Boy sues parents for sending him to boarding school in Ghana, and loses.

[thiswilloutme]

I saw this headline - and initially thought "poor kid" but the more I read the more respect I have for those parents.

They saw him getting involved in Gang culture, the school also flagged concerns, so they got him as far away from the situation that they could.

"Rebecca Foulkes, representing the boy's father, said the boy met 11 of the points on a checklist produced by the children's charity NSPCC to indicate whether a child might have joined a gang or was being criminally exploited.
That included being absent from school, having unexplained money, buying new things, and carrying weapons.
She said it was not only the parents who were worried.
His school claimed it had "suspicions about him engaging in criminal activities" and had observed him in expensive clothes and with mobile phones."

He was very proactive in trying to get back to the UK, seems like a smart kid. Hopefully he will do well and realise that this was done to keep him alive and safe.

I did wonder why the whole family could not have gone - but perhaps there were other children to consider and this was the best solution overall.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdryre7y4n0o

Well, you can't just ship your kid off to any international boarding school, can you? Presumably they need a legitimate route to stay by way of passport or visa.?

Honestly - kudos to them, I would do the same under the same circumstances

If you enrol your dc in a boarding school in another country they get a student visa pretty easily in most countries even if you parents have no residency rights. Loads of dc in Uk boarding schools on those visas with parents from China, Nigeria etc. Admittedly it would be pretty unusual for a dc with no links to Ghana to go to boarding school there though.

We have a Ghanaian student at our school, his mum moved him from his failing, rough as arses school where he was seriously at risk to our school a county away. She drives him both ways before and after work. She is fierce beyond belief. (SLT may be slightly terrified of her 😁)

Well done those parents and that judge.

My DB is a secondary teacher and says the same

I have colleagues from Ghana that have done the same. Completely see why they'd take that course of action. In Ghana there's not going to be criminal friends to try and involve him in drugs and gangs and who knows what else.

Agree that Ghanaian (and Nigerian) mothers are fierce. My colleagues tell me that if a young teenager misbehaves in Ghana they take them to the local police station for a weekend and the police lock them in the cells to give them a taste of what their life might be like if they don't listen to their parents .

It does seem odd to send your children to a foreign land to boarding school and continue to live in the terrible gang ridden area yourself

my biggest question is how on earth did the kid afford to take it to the high court?! 😱

There are obviously loads of criminals in Ghana though so how is this possible?

Indeed. It’s not possible and this tall tale is a jail cell load of bullshit.

I'm assuming the boarding school in Ghana takes no bullshit from him. He will probably hate his parents for a while perhaps many years but will realise once his old friends are stabbed to death by zombie knifes and some in prison he will be thankful to them for saving his life, so well done to the parents. I'm seriously considering moving abroad for ds for secondary and college years. Has anyone watched Idris Elba's documentary about knife crime?

The boy is an idiot and the parents absolutely did the right thing. He will thank his parents when he is older, comes back to the UK and sees that the majority of people he was friends with at 14 are either dead, in prison or selling drugs as a way of life. His parents wanted much better for him and good on the judge for agreeing with them.

🙄 yeah corporal punishment is great for kids

Might be better than the capital punishment given out by the gangs, though.

Many, many African parents send their kids back 'home' when the kids start straying.
A somali friend of mine always says African parents deport more than the Home Office.

I admire them for it, doing what they can to give their child a way out. I just wish that option was open for more.

Top parenting. That lad would have definitely been wily enough to continue the easy money drug running life most places in England. Until he got stabbed that is.

A somali friend of mine always says African parents deport more than the Home Office

This made me laugh. It's true though, I work in a very diverse school & the number of children who leave to go and stay with grandparents/aunties back home once they hit 14, 15 is significant. It's a real shame it disrupts their education but these parents know exactly what their children have been up to. It's a really close community and people talk.

DW has a friend who went to an all girls boarding school in Ghana. From her description, they come second (but only just) to the SAS's training course.

On the plus side she has a string of impressive academic achievements and makes the neatest bed you ever saw. No creases and right angles everywhere.

I would have done similar TBH. My DS' dad is from an African country and if he started getting involved in exploitation I would not hesitate to send him to stay with his family to disrupt the associations. To be fair I do feel for the boy but groomers are clever and dangerous and if you can't protect them here then remove them if you can.

I imagine all of the fears I have for my white teenage boy in a Northern Town are hugely magnified mums of black teenage boys in London or other big cities, and I would send my son to the other side of the planet if I thought it was necessary to protect him.

Better alive and resentful and knowing you have achieved far better outcomes than the idiots and sociopaths one was running around with.
Better all that than a prison recidivist/shotta/gunman/knifeman/ under the dirt via police or 'opps'.
This is one of those ''fuck ya feelings" type of parenting that has to come into play if one does not want their child to , if they.survive, be twenty or more years behind their non criminal peer group because prison and waiting.for the conviction to be ",spent" has put one far away from the queue, much less the back of it.
Better this than the parental coddling that too many of these gang members receive.
Remember how it ended for Chris Kaba?
I am sure this boy was given chance after chance.
As Jamaicans say: " Those who can't hear, must feel".