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?

Sophable - I didn't "detach" from my mother, I just had a fairly independent relationship with her from the start. I don't share much with her, never have, but we get along fine.

As I said earlier in the thread, I loved boarding school. One big sleepover - no drugs, no abuse, the odd bottle of cider / packet of fags, the occasional anorexic, the usual queen bee mega-bitches, but no more than any other school.

Out of my three DCs, DD1 is very like me, has always been very self-contained, since she was a newborn was happier on her own, has never needed me for emotional support. She would probably love boarding school.

DS1 on the other hand is a fairly high-maintenance child, and wouldn't thrive in the BS environment.

It's choosing the right school for the child - sometimes a stable environment is paramount so they can build relationships without moving all the time. Sometimes a boarding school offers a standard of education not available elsewhere (as in my case, a 100% scholarship gave me the opportunity to escape a dire state school).

What's right for some families is wrong for others, but phrases like "sent away" and "neglect" are unjustified. Many many children thrive in that environment - but you don't hear about it because only the disaffected have the need to moan about it.

That's true. I don't suppose David Cameron is a member of "Boarding School Survivors, is he?

WOD - when you say your relationship with your DS comes before your relationship with DH, how does that manifest itself?

What choices do you need to make?

Line agree - weird hobby ? Whatever gets somebody through the night !

I think eventually think sending 7-10 year olds to BS will be banned.

This seems to have descended into a debate about the rights and wrongs of military families' choices.

OP - your thread title is "AIBU to think boarding schools are an expensive version of neglect?"

The answer is yes, YABU.

It would clearly not be your choice
As it happens, it is not my choice
It is a million miles from being neglect, though.

I observe at close hand 8/9 YOs (Y4) - some who board full time, some who board part time, and others (like DS) who are day pupils.

None of them are neglected. The one who comes closest is a day pupil, as it happens. Boarding schools are not neglectful, and neither are the parents who choose them.

Some children thrive in the boarding school environment. Others have bad experiences - I don't consider myself either disaffected or a moaner. The vast majority of children, IME and IMO get on with it. Thats not the same as thriving.

It could be said that Boarding Schools are the more expensive equivalent of social services childrens' homes.

Wordfactory - interesting question. It would ease the pressure on DH if I went back to work but I'm not planning to as I think it's more important for me to be at home with DS. DH is happy to support me in this because he agrees that it is more important for me to look after DS than for him to have a more comfortable lifestyle. If it arose that DH wanted me to do something that I felt would affect DS negatively, like sending him to boarding school, I wouldn't do it, even if it was dealbreaker for him.

Some Local Authorities' social services do find boarding school solutions for some older Looked After Children.

But foster carers are the preferred solutions for younger children.

[Saluting all foster carers out there.]

can I just ask those of you who would never leave your child, why you think the mother child relationship is so much weaker than the father child one since you don't appear to suggest that a father's relationship with his children suffers by his absence - at work, on deployment etc yet the mother's constant physical presence seems essential.

this is a genuine question as, in my case, once the children were actually born my dh looked after them as much as I did.

and I declare an interest as a full time working mother whose eldest is off to boarding school in September.

WriterofDreams - the point is that you should no longer be very close to your parents when you are an adult and they are elderly - you should have grown up by that point and be very close to your partner/spouse instead. Of course, life doesn't, sadly, always work out for the best.

I don't think boardings schools are going to be banned in a hurry, anymore than nurseries are! Parents have every right to subcontract all or part of their parenting, whatever any one else feels about it.

Bonsoir - "said Parents have every right to subcontract all or part of their parenting.."

[grin} Well that's a good honest way of putting it!

MrsWobble - I saw far more mothers in tears at the gate of my boarding school than fathers or children.

In all areas of employment where an employee is deployed overseas for any length of time or is expected to move postings (forces, diplomatic, multi-nationals) and where the employer is keen to attract and retain very high quality staff, the offer of payment of boarding school fees will form part of the salary package.

It is recognised as an important factor in persuading people to move and the importance of children's education comes top of survey after survey of mobile employees. (Health care comes next, then accommodation). These parents are far from neglectful.

My family is not in the forces but I will be sorry if allowances for this are reduced for those families. I know from experience the choices that have to be made and how complex and individual they are. It is true, believe it or not, that children (at least older ones), would frequently prefer their parents to remain together as a secure unit rather than have one at home, near their school in the UK.

Those who think that a partner doing a dangerous or otherwise stressful job overseas without the support of their life partner can do it as well alone as if they are supported, have obviously never tried it. If children are being well educated in a pastorally strong school, they have one less thing to worry about.

Boarding schools and experiences of them vary and they are not right for every family. Those who have had to choose are well aware of this and far less dogmatic, but from some of these posts, you would think we are discussing Dickens' Dotheboys Hall.

Meanwhile, on other threads, People are bemoaning the fact that children who attend these kinds of schools are getting all the good jobs and running the country.

Animation could you expand on It could be said that Boarding Schools are the more expensive equivalent of social services childrens' homes* as I have no experience of social services childrens' homes and think it's an interesting idea.

Those who are supporting boarding schools are arguing, obviously, that they are very good things and good for children.

That being the case, why shouldn't all parents who are economically active and decent human beings be able to access them for their children at the taxpayers' expense?

The argument has to be coherent. Currently I don't see that it is.

I can 'get' (but not necessarily condone) the purist market argument - you either can afford it or you can't (i.e. Bonsoir's sub-contracting premise). What I can't understand is the argument that boarding schools are great but there should be differential access to them based on, effectively, colonial tradition.

Bonsoir I really find your point of view very odd. So you're saying that a person who is really upset at their parents dying is somehow stunted? That once you're an adult your feelings for the person who gave birth to and nurtured you throughout your life should be dampened to the extent that when you die you don't really feel that sad?? Out of interest do other people feel the same way as Bonsoir?

FWIW I don't have a fantastic relationship with my mother but I dread her dying as I will be devastated. Please tell people consider that normal?

that should be when they die obviously

Well of course parents have to pay for it. It is a parental decision and nothing to do with the state.

Only for forces, which us a completely different thing as not civilian.

slipshod - fair enough, but where the employer is the taxpayer? And providing local army schools eg in Germany?

Oops and that should be tell me people consider it normal

Surely boarding school fills a market need (Forces, expats, working parents, parents who just can't be bothered, family tradition etc) and all the parents who use boarding schools will see the benefits and parents who don't see the need won't see them?

Boarding among British families resident in the UK has decreased significantly in recent years.

I am counteracting all these claims that boarding schools are a quagmire of drugs, EDs, sex and isolation when my experience couldn't have been more different. Not that all children should go.

I agree Bonsoir, but I think it's a sad day when we say that children's welfare is just a matter of "market forces."