Could you send your 13 year old away to boarding school?

[ShowOfHands]

If offered a full scholarship to an outstanding boarding school 150 miles away? If there was no way you could afford private education and your child was quite remarkably bright? The alternative is a good local comprehensive. Would you even consider it?

If it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and they wanted to go then I'd move to where the school is.

Pebblesandfriends me too.

I get your point but I am not sure that moving to where the school is , is always as easy or practical as it sounds.

If you don't you'll forever think 'WHAT IF..?'

SEND HER!

This could be a very important decision that shapes her life. I always choose the choice with the most potential for new opportunities. A local company is not the choice with greatest potential for new opportunities.

You have said that your DD wants to go and take up the scholarship she has been offered but you seem reticent to allow it for mostly ideological reasons.

Are you not concerned that she will resent you for refusing her access to this opportunity?

I think if it's what they want you have to let them do it.
I know I'm a hypocrite, but I'd rather this than my dd never forgiving me for not giving her the opportunity.
She knew exactly how I felt, and warned me exactly how she felt.

I would say that if u do send her you have to commit to it, don't be dithering and hand wringing. Kids are enormously intuitive and will pick up any weird vibe around it. Be positive about it, because it is a massively positive opportunity.
If it doesn't work out? she comes home.

I don't wish to make myself the thread police but people who have posted recently....

The OP has made up her mind not to send her daughter. There was an update and everything.

See last Wednesday's post for further details

LOL sorry!!

My gut feeling and dd's gut feeling after long discussion is that a good comprehensive is sufficient right now. I'm going to sit on it for the rest of the week and ask DD again. Then we really do have to make a decision.

cough Autumn

Yes definitely
Secondary school was the pits for my children

@KaliforniaDreamz: My gut feeling and dd's gut feeling after long discussion is that a good comprehensive is sufficient right now. I'm going to sit on it for the rest of the week and ask DD again. Then we really do have to make a decision.

cough Autumn

Op said: "My gut feeling and dd's gut feeling after long discussion..."

Do we now teach to go against gut feelings?
Tutt tutt.

Now go and see to that nasty cough of yours 

The OP has made up her mind not to send her daughter
No she hasn't. She wrote I'm going to sit on it for the rest of the week and ask DD again. Then we really do have to make a decision

Do we now teach to go against gut feelings?

Sometimes, yes. My gut feeling was that my DD wasn't ready for boarding school.

I was wrong. She's loved it more than I could have imagined.

Luckily I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong.

I boarded from age 11 to 18 on academic and music scholarships.

I would never allow my own DC to board.

If you board you don’t have the day to day guidance and attention you would get if you were home with your parents.
You have to grow up very quickly and become independent in a way that isn’t natural at that age.
I’ve only felt this way as I’ve got older and had my own children.
Having been a boarder has definitely affected who I am and elements of my character, I married very young and ended up divorced in my twenties, made bad decisions about my future when I was young, no moral guidance that teenagers really need. As an adult I struggle to ask for help, so become very overwhelmed with the feeling I should do everything myself.
Yes it’s good for opportunities and to be catered for, and have no travel time so you can study more but in my opinion it’s at great cost because you will never have had that everyday normal relationship with parents.
My siblings didn’t board and have a very different relationship with my mum.