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.

I dunno the opportunities they get at our local independent are heads and shoulders above the local (outstanding) state schools.... Just the variety of lunch time clubs out strips anything offered locally,.let alone the opportunities for performance, sports, leadership, expeditions, the people they have in for talks, offering extra subjects outside of curriculum etc I have a friend daughter just finished year 7 there and a niece who goes to state nearby.
It's just little things like....they want to play netball, the independent school will create as many teams as demand requires, friends daughter played matches against other schools all through the seasot, , but local secondary, there's one team... That's it. So like my niece has to wait 2 years to join local netball club.

I agree with @Oscillating
I'm not an advocate of boarding for several reasons but I wouldn't say that any of the parents I know whose children have boarded made that decision because they don't love their children. In fact I would say every one of them believes it was in their children's best interests. I don't necessarily agree with them of course, but I fully accept that that is their sincerely held belief.
I also recognise that I never had to really think about that decision as we are lucky enough to live within relatively easy travelling distance of excellent state schools that met my DC's needs well, and to have the time and money to be able to support their extracurricular interests from home. Plus none of my DC ever wanted to board despite (maybe because of??) having friends and relatives who did. So that made it easy. But if they had wanted to pursue their particular interests to a level that couldn't be provided locally that would have complicated matters. And if the only local day option had been a similar school to the one I went to then I would have done everything in my power to find an alternative. It's easy to say "I'd never do that" when you're not in the position of needing to consider it, but I think it is often far from a black and white decision.
I know quite a few families whose children board currently or have done recently and they all have different motivations. I do think that some of them have "better" reasons than others, though that is of course just my personal opinion, but I really don't think any of them have done it because they don't love their children or don't want them around. There will be some I suppose, but I'd guess they are a small minority.

The opportunities are unparalleled. Anyone who has a child at a private school or has looked into it knows what they can offer. Curricular and extra curricular. It’s unmatched in state schools, obviously. That’s what parents are paying for.

@happylady1982 I love the hogwarts answer 🤣 and it seems like a happy place. I’ve always (despite the old school British boarding school image ) imagined it to be a good place for little friendships and bonds to form. Good for growing independence etc. Would you agree ?

I would have loved to have the opportunity to do boarding when I was a teen and actually think it would helped my confidence and friendships. Week boarding wasn’t a thing around my area and it was my parents who felt boarding was too much as I was a shy kid

I would suggest Your friend’s sister not mentioning she was bullied to her sister is an indication of how fucked up being a boarder can be…

So you spend about a third of your income on school fees! Wow! 😮

I personally wouldn’t do it myself I’d miss my kids too much I chose to be a Mum

That was your parents though - not the school. Had you been a day pupil they’d have let you presumably.

Kids on school residential spend 4-7 nights with school staff per year, not per week…
Edit: all day with parents in the longer holidays? Dont the parents work? I thought they were working really, really hard to pay for school.

Is it any different to things that happened and happen at every secondary school though?

When I taught at state school I saw, dealt with, and heard about far, far worse things than I heard (including second hand years later) from anyone at boarding school.

Parents always have a very naive view of what their own children experience at school unless things are really extreme. I struggle to believe anyone who claims there was no bullying at the school they attended - those with a rather unaccountable axe to grind on this thread in particular seems to be airbrushing anything that isn't boarding school, but the rest of MN is rather a contrast in terms of accounts of bullying at school.

I've no skin in the game but am finding this thread a very odd read, populated mainly by people making assumptions and claiming convenient aquaintances have poured out uniformly unlikely confessions of endless crying and wondering about families on planes, and implications or outright claims that all other teenagers spend every available moment cuddling their mothers.

None of it chimes with my experience as a teenager or my experience of teenagers, including as a teacher.

It's developmentally appropriate and normal for teenagers to spend increasing amounts of time away from parents - my children didn't board but I don't think weekly boarding is remotely inappropriate or developmentally damaging to secondary age pupils - no more so on average than any secondary school experience, all of which have pros and cons.

Are you suggesting parents of boarders dont also do those th8ngs? The percentages sould be about the same, surely? And everyone keeps insisting boarders are at home way more than they are at school, and actually at least as much as day pupils, so they’ll have all that layered on top of boarding issues.

I was sent to boarding school at 11 years. It has led to a lifetime of mental health issues. That’s not to say everyone has an experience like mine. I would never consider sending my 2, I work full time in a very demanding role and I’m widowed since my kids were very young. It hasn’t been easy but I wouldn’t have it any other way

I’m making no assumptions. I’ve worked in state (most of my career actually), in a boarding school as boarding staff and in a day independent school. I’ve seen all the options. In my opinion, boarding is the absolute worst unless there’s really no way you can manage day. I get why people chose independent (politically I have some issues, but we are where we are) but boarding? Very, very rarely justifiable or beneficial. Though I accept most boarding parents feel it’s t(e best option. They mostly haven’t worked in boarding though.

OP I hope you answer my question as I'm genuinely curious about a boarding school parent's answer.

There has been a LOT of historic abuse allegations at the most prestigious boarding schools in the UK. If you look into, it's rife. Mainly bullying but also physical and a lot of sexual abuse from teachers to students.

I like to think it's much better now than in the past but I work in an areas where we've investigated a lot of abuse of boarding school kids. Has this ever worried you? Sending a child away obviously makes it harder to safeguard them than having the child living at home.

I am saying that of all the ways parents fuck their children up, boarding is so unlikely to be the cause of damage as to be negligible - and for children who don't adore their home life, or are lonely or feel less of a priority, are uncomfortable with a step parent etc. etc. weekly boarding can be fantastic compensation.

As I said I've no skin in the game, my kids don't board, I just find the thread theme of weekly boarding being the source of immeasurable horrors and teenagers who spend school nights anywhere other than a boarding school living innocent and sheltered (yet simultaneously completely independent) lives of permanent familial bliss really delusional on multiple fronts.

I'm not sure there's any point me joining in any further, as this is clearly now just an echo chamber of opinions of people who don't actually have a source for their opinions beyond a ubiquitous fictional aquaintance or not too close relative who is apparently simultaneously emotionally distant and prone to convienient emotional confessions.

Can you really not see the difference between one night every few weeks at a friends and an annual residential as opposed to mon - fri sleeping at school every single week in term time?!
I'll help you out. The first is normal and healthy, the latter is not. Oh but we mustn't forget the amazeballs 'theatre costume making' extra curricular activities and the sports of course.

It doesn't mean the parents don't love their kids. It doesn't mean the kids are unhappy.

So many of the ways you can mess kids up are minimised or less likely by having the amount of money needed to send your kids to boarding school though. Why would you willingly (for basically the sake of extra curricula activities) choose to bring in the risk of messing your kids up due to boarding instead of sending to a local private school? I know lots of people say things have changed over the last 15 years but that's really not that long a time. Why risk it? Maybe in another 10 the then adult kids coming out the other side of it all will also reflect that they wish they hadn't gone and it's damaged family relationships. It's not a choice between drug and knife infested state schools and a boarding school is it? There's a whole range of other options in between.

I know I can often tell when my kids walk in the door whether something is wrong. Not quite sure how. The way the door is shut, the way the bag is put down or the way they say hello. Maybe just instinct. There are subtle signs I can't imagine would be easy to detect in a phone call. It's those small things that I'd worry no one would notice.

It probably doesn't make it harder actually, because theres procedures and policies in place. All surrounded by trained staff and the constant messaging of"safeguarding is everyone's responsibility" etc

Where as if Dad is the one abusing the child at home, there's noone really checking on him no suspicion that he's in the bedroom for a while with child etc if a housemaster was alone in a bedroom with a child it's more likely to be noticed and 100% questioned.

I am an adult who went to boarding school (a lot longer than fifteen years ago) and the only bad experience I'm aware of was the experience of a friend's sister (who I didn't meet until after we'd all left school).
I'm also an adult who taught at a state secondary where worse things happened, which I was told about directly or actually witnessed and dealt with.

I really enjoyed weekly boarding and didn't do many extra curriculars, I just enjoyed being with my friends (my family lived in the MN aspiration - the big detached "forever home" in a picture box village, but my friends were not nearby, local teens hung out with the kids they'd known all their lives, the children of their parents' friends who went to the same school as them, and I was happy with my friends at school).

As I said upthread, if my parents had stayed living in the semi in town near my primary school I would probably have never thought of asking to board, but weekly boarding was just hanging out with my friends after school Monday to Thursday. It really wasn't traumatic.

I'm just saying that being away from the family home isn't inherently the worst thing. People seem to have this image of children being dragged away screaming and shouting into a boarding house where they have 1 cold shower a week, are fed gruel and aren't allowed to contact home for weeks on end.

Some kids are perfectly happy boarding and convince their parents to let them. Some parents are moving around for jobs, so actually is better stability for the kids instead of upping and moving them round to different schools/countries every few months etc.
Some trial it and don't like it and stop after a couple of weeks, some love it, some never want to.

The point is really that huge majority of these parents absolutely love their kids and the huge majority of kids are happy boarders.

There's always going to be exceptions, but that's also true of kids that go to a local state comp.... They hate their parents, they're abused, unhappy, unloved. Those parents don't love their kids more than a loving boarder parent.

Sending a child to boarding school isn't an automatic YOU'RE A SHIT PARENT WHO HATES YOUR CHILD.

It is in the minds of those who have an agenda. I completely agree with you.

If you look into sexual abuse allegations though, there's an awful lot at boarding schools.

I have known a lot of boarders also, so although I discovered the extent of the abuse in my work, I also personally know a lot of people who boarded.

With everything I know I probably wouldn't send my own kids to board! But I do know some who liked it

What, recently? In the last 10 years?

More than at any other place such as churches or state schools?

More than sexual abuse cases that happened in the family home?

I think weekly boarding is a far cry from full terms which some families have to do eg army. As a teen I’d have killed to board at a school with loads going on. My family life was normal and stable but boring

My disabled son was physically assaulted at his state primary school. When he was older he weekly boarded at a special school for several years. He adored boarding and was furious when the boarding house closed. Fortunately by then he was older and was able to manage the lengthy taxi journey from home to school each day. (Before anyone pops up to laugh at me for saying my son could possibly have been furious about a boarding house closing - he’s severely autistic and feels emotions keenly and at great length. The fury went on for about six months.)

I find it really puzzling that when posters share their lived experiences, others tell them that those lived experiences are wrong.