely do believe in a parents right to make whatever decision they believe to be right for their family, so I would never judge, especially if I didn’t know their reasons, and nor should I have any right to know that and would never ask, but again, just not something I would choose. I think your dc are definitely at the age where they can also have an input into the decision, and as you say are at an age where theirs friendships are very important. And I definitely think weekly boarding is a whole other animal than full boarding anyway. I know my own dc at that age would never have wanted to do that, but all children are very different.
again, thanks for your reply, it’s very interesting to hear your views.

Am I lying or are you being ridiculous saying that my approach is “no need to do any work darling”?

This is not my approach. Nuance is completely out the window as usual in these replies. My child is in junior school for a start so his schooling is very much about play. He is very bright and curious and already reading so I have no concerns that he enjoys learning, but it’s not our main concern right now. As he moves up the school, yes it will be important to our family. It is not, however, The Singular Reason he attends the school. If he turns out not to be particularly academically minded, we chose the school because of its holistic approach. Whereas at our schools, if you weren’t academic you were lost. The school didn’t catch you when you fell.

“Come on then?”
“Common folks?”

You haven’t the foggiest who I am, my background and upbringing, my life, my family, what’s going on for us and why we make our choices. You are the one introducing “common folk” and nonsense language like this, not me.

Why on earth do you think I should respond to your hostility and jump to it with the answers you demand?

You said 'Like the OP, my child is at a private school and grades are bottom of the list of our reasons for choosing the school.'

If the school's pupils generally got absolutely awful grades would you still have chosen it? I guess when you know that all the private schools / grammars that are on your list of possible schools end up with pupils getting pretty good grades then you can say it was the bottom of your list. But be honest that the schools you were looking at were unlikely to have schools with terrible academic records on it. Someone (not sure if it was you) said they felt sorry for children with parents who prioritise academic achievement - that's an easy thing to say when you know any school you send your kids to is going to be pretty good. Then I guess you can start to pretend the availability of 'horseback riding' is the most important thing to distinguish between possible schools.

Our school doesn’t offer horse riding. And bottom of our list doesn’t mean not on our list. It’s a given we want the academic side to be high quality. Other things were a higher priority when choosing the school. Our local comprehensive does not offer any of it and the academic outcomes are poor as well.

Perhaps in some cases but not in the case of my friend and many other people I read about on here. It’s all about not harming her career. In fact, she only works four days a week but her children go off to nursery five days as she apparently needs ‘one day for myself’.

People here are asking ‘why have children to just send them away to boarding school?’. I would ask anyone ‘why choose to have children if you then send them to full-time nursery from six-months old for their first five years?’ Surely that does more emotional damage to children, when they’re at such a tender age, than OP sending her children away to school Mon-Fri aged 11 upwards?

Don't. I genuinely don't care if you reply to me and your reasons about sending your kid to a private school - I honestly don't give an f. You were the one who started quoting me I never approached you

Yes you do sound like someone who doesn’t care. I’m glad it doesn’t bother you which school my child goes to. It shouldn’t.

Yes. "Not harm a career" is a valid enough reason in my eyes. Some people care about their career and don't want to do lower paid jobs for the rest of their lives. In some industries a few year break is too much.

I actually never wanted to send my kids to boarding school. It never crossed my mind until my oldest was 10 and we were looking at secondary schools! She went to a private primary school so we were already looking for private secondary schools because both my kids really enjoyed private school. All the options near us weren't ideal, a lot of private schools were just not the best in my opinion, the extracurricular activities options weren't great, people said the teachers were quite strict, the schedules were not ideal either. She didn't really love any of the local options, I mean she would have accepted certain schools but she didn't seem happy about the schools.

So we decided to look at schools a bit further away, and we found the school my kids currently attend. We knee about this school because a lot of her friends from primary school were going to this school, and all of them were boarding. Boarding was one of the options, flexi-boarding was also an option, being a day student was also an option. We loved the wide range of extracurricular activities, we loved the day to day schedule because it was very similar to my daughters primary school (The school day is a bit longer though). And my daughter had her heart set on this school. We did realise that if she went to this school as a day student she wouldn't get home until like 7pm every night, then she would have to eat dinner, do homework and go to bed because she would have to leave the house at 6:30 every morning for school. Obviously that kind of made us rethink our decision, but we knew weekly boarding and flexi boarding were options, and we spoke to my daughter about those options. She needed a little while to think but she did eventually decide that she wanted to board at the school. Admittedly I wanted her to Flexi-board, but she was adamant she wanted to weekly board, mainly because she said all her friends were weekly boarding and she wanted to try it too. Fair enough. Me and my husband assumed she would realise after a few weeks that weekly boarding was not the right option, but nope she loved weekly boarding. I think the stability helped, Flexi-boarding would mean she is constantly going from sleeping at home to sleeping at school, the stability to weekly boarding was great for her. And my son went to that school 2 years later, it was a much easier decision for him to decide where he wanted to go to school. He knew how much fun his big sister had at boarding school so he wanted to go too.

Obviously there is rules at boarding school but they aren't too strict. I mean, a lot of the kids live there so creating a safe and friendly environment is important. The teachers are all really kind people. The staff are lovely. After lessons, there is sports and homework (depending on the day), but after that the students get free time to do what they want.

I asked my son how he would describe boarding school to somebody who hasn't been to boarding school. This is what he said: "Okay, it's nothing like Harry Potter but it is also exactly like Harry Potter. No magic, atleast I haven't seen any magic. And things aren't as chaotic, nobody is breaking that many rules. But the friendship dynamics are quite accurate. We kind of have a staff member who I guess is our schools version of Hagrid, cool guy, is currently a master at chess. Unfortunately he isn't magic, nor is he a giant, but he's everybody's favourite member of staff." I think his response is great 🤣 Cause almost everybody who has never been to boarding school asks him if boarding school is like hogwarts

Yes it is fascinating. If their happiness was the priority why only have them part-time? Again, I have no objections to fee paying schools just not the living away bit.

All kids love sleepovers I would suggest at 11 yrs old it's usually an occasional treat not a weekly occurrence and that is because the majorly of a dc's home life should be with their parents. If happiness was a priority that should surely be obvious?

I agree. A relative sent her 3 children to nursery 5 days a week (long days too) with absolutely no need to. They have their days off but kept the children in every single one of them. Nursery every minute they could have and then straight to school. Their evenings when they were at nursery were home, bath and straight to bed.

'Unfortunately he isn't magic, nor is he a giant, but he's everybody's favourite member of staff'

A favourite member of staff instead of a full time family life. How very sad.

Harry Potter was an orphan OP! Raised by cruel distant relatives before attending a boarding school.

Maybe not the best reference in real life

I have a lot of friends who boarded from very young ages... they ALL have drink and drug problems and weird relationships with their parents (but lovely big trust funds!)

Well privately educated kids are at the very bottom of my priorities to care about (and I don't think society cares about them much too).

It's the kids from deprived areas who I would worry about as a member of society, not your kid or his grades

Wow why are you married to this guy? I’m sorry it affected him so badly.

Thank you for being so respectful!

Yeah I'm not a fan of people who force their kids to go to boarding school. That is an easy way for a child to build resentment. Unless there was a valid and specific reason a child needed to go to boarding school. Because my kids chose to go to boarding school, they really enjoy being there. They know a few students who were forced to go to boarding school and students who only go home during big holidays like christmas, easter and summer. My kids have said those students tend to be the least happy. And I understand, it can't be nice being away from home when you don't want to be away from home.

Every child is a different! In the nicest way possible...I also think it's a bit wild your ex partner suggested boarding school, even as a hypothetical. 😭

”we have worked hard enough to send our child to a private school”
Your words. That means if you can’t you haven’t worked hard enough. I worked extremely hard. Your last comment is something I find difficult to understand. I totally understand that if people do something they love and earn well that’s brilliant. I don’t understand choosing what you do purely for its financial potential.

My son was talking about the movie "Harry Potter" not the actual character. In the film, students attend boarding school, that's what my son was comparing his boarding school experience to.

I just think that there is a glaring hypocrisy on this forum, isn’t there?

And the argument that nursery is in some cases ‘a necessity’ isn’t a good one either. Having children in the first place isn’t a necessity.

Perhaps some people shouldn’t be so quick to criticise the OP before examining their own choices….

And the private school teachers don’t get paid more - often less. So that’s a thought.

But Ron has a close and loving family? He still seems to enjoy boarding, and going home to his loving family, has a great social dynamic with Harry and Hemione.

Hemione we don't know much about her family career focused is the impression, which is why Hemione is a swot.

And again - magic - I am sure that OPs son is using it as a reference because its the most famous boarding school going. Not because its a real life example.

If I had a job which would force me to put my young children into full time boarding, I’d change my job.