Boarding from the age of 3. Who does this?

[diagonavenue]

Someone sent me this:

"Our boarding school in Villars (Switzerland) welcomes girls and boys from ages 3 to 13, as boarders or day pupils."
https://prefleuri.ch/boarding-school/

What?

Well, if the other option is foster care then maybe they feel boarding is more in their control.

I went back to work at three months PP. 🤷‍♀️

Norland Nannies Training School used to take placements of children from 6 months old. I do not know if it still does. Most of the very young ones were parents going on holiday, but some babies and toddlers were left there for months at a time.

You’re right, they’re using the term “équipe encadrante” in French, which I would (loosely) translate as care / pastoral team (and therefore not just teachers).

This in buckets. People don't realise social care type problems are in all families, poverty just makes them glaringly obvious. The rich has the money to outsource the help.

100% agree. There should be considerably more services for families dealing with complicated health issues, addiction etc.

The assumption (by some people…) that this is for parents that just can’t be bothered is simply in incorrect.

(And one might argue that boarding school would be better in those cases as well, tbh).

There was recently a thread about a single mother whose DS was in foster care. Why? Because she had cancer and therefore couldn’t be his primary caregiver (anymore).

She may have preferred boarding school (particularly a flexi-option) if she could have afforded it. Or a nanny/nannies, but one can make precisely the same argument about that solution. (“Why bother having children if you’ll give them to the nanny?”)

The same may apply to people that choose to admit themselves to psychiatric wards, rehab etc .

I started boarding aged 11 a long time ago when long haul flights were expensive and plenty of people still worked in fairly harsh conditions in former colonies, so others were younger.

One would have been about 6 or seven. Her mother had died, and her father, who I think lived locally, used to visit a lot. She was probably SEN and we all used to look out for her and help ensure she was included. Possibly a better environment than being home alone and raised by nannies.

It’s absolutely evil. Completely wrong for a child’s development in every way.

They have boarding nurseries in China.

Yes exactly. There's lots of arguments about the morality of taking kids away and paying foster carers to look after them, instead of giving the money to birth parents. But that's a whole other discussion. The system is so flawed and unfortunately the threshold for support is so high, the kids are sadly a lost cause by the time time they qualify for intervention.
So much criticism about nannies etc on here too. Do people not realise that those would be the kids that end up in care if their parents didn't have money? People are messy, some have lots of money!

It might literally be that or social services if a parent is that unwell. It would never be a choice I'd make but I have a partner and family around me.

A parent undergoing life threatening illness with zero support to care for a young child should be such a rare exception though that it doesn't require a standard offering in a boarding school.

What a ridiculous thing to say.

Parents who work full time still have their children live with them.

I shouldn’t have to explain that is quite different - physically, mentally and emotionally - to being sent away to live with people who are most definitely not your parents.

I feel awful for anyone who has to do this pre-secondary school. A child needs parents and security, not to be sent off to be at the mercy of others. And yes it is at the mercy of others. Perhaps their environment will be wonderful, or perhaps they will be abused on a daily basis, as we hear so often about historical institutions. Humans are humans, where there is vulnerability and opportunity there is also abuse sadly.

Well quite.

I can’t believe people justifying this as if it is some sort of social care service for the super rich and better than fostering.

No.

In the UK, care homes ( which are the nearest equivalent to this boarding situation) are only for older children who, bluntly, no one will adopt. They are the option of last resort as they really aren’t great for kids. Kids need to be raised with stable, secure adult attachments to adults who are with them because they choose to be.

Kids in care know full well that the adults there are with them because it’s their job and they are doing it for money. Those adults are not stable in their lives due to shift work and job changes

Staff do their best, but this is a far from ideal way to raise kids.

The posters advocating this as a first choice for children are woefully naive of what they are advocating for.

And no, I don’t believe the three year olds being sent there are doing so because their mum has cancer. And even if that were true, how much would it fuck up a child for that to happen to them? I know a kid that age who was traumatized enough by her mum going to hospital on an emergency. And she was still at home with her Dad and siblings! But her mum being taken away, even temporarily, was very distressing for her.

this isn’t for poor migrant workers (or similar).

we therefore have to assume that the parents have genuine reasons to believe that this “evil option” is the best for their beloved child.

Or that the parents simply don’t care and are quite alright with choosing an “evil option” / something they believe to be genuinely harmful.
Boarding school is probably better in that case. Certainly safer than neglectful and / or potentially abusive parents!

People can do very bad things with good intention. It’s not the intention that affects the impact on the recipient. It’s the action.

Putting a three year old in boarding care is so damaging for them, it’s evil.

Boarding school is not the solution for kids with abusive parents, adoption is.

Furthermore, the school is not offering this as a social care resource for abused kids. They do not have a closely monitored contract with SS.

They are doing this for profit on the free market.

Though the fact people are needing to defend this by saying it is for abused kids or families undergoing trauma ( though it’s not) is rather a tacit admission that putting a three year in boarding is a wholly shit idea that no person should ever really freely choose to do.

I don’t know about now, but when I was at secondary school in the 1980s, a friend and her siblings had been boarders from the ages of 3 and 4. They were an armed forces family. So it definitely did happen.

Jeez people just google it! Eight came up on the first page taking kids from three!

My husband's been armed forces for 22 years. Our kids are 12 and 14. We didn't need a boarding school.

This is not true. There is a massive crisis in the foster system and no spaces in foster families for even the kindest trouble free kids. There are private foster homes popping up all the time, and companies making a lot of £££ off this crisis. It's not unheard of for a single placement in one of these horribly staffed private children's homes to cost the LA £100k. Theres a reason the threshold for child protection keeps going up.

Most foster homes in England are for profit and extremely understaffed. And extremely expensive.

You need to read the small print - they are ‘day and boarding schools for pupils aged 3-13/16/18’.

Ie They take day pupils from 3yrs, but boarding is only open to pupils from age 7 or 11. Often 7-10 year olds are only allowed to ‘flexiboard’ - ie a few nights a week.

So there’s no-one who will adopt/ foster them, as I said in my post.

I didn’t say the issue was understaffing. I said it was kids know the adults caring for them are doing it as a job, and shifts and staff turnover means they don’t have stable secure attachments with adults who are with them because they choose to be.

Those issues remain in expensive ‘luxury’ settings.

No, you said this:

In the UK, care homes ( which are the nearest equivalent to this boarding situation) are only for older children who, bluntly, no one will adopt. They are the option of last resort as they really aren’t great for kids.

Which I explained is not true. I am also not agreeing that sending a 3 year old to boarding is normal or healthy. However, in certain circumstances I can see how it would be and I wish more people in those circumstances had that choice, instead of waiting to meet the insane thresholds required by social care in this country for help. By the time a family reaches that threshold, a significant amount of damage has been done. Dame that could've been prevented had they had access to a safe and stable environment.

I don't understand your argument tbh.