AIBU to ask why there is such a visceral response to children in boarding schools?

[DaemonPantalaemon]

Is this a UK thing? I live in an African country where the best schools tend to be boarding schools, and so people are happy to send their children there. I was at such a school myself from the age of 12, and I never once thought that my parents had "sent me off" or 'dumped' me. In fact, I would say that 60 to 70% of the kids in my country are in boarding.

Does this mean that all the parents in my country who make this choice are bad parents? Or is this just a UK thing?

More importantly, I have heard really great things about the pastoral care at UK boarding schools, and would actually consider sending my own DC to a UK school when DC is about 12.

I am trying to get my head around why this would be such a bad choice, as it seems to be from the Mumsnet posts I have read. I can understand why some parents would not want to send their own DCs to such schools, but why is there such an immediate and visceral reaction about the choices that other parents make for THEIR children?

Surely parents who choose this option do it for the best reasons, and they would be careful about the schools they choose?

So why so much hate about choices other parents make for their own children?

I think we are guilty of assuming boarding schools are like they used to be (just as we assume comps are). My dad was cold, starved, beaten, miserable and lonely at boarding school and swore no child of his would ever go near one. My first boyfriend was packed off there at 7 or 8 which caused him untold problems connecting with and trusting women who claimed to love him.

We recently looked at a school which was part boarding, part day. We were looking at the day school but there was no doubt that the boarders were incredibly happy and healthy, liked, respected and full of confidence. From 13, I think a bit of separation can be immensely good for teens. It's what they want. But I'd be far too selfish to part with my DC. Lots of us want to be the one they chat to about their day, the one who kisses them good night, who oversees the transition from childhood to adulthood.

What wonderful responses, thank you. I will respond to each of you when I have more time, but I do not want to leave you with the impression that schools in my country are by any means the same as boarding schools in the UK. The more I read, the more I realise that your schools are vastly superior to what we have there, especially with regard to pastoral care. I work on the EU "continent", and would prefer my son to be educated in the UK for many reasons. So your posts confirming how good the schools are are really welcome, but of course, if my son proves to be unhappy, I would whisk him away in a nanosecond.

In that way, I am departing from the parenting model followed by parents from my country who believe that sending kids to boarding school is not only good for their education, it is also good for "character" and that if a child is unhappy at school, they should just suck it up.

I didn't love Lyra but Will and the angels are always in my mind. Will would have been MAGNIFICENT at a boarding school!

So, yeah, was that the "bad report" thread? I was tempted to offer a soothing voice - but it all got a bit crazy. However, on this NEW thread I would say that the first year of boarding is a huge step and it's not surprising if a child suddenly finds themselves distracted by fun.

It's interesting - the people on MNet who really seem to know about this subject tend not to get involved in the hysteria. I think people feel pressurised into providing an "excuse" for sending their child, when they really don't need one. Various wise posters have touched on the nuclear family culture of the UK. Life is hard, old people (and therefore cross generational contact) are despised, stranger danger is everywhere... So the idea of a child being happy away from home is horrifying....

In my fairly extensive and in depth experience over two / three generations happy, confident children thrive in a happy, confident boarding environment that stretches and challenges them. Everything is obviously more intense so if it's the wrong school, or the wrong child it will be disastrous. But a parent will almost invariably have been trying to do their best.

Would be interested to hear how you are, or have, narrowed down your choices from afar.

Boarding schools are very different nowadays, pastoral care can be excellent. It's not that that provokes my visceral response.

I want my children to be fully paid up members of the family. If one of were away for a significant chunk of the time, they wouldn't be that, the would be family jokes they wouldn't understand, minor family sadnesses and crises they wouldn't share - the guinea pig dying, "remember the time mum put washing up liquid in the dishwasher and.....oh, no, you were at school" All the little things that glue a family together.

I think there's a huge difference between sending a 12 year old off to boarding school and sending a 7 year old, which is common in the UK.

Not actually true, boarding at 7 is VERY unusual nowadays, I can find stats. But true, there is a huge difference and many who boarded at 7 are scarred by it and can't imagine doing such a thing to their child at any age.

I think boarding from 11+ can work for some children/parents and not for others. Would I send my kids to board? Not in a million years, I like having them around too much. What other families do is up to them, these days they need to be rich though.

I think a lot of people view it as a short-cut.

Particularly if you send your kid at 7.

I agree there's a huge difference between kids boarding at 7 and 12. I would imagine the average 12 year old would love to board.

Various wise posters have touched on the nuclear family culture of the UK. Life is hard, old people (and therefore cross generational contact) are despised, stranger danger is everywhere... So the idea of a child being happy away from home is horrifying....

I love this observation. I have done many things that would get me the MN Scarlet Letter of Shameful Parenting. For instance, last year, my 9 year old DC went off to England by himself as an unaccompanied minor, he had a whale of a gas with his uncle, aunt and cousins:) I did not see him for three whole weeks and neither of us collapsed with grief:)

MrsShack these days they need to be rich though

I'm sure you know that isn't invariably true! The most forward thinking schools are falling over themselves to "widen access". The pity is that so many people are unaware of this.

I'm sure boarding works for some and not others. What I must admit bothers me a bit is that you rarely come across a family where one child boards and another doesn't because it's not right for them. In families where it's the culture to board, they all do - they might choose different schools, or maybe send them at slightly different times, but rarely make completely different choices based on their child's personality. There's a family at DDs school who send both children to weekly boarding at 8 (I know this is unusually young, and there were no pressing reasons that plenty of other families don't deal with) - the eldest seemed fine with it but the younger was at least initially distraught - don't know how she settled in. Obviously there will now be a flurry of "one of my children boards and the other doesn't" posts.

A drop in the ocean, surely, Somethingyesterday?

There are small numbers of children/teenagers in state boarding schools, especially in remote areas where that might be the only way for them to attend secondary school. It's very, very rare in the UK now, for any child to go to boarding school, though, although you don't always pick that up from Mumsnet.

London Actually, knowing nothing about them, I was not thinking of state boarding but rather of bursaries (with or without scholarships) to schools rich enough to offer them.

And yes, they are a drop in the ocean. But hardly negligible to those who can access them. Oddly, I often read here about the wickedness of creaming off clever children to fee- paying schools, but there's a real benefit to the culture of a fee paying school from including a significant proportion of children whose parents are - simply put - not rich.

I don't have any direct experience of boarding school.

BIL (sister's DH) teaches at a boarding school which takes kids from 7. When I asked him if he'd send his 7yo there he was emphatic - no way, ever. He thinks they are just too young. Some can understand why they are there - if their parents live overseas in the Forces, for example. Most don't understand why they can't stay at home when Mum and Dad are still there. He says there's a high proportion of them that cry themselves to sleep and he worries about them - he'd never put his own kids in that position. Being a bit older makes all the difference, and the teens tend to be much happier. The other thing he says which is interesting is that if a 7yo is unhappy they often can't really articulate what the problem is, and parents tend to say things like "You just need time, you just need to get used to it." But the 7yo has no real concept of longer periods of time - doesn't really understand how long before he can go home for a long weekend etc. A teenager has all that added understanding, and can explain far more clearly where any issues lie.

My nieces (DH's side of the family) are at boarding school - twin 13 year old girls. One has taken a while but has settled and now loves it. The other hates the boarding - loves the school academically but is really struggling to settle down. They are there because the high school in their town isn't good and she is aware of this so is determined to make the best of it, but she's unhappy (she has talked to her parents about leaving but she wants to do well at school as she's quite ambitious so she's chosen to stay despite hating living there). Shows you just how much it comes down to the individual child - listen to the two girls and you'd think they were in two completely different schools!

Interesting.

I think one of the issues raised was that children would miss "family life" and the effect this might have.

As a child I would have liked to go to boarding school and remember getting momentarily excited when the issue was raised by a family friend, and then quickly dropped!

I have a 10 year old son, with lots of energy (!) and I think there would be some good aspects actually at this age. Lots of sport, in particular.

Good pastoral care and coming home at times e.g. weekends would be important though - otherwise you are living in a total institution.

I did ask him once out of curiosity and there was a flat "no".

What are people's reasons for choosing boarding schools as opposed to a day school?

I guess location, lack of quality schools locally???

But agree, Babysea, for all the reasons you say, 7 is definitely too young. I think 10/11 onwards could be a possibility though !

My comment to you OP would be that British boarding schools very much market themselves as being experts in pastoral care, etc etc etc but you very much have to look behind that hype, as you would do in choosing any school for your child, of course.

The thread atm where the child has the 'appalling' report - well, it's not a thread about a thread, but a school which surprises a parent at the end of the year with a bad report isn't actually doing very well on its pastoral care, is it?

But to return to your question, it's primarily a class thing. I'm from Edinburgh. Posh kids went to boarding school and poshed around the town being posh and doing posh things. I know my attitude to boarding is entirely shaped by what my very poor teenage self thought of all this posh. I'm not particularly proud of the fact, but as the question of boarding will never arise for DS, I don't see much point in really examining my prejudices. But I do think I'll only have twentyish years with my DS under my roof, I want to actually spend that time with him.

Forces and 'island kids' aside, there's no real reason to send your kids away in the UK, is there? If your work takes you away from home all the time, change it - I did.

I think some pro boarding people think it's because those against boarding have dated visions of cold, harsh environments. I think the reality is that those who are anti boarding can't imagine why you'd want to only see your child twice a month.

curles - a very good point, well put.

It reminded me of when my cousin started boarding school, aged 13. My aunt and uncle didn't need to send him (I mean that they weren't working overseas or anything, it was just the choice they made). My aunt used to say that the housemaster said to them "You give us your son as a little boy and we will give him back to you as a man to be proud of". I actually thought that was awful - I want to be the one bringing my child up, not passing on responsibility to the school when it wasn't essential for me to do so.

My cousin is nearly 20 years younger than me. I spent the first 2 years of his time at boarding school receiving almost nightly phone calls which went on for an hour or more - he hated it there. Could I go and speak to his parents and get them to change their minds? Could I go and get him? Could I talk to our grandmother and see if she could presuade his parents to take him away? I did speak to my aunt and uncle but they were immovable. Apparently it was easier having him there because they didn't have to argue about doing his homework because it was all taken care of . I love my aunt but I don't always like her very much - this was one of those times. It was me taking the barrage of calls from my cousin, because despite the age difference we are extremely close and I was upset seeing him so unhappy and not being able to do anything for him. He did learn to live with it (he's now 20) but says he never really enjoyed boarding - he just learnt to accept that it was how it was.

Interestingly, despite going to a very prestigious school, in order to help him in the future, he's just dropped out of university. Why? Because it wasn't as supportive as school - no-one checked if he went to lectures or not, no-one made him do the studying, and he had no self-discipline for it. He was so used to having 'prep time' built into his day that when he had to do it for himself, he couldn't. Boarding and having all his time organised for him has done him a disservice. I'm not impressed!

Sorry - curlew.

Must proof read....

Because a lot of people fail to add the caveat "for us".

So "sending children to boarding school is just wrong" becomes rather different from "sending children to boarding school is just wrong for us".

People are too quick to judge on what they perceive a childhood to be whereas each case should be take on its own merits.

For some children it wouldn't work, for some it will be a huge success.

Either way is fine

I can't understand why a child would have to desperately try and persuade another person to tell their parents they were unhappy at a school (babybythesea), just awful. But they honestly sound pretty awful parents anyway, even if he was at home?

Some good things for consideration. It can be hard to know what to do with very active children after 3.30. You can ferry them around to different activities, sports, etc from 3.30 onwards, but that would depend on the parents' circumstances. You can let them play with technology/watch TV (which is what a lot of parents do). You can let them play outside all the time, which is nice, but depends where you live and their age e.g. might not be so good inner city, age 13.

My friend has one set of twins (that's all) and they are boarding in the fall of 2014. She'll basically have her pre-child existence returned to her. This is what she wants. She boarded, and she loved it, and her parents loved it.

This seems to be a pretty fair summarization of the people I know who board their kids.

I went to a day/boarding independent school, and casual boarded (one/two nights a week) during sixth form and during my A-levels. All the full-time boarders were either overseas students or from Forces families. There were lots of weekly boarders whose parents decided it was better for their children to be in school than to spend 1h+ each morning and evening just to get there and back.

Boarding started from 8 but most people weekly boarded until aged 13. There's nothing wrong with it so long as the children are happy and don't feel pushed out or abandoned by their parents. People are too easy to say "well, I wouldnn't have liked it, therefore everybody who said they liked it must be a liar/be messed up by it." Each to their own.

MrsShackleton I'm relieved to hear this practise is waning. And of course you're right, it's far from common. I suppose what I meant was that it's not considered so unusual in the UK, as opposed to, say other parts of Europe or the U.S, where it's virtually unheard of.

The concept of children growing up away from their nuclear family is completely alien to me. I just cannot imagine to be so dettached from day to day life of my children, especially during their formative years. Apart from some really extreme cases where home environment is very bad, I don't think that on average a child would better thrive in a boarding school than in his/her family surrounded by mother, father and siblings.
FIL was in forces, but DH and BIL never boarded. They moved a lot which according to DH had its benefits and shortcomings, but when I asked him if the boarding would have been better, the response was flat NO, no way.