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?

Swallowed a fly - what about women who are also in the services alongside their husbands? Old school idea of women ....

BeenBeta - that senario for my husband would have been luxury - at least he would have been at home.

Wives find it too hard to be away from their husbands and that's why they put their children in boarding school? So they think it's easier for a child to be away from their parents than for a wife to be away from her husband? That is selfishness of the absolute highest order - it's basically saying to the child "It's too hard for me so you'll have to do it yourself" Would pro-BSers really argue that a husband and wife need to be together more than a mother and child?
Does anyone else find it hilarious that the pro-BSers say being away from their husbands irreparably damages their relationship with them but being away from their children does absolutely nothing to that relationship?

Animation - better off at home with a mother that didnt care for him?

Yes of course there are parents that neglect and dont care for their children that sed their children to boarding school. Boarding school doesn't make that happen though. It would happen if boarding schools had never been invented.

There are plenty of parents who employ nanny or au pair cover 24/7. Their children are at home but their parents are hardly looking after them. I know several very unhappy badly adjusted children in that situation as well where the children barely know who is looking after them and constantly insecure as a result.

These are well off nice middle class outwardly caring parents too. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the mother isn't on MN.

I had a good experience but not 'pro-boarder' in all cases. I don't know why people care so much about forces' families. It is a small amount in a hugely different situation.

I think the royal "we" is used for forces families because accommodation is provided by MOD, but is not free (whether MoD house, official letting, or barracks/mess). Many cannot afford two homes.

Honestly I feel sympathy I think it must be a shitty decision to have to make and might involve a lot of loneliness whatever they decide.

well either forces schools could be built, or current schools spread evenly across the country could be earmarkjed for expansion and boarding facilities built on to accommadate the extra forces children.

Yes they probably only account for 10% of all boarders, but I'll bet you anything their parents are among the higher ranking officers who were quite possibly privately educated themselves and for whom private education was always going to be a given for their children anyway. Handy to have a hefty chunk of it paid for you though. If my idea for free state comprehensives with boarding for forces children were put in place I have a hunch many of the higher ranking officers would (with a great deal of harumphing) cough up the full amount to send their children to public school anyway.

I'd love to know how many lower ranking members pay the 10% - which for a very top school could still amount to a substantial amount of money if your have two or more children. I suspect they 'manage' like other moderately paid people whose work sees them moving around the country or the world on a regular basis - by keeping their wives and children at home in one place, and accepting that they seldom see them.

I think it depends on the child.

My sons school does termly, weekly and flexible boarding. DS1 is desperate to board one or two nights a week as he sees the boarders having a really good time and wants to join them and do the boarders activites. He is 12. DS2 who is 10 has said no way, would definatley never want to board.

I am a LP and work away from home probably a night a week so my kids are with the au pair anyway. I dont think it would harm my eldest at all to board a couple of nights a week, but thus far I have said no as we live 3 miles away, it is expensive and I would have to to pick up DS2. Also, deep down I suspect that DS1 who is very independent, would as a teen eventually decide to board full time with his mates and I'm not sure I would want that.

BeenBeta - It is the better of the two evils. You have to understand what it feels like at 7 years old - to be told you won't see your mother till the summer holidays. At 7 you have no concept of time - and it feels like an eternity - you feel very alone and very empty.

A home with two tired parents coming in late at night is a blessing in comparison.

Interesting thought though. Is my leaving the kids with the au apair more or less neglectful than making them board overnight whilst I am away with work?

So is it ok for the people who dedicate their lives to protecting our country to sacrifice their childrens education as well as potentially their own lives?

I bet my rented house that all of you slagging the forces supporting children to get a good education, IN SPITE of their parents career choice, would be the first ones to start screaming if your precious child was sent to the worst performing school in your area?
Each time my sister gets moved she has to fight really hard for her two ds to not be sent to the local pre prison schools. Why on earth should she settle for her children being offered coke in the playground while being threatened with knives? In PRIMARY?
Just because she chose to serve in Her Majesties RAF?

Xenia. It is all well and good you saying "just move nearer to a good private day school" but has it occured to you that most people can just move to a good area, with a good private school.
If I could afford private school fees I most certainly wouldnt have spent hours and hours filling out bursery forms!
Equally why should my children miss out on a good all round education just because we dont have alot of money?

I cant quite believe I am still on this thread!

I have no idea. It would be interesting to see if the forces put the lower paid families in a bind financially. You get accommodation and fees but only at this age and only if they board etc

Bet there are a whole load of stipulations that make it a tough decision.

The very wealthy might be able to avoid the constraints.

My dh's step father went to boarding school and he is one of the most messed up people I know. Crap father, worse husband and all round not nice individual.

My nan worked as a cleaner at the local boarding school for a while and said almost every child wet the bed every night (these kids were aged 8 - 12) She would find them crying at all hours. She hated working there because the children were so miserable.

However as a child, I would have been packing myself off to Hogwarts if I could

I would say less elastamum because the children are at home in their own house and you are arranging their care, not an institution. They also have the full attention of one adult in a family-like environment, and that adult is directly responsible to you so you are very closely connected to what is going on when you are not there.

You're a lone parent trying to provide for your children and as such you probably don't have much choice about leaving your kids now and again. That is a much different siutation to a person who chooses to send their children away when they don't actually have to.

No I totally agree with you elastamum under those circumstances it could be beneficial for everyone. But I don't think anyone would argue with that.

It's the rigid blinkered class-ridden attitutude that says 'my child must go away at 7, at least weekly, and board termly by the time they are 9 or 13 no matter what - because it is what people like us do. I could never hold my up in society again if I put my child in a local day school.

That's what people find hard to stomach.

My neighbour's children have all boarded (at top top schools you will all have heard of) termly from the age of 7 or 9. She used to go on about how much she missed them and how many miles she drove each week to go to watch their rugby matches, or gymkhanas or whatever, and how hard it was.

I just used to want to say 'Er..you do know you don't have to send them, don't you? There are plenty of excellent independent day schools around here.'

But her husband went to Harrow and her father and brothers went to Eton and she went to Benenden. So local independent day school for her kids was never going to happen was it?

If anyone is lurking and considering a boarding school for a boy under the age of 12 and is worried by some of the issues raised on this thread I would strongly recommend you look at Summer Fields in Oxford. It is the best Prep school I have ever been in and the pastoral care is second to none. It also has day boys too.

That's alright elastamum - in the WOD's world you are being a good parent, therefore you now know you can carry on making the decision you made. What a relief that must be, at least you don't have to hand in your resignation letter now.

So very generous of you WOD!

ronsar who is saying they must sacrifice their children's education to the very worst schools? Why do you assume that if public boarding school is not an option then the only other one is a failing school on a sink estate? Of course I can see why you might wish to foster that line of thought, when panicked by the prospect of losing a forces education subsidy - but it's just not true is it?