OK Boarding School - this will make me Mrs Unpopular

[MsTownmouse]

AIBU for having sent my DS to boarding school. I have thought it through & I do love him & think it is the right thing

Just interested as a lot of people think that Boarding School and loving your child are mutually exclusive

pip pip

Both my parents went to boarding school age 11. They both describe it as 'leaving home'. They had very different experiences though.

My father got a scholarship for inner city london kids. For him it was a blessing. He thrived on the facilities and opportunities he had and obviously loved it.

My mum was a different story. Her father was RAF and he was posted in Malaysia. Her mum refused to mix on the base and use the school there, and instead sent my mum to a strict catholic school back in the UK. Her older brother went to a different school. She describes it as being very lonely, bleak and pretty miserable. During holidays she would fly by herself, to Malaysia to see her family.

I think it depends on the child, what opportunities there are nearby and what the alternatives are. For some it would be right, for others its definitely not.

I know a really lovely guy - someone I work with on occasion. He has two daughters in boarding school. I said to him once 'Gosh I'd miss my dc so much if they went away to school, I couldn't bear it'.

He looked at me with an expression that clearly said 'yes, just as 18,000 other people have said to me'. Then explained how much they loved it and how much he spoke to them and saw them.

I felt really bad because if SAHMs said to me 'I don't know how you can work full time, don't you miss them?' I would be and frustrated because they are happy, I am happy and we see loads of each other.

So I won't judge and I will never say such an annoying thing again!

my friends son has just begged to be allowed to go to boarding school as he wants to play rugby for them.
as it was, he played rugby almost all weekend since he was 12/13 and so would have been happy at boarding school since then. they weren't sure and held off till he was 16 but have now let him. he's absolutely blooming!

I think it is a cop out as a parent. You dont have children to farm them off to boarding school when they get to a certain age so you can have a lifestyle without children. Why bother having kids if you are not going to see them grow up and spend time with them.

I hope he disowns you when he gets older like the way you have just fucked him off.

to be honest farming them out to boarding school is not any different to farming them out to childminders,nurseries and what not for hours on end every day

there was one on here who saw her kid for an hour each day - how is that worse than palming him off on a boarding school, at least he will get to see the housemother a bit more than that

whilst i totally see the need for a decent education while their are day private schools i cant see why unless in the army were boarding school provides more stability then its selfish end of.

you would only do it if their were no way to get the same education in a day school which their is

just as if you could get the same education in a state school as you can in a private school you would be mad to send them to a private but you cant

its like my sil
her nanny has quite but she would rather quite her job than put children with a childminder they provide the same service but she likes the status of having a nanny as i suspect those who send their children away do it the preserve of those you cant be arsed to look after their children under the guise of a good education of which we all know you can get a day private schools

no child wants to live away from their parents and brought up by someone who is paid to look after them so selfish

only exceptions
disabled children
disturbed children
army children

my husband teaches at a private boarding school and i can honestly say i dont think it works at all. although all the teachers do their best to look after the children they just don't have enough time to do it properly. things get left unnoticed until they are very serious-eg bullying, anorexia, depression-because there are only 3 members of staff on night duty per house and there are 40 children, and because it's illegal to lock them in their rooms at night.

just imagine how little time you would be able ot spend with each child if you were a single parent working full time with ten children-this is pretty much the level of care given to children at boarding schools.
everyone does their best but a teacher can in no way do the job of a parent as well as a parent. and believe me he tries as hard as he can!

DD2 is boarding when she starts her GCSEs. This is her choice, she knows what career she wants to follow, and she wants to get the very best results she can manage.

I will miss her, at least I have another year of her at home with me. I understand why she wants to, and I am proud of her for being so dedicated.

sarah your child is 16 very diffrent than sending a 4 or 6 year old

My partner went, from 13. He is really quite sane, and had a much better relationship with his parents than I do with mine. It was a Naice Quaker School, and he quite liked it.

However he - and, interestingly, all his contemporaries too - wouldn't dream of sending his own children away to board.

I would rather get the chance to see my children and fuck up our relationship than send them away and fuck it up that way, really, .

Maypole1 we had this discussion a while back. According to the ISC census there are no boarders age 4, 2 X 5year old boarders and 5 X 6 year old boarders. Plus nobody could find a school that took children this young. So your comment about of child of 16 is very different to sending a 4 year is true because it doesn't happen to 4 year olds!!!
I think maybe we should all remember that we do the best things for our own DC at the time we have to make decisions for them. I am sure sure no one picks a school for their DC to get bullied, yet children do get bullied. Many DC enjoy boarding school, others don't, some hate their day schools others love them. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Fabby no one is suggesting that you send your DC to boarding school but your comment about maybenow's friend and her DS is just horrid and totally unnecessary imo.

I work in a prep school with a lot of boarders.

When I first started working there boarding was a totally alien concept to me and I was very much of the 'poor little things, how can their parents do that to them' school of thinking.

But our children adore it! I actually think it's the parents who lose out, not the children.

For some children in some family set ups boarding school is totally wrong, for others it is totally right and for others they could do either and be equally fine. Horses for courses I guess.

We also have flexiboarding so most of the children do it occasionally (more of a fun sleepover than a lifestyle when it's only once a week I guess).

My oldest is 9 on Tuesday and wants to board for the first time on Wednesday night ('because on Wednesdays it's tuck and we get to go swimming and i can stay up till 8.15 and says Miss _ tells the best bedtime stories ever') I'll probably let her but there is part of me that's reluctant I'll admit. I doubt I'll ever send either of my children to boarding school full time but if that turns out to be the best option for one or both of them educationally then I think it would be me that has to adjust, not them.

True maypole, but if she wanted to go now she could. She would like to, her best friend boards, and they would share a room. But I am a mean and nasty mummy and won't let her because I would be lonely .

The thing is, with boarding school, that you can't flip from the person you are at school to the person you are out of school to the person you are at home. And I think that is very important - perhaps not least during the confusions of adolescence, when you are trying out the 'real' you and you also need somewhere where you can relax (admittedly this is often quite hard for your immediate family to put up with without killing you) and not have to be 'on' all the time.

It's still important to me to be the journalist in the office and the geeky singer in the choir and the lush laid-back person at home and indeed the flip from 'mummy' to colleague...I would hate to have to amalgamate all these into the same person.

i would personally have loved to go to board from about age 9 and I think my life would have been happier if I could have. They were my individual circumstances, but in general i would feel that 9 is much too young.

A columnist in the Guardian once wrote about how Dave went to boarding school at a very young age (5/6?) and that that could result in an individual becoming hyperfunctional but closed off from empathy/their own feelings. She talked about his strong belief in cliques and cronies and his inability to admit or see mistakes unless forced to do so. She wrote that this would have been his private tragedy. But he became prime minister and it became one for all of us instead. Stuck in my head that did.

Our 15 year old will be going to board in the UK next September to complete his A levels and it has not in the slightest crossed my mind that I am doing the wrong thing for him, the only regret I might have is that he didn't go a year ago.

Boarding doesn't have to cost that much, there are just under 40 state boarding schools and provision is expanding, a typical cost is 9000 pounds per year.

I believe that David Cameron went at age 7. He was still very young but not 5/6 years old.

I went at 15 (my choice) and loved it. You do leave home though, I think you have to be realistic about that. For lots of reasons (not really my parents' fault) I felt safer at school than I had at home - actually more protected from lots of worries and anxieties.

I found leaving school upsetting actually. I usually stayed at weekends and had bonded quite strongly with my housemaster. I missed my school a lot in my first year at university, but I never missed home at all. It was my home I suppose!

I read the OP and started to post 'didn't we have this a few weeks ago pippip?'. Then realised that this is the thread from last month.

It's the middle/upper class version of putting your child into care.

I couldn't do it, I just couldn't. I'd miss them like crazy. (but if their schools had boarding facilities, the odd week here and there would save my bloody sanity sometimes!)

Bollocks. My Mum loved it ( mind you the alternative was staying in London and being bombed and her's was a weird one where they let you keep pets, she won 1st prize in the Pontefract Fancy Mouse Show one year ... )

My sister teaches at a small boarding school with a lot of kids from military families and most of them are a long way from being snooty little Jocastas.

boarding doesn't cost that much, only 9k a year? LOL! Depends on what you consider 'that much' obviously!We've two children with another on the way. That would be 27k a year, which is way beyond what we could ever dream of affording, despite my husband having a very well paid job!

Well private school boarding is more likely to be 20-30k, so 9k is cheap in comparison. A high proportion of those at state boarding schools are Armed forces children who pay something like 10% of the 9k in fact and the 90% is paid by the Armed Forces - I might have the actual percentages wrong if someone more in the know wants to correct me.

Lottielou, would you have a reason to have to put 3 children in boarding school though? We are doing it as hubby is a civil servant posted abroad and is not entitled to school fees at international schools paid for, unlike colleagues in NATO, FCO, seconded to European Commission, so we are sending one child back for state boarding. It will cost most of my salary for the 2 years. Wouldn't put our other children in boarding as they have no need to be educated in English and are too young too. You will find the vast majority of state boarders are there for specific reasons such as parents being posted by a government department overseas, Armed Forces, living in a rural community far from a secondary (some therefore go free).

I couldn't do it whatever the reason. If our work dictated that our children would need to board, I'd change my work or not have any children. Couldn't do it.