to judge parents who send their children to boarding school?

[Perriwinkle]

I've seen quite a lot of this at close quarters and I just can't get my head around parents who are happy to pack their kids off to boarding school and pay ££££s for the privelige of knowing that they will probably live off the junk they buy in the tuck shop/local shops 80% of the time and live in the most spartan of conditions. No home comforts - not even when they are ill.

Not sure if these "house parents"/Matrons or whatever they're called even bother to inform parents when their children are ill half the time? Many say that kids often vomit at night after having eaten too much crap. How could a parent sleep well knowing their child was ill and away from home?

Sorry, I just don't get it and never will.

My mum was sent at 7 and she said it's the best thing that ever happened to her. She came from a chaotic, dirty, bohemian house and it gave her structure and love! I wouldn't send mine away but you can't judge everyone who does.

I know absolutely nothing about boarding schools. I have no experience at all apart from Malory Towers and St Claires.

As I have absolutely no experience I cant make any judgements. I dont know how anyone can unless they do.

I do not like the idea of living apart from my children though.

"independance, social skills, academic assistance" Isn;t this what I/we do as a parent? I am not sure what Pastoral care is? Being like a parent maybe?

I chose to go to boarding school at 14 and I think my relationship with my parents is better than my non-boarding teenage friends. I was pleased to go home and see my family and because it was special I made a real effort not to be a moody brat. Can you imagine being the housemistress for a house of 60 hormonal teenage girls? They have to really believe in the value of what they do, and they do - a girl in my year got dumped and the housemistress bought her flowers and chocolate and the matron brought her a cup of tea.

And I had quite a few health problems - they always kept my parents informed. Once I was ill at the start of the last week of term - snow was forecast for the end of the week (ie. when my mum was driving down to pick me up) so my matron called home and said she could get me whenever she liked and I was signed off school and got to go home-home for an extra week.

I was far happier at boarding school than I am an university. Judge away, but I'm not listening.

chases after Santa and reeling

So because you live near what sounds like a spectacularly shit boarding school, you judge all parents who use boarding schools?

I boarded from 12 and none of your observations bear any resemblance whatsoever to my school.

Boarding school is always going to be a contentious issue (and I would imagine that in a few pages this thread will descend into thinly veiled comments that others are shit parents for making different choices) but if you are going to judge, for goodness sake base your judgements on the general reality, not some vague idea of dickensian hardship based on one single school.

Have been having this conversation on another thread.

I can see why flexible boarding might be a good thing if school days are long due to heavy involvement in sport/music/choirs etc but what I cannot get my head around is termly boarding.

I'm told it's absolutley a good thing. But I don't understand at all why parents don't want their DC home at the weekends or why the DC don't want to come home.

*than my non-boarding friends/their parents when they were teenagers

Haven't read whole thread, so sorry if I repeat.

YABU to judge all parents.
My cousin went to boarding school as she is deaf, and it was the best place for her education wise. She came home everyweekend.

I also have a friend who went to boarding school, its what was best for her whole family, I don't want to say why, in case she uses MN!

word my parents did want me home, but I was so miserable at my school (and it was the best one around) I used to cry every morning in the car and every evening on the way home. I wasn't bullied, I had friends, I enjoyed bits of the work. I just wasn't happy.

Of course I would rather have been happy at school and at home, but that wasn't an option. And this way I got to be happy at school, happy at home in the holidays, and I spoke to my parents every single night and they saw me every fortnight.

I think it's harder for the parent than the child.

Clubs are run straight from school finish time but as I say he is a good sportsman and take various.

What I cannot offer my child is the commradeship of his boarding house, I can teach independance but cannot provide it. I am lecture about academic achievement but will not return to school late at night to collect work he has forgotten for prep.

As for Pastoral care - yes this is like parenting. It is looking after them when they are sick, it is listening to them when they are upset, it is cheering on the sidelines at rugby. All of which our boarding house will do in conjunction with my husband and I. It is exactly what I would give him at home which is why I am so sure boarding is the right thing for him.

past I'm glad you were happy eventually...but what I dodn't understand is why some schools insist on pupils being there for the whole term.

I cannot see what is being achieved or enhanced.

I loved, loved, loved boarding school. I had the time of my life, made loads of lifetime friends and barely missed my parents who lived in various places at least a 12 hour plane journey away.

Wordfactory - We have saturday school in the morning for years 7 & 8 (which I guess would be a whole other thread in AIBU?) and quite often matches or rehersals in the afternoon.

There are also exeats every third week. So effectively a term is two weekends, home. Two weekends, holiday. Our Christmas and Easter breaks are a month, half term usually 10 days, and summer at least 9 weeks.

The weekend activities that our boarding house have available include, beauty and fashion club (not one I think DS1 will be interested in but who knows). Biking, swimming, cinema nights, raft building, creative arts, all kinds of sport, Mandarin (again probably not for DS1), climbing as well as all sorts of excursions to towns, theatres, theme parks etc etc.

We will be collecting DS1 for Rugby every sunday and the school are more than happy for him to come home if there is a family event or trip planned.

I post all of the above sure (based upon actual conversations and research) that it is fairly "normal" in a boarding school and is unlikely to out me irl!

YANBU

I went to boarding school, where I drank, smoked and shagged myself silly.

I left at 17, went to a local school and set about making my parents' life hell. My answer to them telling me what to do was to remind them that I'd been looking after myself pretty much since the age of 11. I had no intention of allowing them to step back into a normal parental role, them having turned that job over to a bunch of strangers for all the most important years of my childhood.

I'm afraid I agree with Nick Duffell: "Children need to be brought up in the company of people who love them,' he says. 'Teachers, however good they may be, cannot supply that love.

'Children of this age do not have the emotional intelligence or maturity to deal with this sense of loss.

'They develop what I call a " strategic survival" personality. On the outside, they are competent and confident. Inside, they are private and insecure. For many, the insecurity affects the rest of their lives.'

I reckon the younger you go the more damaged you can be by the experience. I went at 11, as did my siblings. I went from having cuddles all through the day from my mum, to going a whole three months at a time without being touched by another human being.

word can't say. We got half terms and holidays and then one weekend a term home (which was possibly the Biggest Thing Ever and coaches were laid on...it was ridiculous). The school never stopped us going home at weekends, but you were expected to ask permission and they tried to restrict overnight visits. I think the theory is that it is a) unsettling to the individual child, b) disruptive to the routine, c) there are nearly always matches on Saturdays, and we had Chapel on Sundays and it is not fair if the children whose parents live nearby don't have to go to chapel because they got to go home.

I suppose it's sort of equalising down: it would be really unfair if child A spent every weekend alone in the boarding house because children B-Z all went home.

In my experience you were never stopped from going home, although I suppose if your parents had tried it on every weekend words might have been had, and people who lived nearby took those who lived further away/abroad home with them. I used to go to a day girl's house for Sunday lunch a lot of the time. I loved going home, of course I did, but to be honest after eight weeks away from my friends I used to get bored. Having people around you is addictive - there's always someone else not working who will come and chat and have tea, or go into town, or sunbathe with you, or go for a run.

Part of the fun is having your parents visit you and you get to show them around and they can meet your friends and you and some friends go out for lunch with your parents.

It also means you truly appreciate the value of getting a letter in the post.

That's just how it seemed to us, anyway.

Sorry, yes and Saturday morning school. x-posts.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

There are some fantastic boarding schools which potentially give a child the best start in life they could have. There are probably some crap ones. There are some absolutely fantastic day schools which would do the same , and there are no doubt some shit ones.

It is a choice based on the child & circumstances.

I don't really see the problem. No one is forcing anyone to make their child go to boarding school - If you don't like it - don't send them.

I have really mixed feelings about this - I understand that there are lots of good reasons why a child might board and why that might be a good thing. I also think children are very individual and what might be good for one is not necessarily good for another. But, what I cant help think is that unless a child is an age where they genuinely make their own choice to board then they must, at some level, interpret being sent away as being abandoned by their parents. Some above have justified their choices but it is not always about it being good for that individual child, more about it being good for the family as a whole, being practical etc rather than saying for Jimmy this was exactly what he needed / was right for etc.

Aah well. I admit to bias on this subject. I don't agree with private schools either. Not at all. Everyone should have the same access to education and sporting facilities. Not just the ones who can afford to pay.

It is different for State employees on Foreign postings and those who need assistance with SN kids. That is more about stabiliity and extra help for the family. The rest is elitism. Sorry.

CBA to read the thread.

Blah blah bollocks blah blah bollocks.

Spartan conditions? Oh do fuck off.

Sick children with no care? Yep, fuck off some more.

Children eating junk from the tuck shop? Hmmm fuck off once again.

Seriously you must have no fucking idea at all. I went, and I absolutely loved it. My older kids are boarders, they love it. And, gasp shock horror, my siblings and I have a fantastic relationship with our mother (father's dead, but we had a wonderful relationship with him too) and I also have an amazing relationship with my three older children, far far closer to my children than many of their friends who don't board are with their parents.

These sodding slag off the boarding school brigade threads seem to come round with stupid regularity and it's always going to end the same. Those that don't think we're all evil child hating parents.

[rugby tackles Rockstock and drags her off the thread to happier places]

Pantofino

To be against any private education is a valid POV . It doesn't make all boarding schools rubbish - I actually infer from what you say you believe some of these schools are an elite.

I think yours is a different argument to - "boarding school is bad (for the child) " in all circs.

Hey ho - good job we can all make our own decisions for our own DCs.

pip pip
BRM

RockStockAnd - but why? Is it that its the best school in the area or that you believe that they will love it more than they would love being at home with their parents? What is it that makes some people value certain types of education more than being at home with their family. I genuinely dont get it. My children went to nursery school 3 days a week from a young age, I work outside the home, so I know that people make judgements about that. I am a socialist so am against private education and therefore boarding schools but other than that I just dont get it... why would anyone decide that it would be a good thing for their young child not to live with their parents?

Ooh great, another richer-than-me bashing thread. I would join in but sadly I'm richer than all of you.

I think the real saddness is that there are some situatiopns that really trully do need society to judge them. For the sake of the poor sods of children in the middle of it all.

Like the bloody armies of 'social issues' and ''cause for concerns' regardign neglect and 'low grade failures in parenting' that I churn through daily. Years and years and years of systematic emotionalabuse, lack of love, nuturing, commitment, care, nutrition, warmth, kindness, hope...well, everything I can think of. People who call their children 'little fucking bastard trouble causers' whilst they are still in the womb. So hell knows how they regard them when the babies grow into hugely demanding awkward toddlers.

You know, that kind of stuff, that matters but isn't very debatable or treatable or palatable so just gets ignored whilst we all bash people who are, at heart, well intentioned.

Load of bollocks.