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 don’t think there is family money necessarily. But they’ve had years to invest wisely on those wages.

Not to play top trumps but I have 35 years of teaching experience. Of course not all homes are safe and lovely, and I have personally supported pupils for whom school was their safe space. I’ve also worked in boarding, and I can think of a couple of students who were, indeed, safer and better off boarding. For most children, though, being able to leave school and go home to family daily is a good thing.
Boarding schools aren’t unique in causing damage, but they do have the potential to cause a unique type of damage - not all students are damaged, of course, but I’d say if you have a safe and supportive home then that’s the best place to grow up and to return to after school, rather than a boarding house within school.

You say your DC chose not to go to a state school, but they've been at private school since they were 4. Are you seriously saying they made an informed choice at that age?

Both my children are ND and this emerged at 12-13 for DD and a bit earlier for DS. Boarding school would have been horrendous for them, especially my DD. They both need support and comforts of a stable home, pets and space.

whilst I’m sure BS is better than it was, it still feels like someone else is bringing up your kids, much worse if they stay weekends

That is a lot of money out of a taxed salary.
You pay £90k out of £175k take home.
Have you sacrificed home, location, experiences etc in favour of the boarding?

I would happily let my mid teens weekly board if it was what they felt they needed to pursue their sporting dreams, sadly i cant afford it!

DH was privately educated (did he board?) so good chance there's family money

When they were 10, and we were looking for secondary schools. Me and my husband explained every single option to them, the pros and cons, they decided this school was best. And obviously we have constant conversations about their happiness and if this school is still working for them.

It’s not a ‘negative stereotype’. It’s weird to dump your kids at a school. Plenty of adults’ awful experiences are well documented about their time at boarding school.

Ha ha it’s funny you said that as my first thought was “why don’t you love your kids enough to see them”

I am torn. I couldn’t imagine doing it. I wouldn’t have wanted to be away from home at that age. But if your kids like it then that is what matters most.

I didn’t call you stupid you called you stupid.

and as for an agenda, I think we can plainly see who has one and it’s you keen to offshore parenting to whoever will do it

that’s fine I don’t even think it’s wrong all at the time but to reject the very clear evidence that it is often and frequently detrimental to one’s mental health later in life is not very clever is it?

Did you and your DH/their father go to private school?

Are you concerned that their lack of exposure to a range of social and economic households during their education will mean they have a more limited understanding of our society when they go out into the world of work?

Ypu May have noticed I’m not ignorant about boarding, having worked in the system. There is pretty clear evidence that it can cause damage. Your point about NEETs is making the basic error of not looking at other factors. It isn’t having boarded that stops them being NEET. It’s other stuff. Level of education. Parental support. Parental contacts. That sort of thing. All of which are completely independent of whether you study as a boarder or a day pupil, in independent or state.

I don’t see weekly boarding as being the least bit controversial. I’d have missed my kids but if you see them at the weekend then I don’t see a problem with it at all.
I think the choice to go to private school depends on so many factors. Our kids went to private schools when they were younger as we lived overseas but when we returned to the uk we sent them to the local comp as we knew they would do well. Which they did. We have four kids so it saved an awful lot of money. I’m certain that my kids wouldn’t have been any better off even if they had been to private school due to their personalities and the fact their comp was, mostly, a decent school.
My biggest issue with the private schools my kids went to when they were younger was that they were pompous and that they encouraged the children to think they were better than other people. I understand that it’s tricky to promote a sense of school pride without promoting a sense of superiority but some private schools
get it very wrong.
The pompousness is the thing that really bugs me though.

In general I dislike the existence of any selective school though. I’d prefer it if all
kids went to their local state school and that any special needs were catered for within the school.
Some Nordic countries have very few private schools but still offer great educations with little variance between the best and worst schools.
Imagine how amazing it would
be to live in a country where you don’t have to worry about which school your kid goes to. Wouldn’t that be good.

Maybe there are not any who made a bad decision. Maybe boarding is not as bad as you think?

No. Me and my husband completely paid off our mortgage years ago. So our biggest expense per month is no longer an issue. Meaning we have enough money still to live a comfortable and happy life

I think this is very true, especially when school is a difficult place and parents are absent, emotionally absent or abusive.

I don't think a good boarding school is worse than an average (not even bad) family environment plus unsupportive school for a teenager tbh.

A perfect home environment and a good local school with lovely friends living nearby would be the best of all. However teenagers are developmentally meant to be moving towards peers, and too many Mumsnet threads show that that doesn't always work out better when older teenagers (or even younger teenagers sometimes) are living with a parent who struggles and are out all hours and the parents don't even know where they are.

The studies @SingleSexSpacesInSchools linked to looked intrinsically flawed through sample selection methods at first glance - there was no possibility to include well balanced adults because they were selected from populations seeking therapy etc. I will be interested to dig back through the thread and find them again and look properly, but I wonder exactly what search term turned that particular selection up and suspect it wasn't a neutral one!

How did they come to the decision re not wanting to attend a state school?

Quite frankly, if I had gone to my child’s private school when I was a child, I wouldn’t be choosing a state school either!

Do you worry you are forcing them to grow up and become independent too young?

My DC1 is starting secondary this year, and we still do so much together on a daily basis during the week - reading at bedtime, baking together, shared sports hobbies. Yes, he would be capable of doing all these things without me/DH, and he will probably want to soon enough. But i wouldn't like to accelerate that.

And do you think it negatively impacts on the relationship between your DC? I assume they basically live separately while at school, and see each other in passing? So no random shared hour playing a video game, or kicking a ball together?

As a mum, of course I didn't want them to go to boarding achool, selfishly I knew I would miss them. But i priotisied their happiness. Now I'm used to them being at boarding school. They have been home since the beginning of July though, they have longer summer holidays than state run schools

It boggles my mind that you’ve read what the OP has to say and summarised it as “dump your kids”

This is also a good point - a lot of the people slamming boarding school have probably never been inside one, especially the ones who seem to be envisioning more of a field hospital with rows of beds!

That can’t be true give the extent of academic research that shows the level of trauma linked to it.

I’m not saying that’s true of OP’s kids. In my adult life I now have some friends who boarded and genuinely loved school. But the evidence shows that it is a high risk choice.

The OP says that she and her DH explained the pros and cons to their children. Presumably completely objectively 🤔