To think boarding schools are an expensive version of neglect?

[WriterofDreams]

I don't get boarding schools at all. Especially for young children. I will never forget watching a documentary about 7 year olds being sent to boarding school and the fear and upset the poor girls went through being separated from their families. For what? The mums seemed to think the poor children's suffering was necessary in service of their futures. Surely it's more important for them to grow up in their families and enjoy their siblings? I don't have a huge amount of personal experience of boarding schools so I may be missing something important. I do know however know two adults who were sent to boarding school as young children and consider themselves seriously damaged by it.

Surely it's better for a young child to be raised by people who genuinely love them than by a house mother who may be kind and loving but who essentially is just doing a job? AIBU to see boarding school as a form of high class care system for the wealthy?

Receiver, I bet according to the anti brigade, you are not focused because you don't do the 5 am starts, and you don't give up weekends for gymnastics or ferry them to music lessons.

Wonder how many of them live in a rural area as well.

If your child wants to live away from home thats fine then.

I'm not saying anyone would know your kids as intimately as you do, but as a teacher and a mum, if I couldn't comfort and bring a smile to the face of a distressed child (and I worked with teenagers), then I was missing a trick as a teacher. Most of the time, it is enough that someone notices they are upset and acknowledges this. What do you think happens in day schools when your child is hurt or upset; they don't ring you straight away do they? Schools of any type wouldn't function if they did.

There are lots of good posts here and I truly believe that the pro boarding schoolpeople believe they are doing the right thing.

But I truly believe that bringing up my own child is the right thing.

I want to see my son go through his school years not just read about it in a report or go and watch a play or swimming gala once in a while, I want to be involved and that does not mean just signing the cheque.

So many of us have to agree not to agree.

Can we move on now as lots of threads just go around in circles and this one is starting to.

Answer the question Chips:
'How does she feel about those on low incomes who get child tax credits for child care and have to go back, as otherwise they can't eat? Are they bad mothers too?'

My child will be living away from home when he goes to uni in just over 3 years anyway, so best he goes to board at 6th form and gets used to dealing with the washing/money/homework without me standing over him/socialising/and cutting the apron strings to which he is far too firmly attached before 18.

Equally, I don't want him to live at home forever, part of parenting is letting them go and giving them the skills to do so; that's what boarding does.

lol at lequeens post

Sending your child to board is not abnegating responsibility for the upbringing of said child. Those who use boarding schools (my parents included for my db) did bring up their kids, just as my db brings up his kids now, and they are at boarding school too.

You may be able to leave a job and then walk back into a equally well paying one, but that is not possible for everyone, and given that people are more mobile now and many have to move at very short notice, then boarding fills a need.

Well done Scary. I agree totally with you. I have resisted the urge to comment on some of the anti boarding brigade comments which seem to be rife here.....
I absolutely agree that people have a right to to use or not use boarding schools, but what has shocked me is that those who don't agree with BS have to be so rude/outspoken to those of us who do.
I know it was the correct decision for my DC. We describe our DC as living with us in ....... but that they go to school in England. They were not "sent" like a parcel. We "chose" a suitable school for them both with pastoral care being a very high priority and they have flourished.
It is just as well as I don't believe all that I read on Mumsnet as this week alone I could be regarded as neglectful and also dim as I also served in the Military. What chances do my DC have!!!!?? Every chance as they come from a loving family and they have parents that love them to bits!

Can I just add before I forget, TOM DALEY is a world champion diver and went to a normal school before going to a day school [private] and goes home every night.

His parents do all the training etc and his dad sadly has a brain tumor. He has coaches but it is mum/dad that get up and take him training and they are not rich.

BUT

He has never been boarding school.............don't have to go to a boarding school to be world champion do ya?

'I couldn't be satisfied only seeing them at weekends, and just getting the odd text, or just watching them from a touch-line.' Well, apart from an 90 minutes a day that was all I saw of ds when I was working and he was at private school, as a day boy. He also had Saturday school, so didn't see him then either.

The 5am start to get to swimming practice is every day for serious swimmers, and is not good for the kids, as they fall asleep in lessons. I would not be able to do that early a start and then teach all day and mark all evening. I doubt many can sustain it. A school I taught at had several boarders who swam, precisely because they'd tried it the other way and it didn't work for the kids or the parents.

Wouldn't have sent ds at 7 or 8 Le Q, but would have sent him at 10, rtaher than move him abroad with us, had the house parents stayed the same. I now wish I had because his education would have been far better.

Plymouth College is actually a boarding school as well MrsChips. Mr Daley lives close enough to Central Park where he trains to not have to do a long journey, but there are some who have to travel for 90 minutes plus. That is not so sustainable.

I also wouldn't have myself called the school Tom Daley went to before Plymouth College 'normal'.

I wouldn't be doing 0430 starts for my child for any reason at all. Not good for their schooling.

How is the school he went to before not normal?

He went to Eggbuckland community collage just a normal what I call comprehensive.

Tom does not board though.

His father turned down Brighton college because it was too far from home.

I can't really get my head around the chorister thing at all. Your analysis of it sounds about right to me swallowedafly - a child is taken away from his family to work for free until biology makes him unsuitable. As you say, if a good looking girl was asked to do the same thing until puberty made her unsuitable there would be widespread horror. In what other arena are institutions allowed to have children work for free?