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?

Good point baggedandtagged. My DS went to boarding school. His cousin who lives locally went to a day school. My brother observed that we got more "quality time" with our DS in one exeat than he got with his son in a month.

Boarding school is neglectful. Working full time is cruel.

This thread is like an ABC of "What I want to do is right, what everyone else does is inferior".

Calling parents who work long hours neglectful or cruel is flippant, and trivialises the real, serious, damaging neglect and cruelty that unfortunately goes on all around us.

Why does no-one ever start a thread saying "AIBU to think that beating your child is neglect?" or "AIBU to be angry at all the children whose parents can't care for them due to drink and drugs issues?" or "AIBU to wonder why people have children if they are just going to leave them home alone why they go to the pub?"

It's middle-class one-upmanship at its worst.

Thanks kungfupannda. I guess they never make AIBU posts because they're accepted examples of neglect for the manjority - the OP had a quandary but it was a fairly stupid one...

I don't think parents with dc at boarding school neglect their dc. My dd could not have gone to boarding school at 7/8. She will be 11 late this year but she is still not boarding school material IMO. I can not see her coping with it so it isn't a consideration for us.

Boarding saved my father's life- his home was levelled in the Blitz!
It also meant that when he left home he was independent, and at ease with organising his own life and domestic arrangements- my mother couldn't boil an egg when she went off to university - he did most of the cooking, shopping, and laundry in my childhood home, which balanced up the gender gap nicely.

Zzen. That's the thing though. You have to know your child and as you've decided, it's not for every child. Parents sending a child to boarding school, kicking and screaming, is not very good parenting, although I still don't think it's neglect.

I would send my DC's but only if they wanted to and I felt they would enjoy it. Dh has already said he thinks 8 is too young, so it'll be a while. However, DS will be likely to have friends at school who are going to BS in the UK at 13 and he may want to do the same. Who Knows?

I'm not assuming it'll happen but I wouldn't stand in his way.

I haven't read all the thread, but I think many of the posters are very simplistic. Life is not always black and white.

I know several children who board at the school I work at. They are profoundly deaf and have learning difficulties. There are not many schools that offer a BSL education for children with learning difficulites. Its a case of either board from an early age or get no education.

Forces-wise sometimes it's not possible for one parent to stay and the other to go. That means maintaining 2 households (and remember many Forces families don't own a house and are completely reliant of military provision).

Weekending puts a huge strain on a relationship, being geographically single because your DH has been posted to, say, Cyprus for 2 years would be a nightmare, especially if they're in a position where they can't guarantee weekends off. Besides, especially at senior officer level, it's very much expected that wives will go along.

Same goes, if not more so, for diplomats.

Plus continuity of education is importan and if you're moved to an area/country with dreadful schools and offered the chance for your children to go a good school that's boarding, wouldn't you want them to have the best possible chances?

Less of an issue at primary level but it does become a huge consideration for secondary.

reliant on

I'm registered to provide overnight care where toddlers and babies spend the night - sometimes a couple of nights - with me for various excellent reasons. Do you think their parents are neglectful and cruel?

I have cared for children who've experienced real neglect and cruelty from parents: many childcarers have. All I can say is, if this is your idea of neglect, you have led an extremely sheltered life!

So many people are mentioning a C4 document and using it as evidence to back up their opinions. Don't you know how biased documentaries can be? They're entertainment first and foremost. My SIL once took part in one and the level of manipulation and direction from the film-makers was a real eye-opener. It was then edited to highlight a certain agenda. Some of you really need to learn objective viewing.

I think the issue isn't so much one of neglect but that people don't appear to look at or even think about the bigger picture. Because in reality we do what we feel is right for our children now without contemplating how those decisions might affect them, and us, in the future.

I went to boarding school from the age of five. There was no choice; I had to go to a specialist school for the visually impaired in Exeter. So my first day at school was being driven on a five hour bus journey to a school notwhere remotely near my home, and having to share a room with three other children, none of whom I knew, but who had all started at around about the same time so at least we had that in common.

I was a weekly boarder, and although school life was good and we were in a nice nurturing environment, I never had the chance to go home after school, to my house, my toys, to do what I wanted to do. My sister didn't go to boarding school so I was essentially sent away while my family grew up away from me. It was necessary but that doesn't change the outcome.

Then when I was nine we moved abroad, and I was sent to a different school. This time it was different; it was a school where I didn't speak the language, so I spent the first six months or so unable to communicate with the majority of other children, and facing the reality that I either had to learn the language or I would be unlikely to make friends. I learned the language.

Then when I was eleven my dad got a different job and my parents moved away so I went from being a weekly boarder to a term boarder. No twenty weeks holiday here; we had the same school holidays as all the other schools.

As I was now attending an Afrikaans speaking school I was essentially growing up in a different language and culture from my english speaking family, as I spoke nothing but Afrikaans when at school (still speak it fluently) and only spoke english to my parents when on the phone or at home.

As a result I am now nothing like my family. I have never grown up at home - I don't know what it's like to do so.

Whereas my sister has a close relationship with my parents mine is less so. Yes we talk and get on but I certainly don't have that closeness or the need to confide in them if I have problems, you can't take a child out of family life for the majority of its childhood and expect the relationship to stay in tact.

I certainly don't think it was neglect - circumstances meant there was no other option. And reality is that all the cool things happened on weekends so going home then means I would have missed out.

I have some excellent friends I made at boarding school and I am in contact with many of them now even, plus boarding school gave me an independence I suspect I may not have had otherwise.

But the relationship with my family has been permanently affected. And I don't know a single other person who attended boarding school that doesn't feel the same. And yes, most loved it, but sometimes by the time we can see the damage it's too late.

It is true that to a certain extent the bond between family and child is broken. My sisters describe me coming home form boarding school as being like a lodger coming to stay with them in the holiday time.

On balance though I benefited hugely.

Can't decide. I wouldn't send mine to boarding school but I would have loved to have gone as a child (too much Chalet school and Enid Blyton!) and I can definitely see the advantages of networking and independence, as well as a great education.

I think it depends on the reason you're sending them. If it's because you're rich and can't be bothered with your children interfering with your work/jet-set lifestyle, YANBU but it could be the same with children living at home with nannies/au pairs etc. I was an au pair for a while and it was horrible to see how little interaction the children had with their parents, even though the mum was a SAHM :(

BB- Why did you go to BS, and your sisters not, if you don't mind me asking?

My parents were advised to send me (as I was bright) by my state primary school headmaster who was a Governor of the local boarding school. He said it would give me the best chance of maximising my academic chances. Which it did.

My parents were largely uneducated and took his advice. My sisters were less academic and my parents could not afford to send all of us. The local Comp was fairly rubbish academically but my parents figured as my sisters were not academic themselves it would do no harm.

There is another thread today by a parent struggling with the difficult decision to send one child to private school but cannot afford to send all their children.

Yeah, I saw that. I'm torn. On the one hand I'm massively for treating all children equally. On the other, if sending one child doesn't change the outcomes for the others, what's the harm? Anyway, not wanting to divert from thread title, so will shut up now.

I loved it as a teenager. As my Dad was in the RAF it stopped me having to change schools often, which I had hated when I was younger.My siblings did not enjoy it as much as I did though.

SnappFrakkle: It's a peculiarly British thing though isn't it? American forces kids don't board, they just go to the base school. Likewise American (and other nationality) diplomat's kids go to the local American or International school rather than board.

Hmm not all the ones I know have moved with their parents. Several are actually sent to Britain to board! Some American Forces kids do board in the US but I don't think there's any assistance with the fees.

American Forces schools also have a relatively standardised curriculum, which is odd given the lack of standardisation between states, so continuity of education from, say, base school to base school is a lot better and there's the chance to do it all the way through. British Forces schools are, in general, not so good and British schools abroad are often as much as boarding fees. Then there's the fact that the MoD currently provides the CEA, whereas the American military don't.

Plus the American and IS systems are a lot more in sync with each other than the British system. Transferring from IS to IS isn't a problem - it's designed specifically so that children can do that, however transferring from British to IS, or British to American, and back again can be very problematic.

I think it's true a lot of British-linked cultures are more keen on boarding though.

Bloody hell ronshar! In what way is it "cruel" for both parents to work full time? You do realise that some parents work full time because they have no choice in the matter?! And what are single parent supposed to do?

Ridiculous. Would you prefer it if we all signed on to supplement our income and pay the bills?

Some people move around a lot and I know people who found that boarding school was far preferable to always being 'the new DC'. It is a choice-nothing more-and you are free not to choose it.

I boarded for my A-levels. I hated it. DH boared from 7, and I think he would say he enjoyed it (but not loved it). He is an only child so I think he probably did get some company which he might have missed out on at home.

We have 2 DDs under 2 (and plan more DC). DH works for the Foreign Office and we travel around a lot (usually 2-3 years in London, then 2-3 years abroad, and then back again, ad infinitum). Our DC will never board, they will go to the local international school where we are based, as I could never subject them to what I went through.

I know they might not have the same experience as me, but I couldn't take the chance based on what I know about boarding schools. My dad was an oil-expat - my brother and I travelled the world and went to the international schools wherever his job took us - we loved it and I never had a problem with moving on every few years. We got to see amazing places, learn new languages, make lots of friends from dozens of different countries. Life was exciting and so different - that's what I hope to give our children as they grow up.

What will you do for GCSEs/A-levels boobz? Or will you stick with the IS system even in the UK?

The idea is alien to me from my background, but I know parents who have chosen it for their children and they are nice folk who adore their DC...

What I don't undertand though, is termly boarding. Why don't all schools allow DC to come home on Friday night?
Or offer flexi boarding?

Many schools now do this successfully so I'm intrigued why others insist on FT.

'Also, I don't think being in the forces is a good excuse for sending children to boarding school unless both parents are in the forces. If only one parent is, surely the other can stay in one spot to look after the children? That's what my friend's mother did - she lived in England while his father went abroad with the army. Or would people argue it's more important for husband and wife to be together than it is for mother and child'

Have you ever done weekending from abroad? I have for two years and it was bloody hard. We only saw dh every 6 weeks, as it was too far to weekend from where he was abroad to our home. 12 hours at least, one way, whichever method of transport you used, and remember - not everyone lives in the SE or London. At the end of the two years I kicked in my job, let the house and moved abroad. Ds is at an international school where we live.

However, the standard of eduction is such at that school, that I wish I had made him board as he would be doing so much better academically than where he is now. The international school has a churn of pupils, so they let them drift at KS3, and then expect them to buck up at KS4. This does not work and there are huge problems.

Ds will be going to board at 16, as we are due to move back to UK at the end of Year 12 and I am not screwing up his A levels.

I would also point out that sustaining a relationship is hard when weekending, but doing it when one is six weeking is bloody awful. You are torn between your child and your husband.

Boobz, you may want to reconsider your choice if you are looking at secondary in Brussels.