To think that sending one child state school and one child to private school is child abuse

[ReallyTired]

Obviously if there is substantial special needs and there is no choice to send a child to a state school then that is completely different. Private schools for children who require a statement are difficult to find and to persaude the LEA to fund.

A neighbour of mine has chosen sent her eldest son to an expensive private very selective secondary school. The child has a partial scolarship and bursery, but they still have to find a couple of thousand pounds a year. It is a huge financial struggle. They cannot afford to send the youngest to private school. They have made the decision to send the youngest to state school as he is less intelligent. They have decided that the youngest child is less intelligent at the age of seven.

I feel that giving a child a private school education because he is deemed to be more intelligent than his sibbling is favourism. It must really hit the self esteem of the state educated child that they were not considered worth investing in. There are plenty of mixed ablity private schools with good results in my area. As the children get older they will notice the difference in resources and life experiences the other child has.

Carabaos your ds2 sounds great and that he had an amazing time at his state school.

Op catch yourself on. This is not child abuse and you would have had a much more nuanced thread of you'd thought more carefully about it.

I do think it's hilarious you'd coming at this from a pov that the private school is the better option. Maybe it's shit, the parents don't want to move the elder child who has settled, but don't fancy another 6 years of funding a mediocre education for child 2?

Yabu.

My dp was privately educated and having been through the system himself considers it to be pointless unless the child in question is very intelligent. He was, but saw others who weren't. The experience for them was not a pleasant one.

Although having read some x-posts, it does seem like op isn't the only one who thinks the child not at private school is automatically the one being disadvantaged. Ah well. Only on MN, eh?

To call it abuse is just & if eldest is at/going to secondary then youngest is Y2 or 3 so there's a 4 or 5 year (academic) gap between the children so do you know for sure they won't be able to offer youngest the same opportunity if he too gets a scholarship? Have they actually spoken to you in depth about this or are you making a snap judgment based on your own assumptions

Not quite sure about some of the 'FFS' type reactions. This is a discussion thread. Discuss or hide, why the need to be unpleasant?

reallytired - your post and follow up reads like you have a massive chip on your shoulder about favouritism of a sibling over you. sorry if that isn't the case, but that's how it reads. how you can equate this to say scalding a child or beating it is absolutely beyond me and is a bit insulting to those adults who were abused as kids. bit of a middle class definition of child abuse in my opinion. what next? AIBU to think giving your child food from aldis rather than M and S is child abuse.

As a child, my sister and I went to our local state school. We were both bright and academic, and did well there. My brother, however, was ridiculously bright, and his primary school teacher suggested he would be good enough to attain a scholarship to a super-selective boarding school around 60 miles away. He took the entrance exam and was offered the scholarship, and very nearly went, before he decided he wanted to stay at home. So he went to the same school as us, and also did very well (he's now a doctor). However, at no point did my sister and I feel that there was any favouritism - he was genuinely much brighter than either of us (still is, the lucky thing), and would have done well wherever he went. Sometimes different schools are going to be the right option for different children.

Plus, even if there was some favouritism in this case, calling it child abuse is extreme and quite offensive.

This is the first time ever that a thread title has made me want to write ..."gets popcorn, settles down".

YABU

My brother went to private school, i did not. Do i feel in any way abused by my parents? No.

You have no idea of the parents' rationale for their decision, nor how they have explained it to the children. You don't know that child no 1 wasn't offered the place at private school because of some musical or sporting talent which child no 2 does not exhibit.

You are equating financial spend per child with how the parents feel about the children and you can't do that.

Did the older child go to private school at 7? If not, they haven't treated the children differently.

There are 4 years before the 7yo needs to transfer to secondary. So it's far to early to make judgements on family dynamics based on crystal ball gazing about someone else's educational options that far ahead.

As someone who was ACTUALLY abused as a child.... Yes I think YABU

This is a really interesting question. I have friends who have three children, and the eldest girl worked and worked and worked and got a bursary at a private school.

The locals schools are ordinary. The parents were in a fix, and thought long and hard and actually refused to allow her to take up the place because they thought it would not be fair on the others. I always felt a bit about that decision, but reading many of the replies here I can see it from their side now. (I like that about MN, you get to read all sides and it makes me think in a more well rounded way).

If I were in that position- well, we are I guess. Our youngest is most likely going to a private school, but this is based on his personality- very shy, retiring, easily overwhelmed. he is only 3.6 but he is struggling at the local preschool, because of class sizes and will just sink in the local primary school. That was a hard decision. But it is a personality thing- the older Dcs are fine and will thrive anywhere, I believe. He will not so we have chosen a school that has teeny tiny classes and specialist teachers.

Hmmm. I am all over the place on this. Need to give it more thought.

I went to private and my brother to state. This was because the girls school in my area was rubbish. Didn't bother my brother at all. He is a year older and way more intelligent. He has done a lot better than me is is very well off. I am slowly working on it! It all balanced out as I think he probably got things I didn't.

Not quite sure about some of the 'FFS' type reactions. This is a discussion thread. Discuss or hide, why the need to be unpleasant?

Because personally, I feel it's trivialising the term "child abuse" and the first thing that popped into my head were real victims of child abuse cases like Hamza Khan and Daniel Pelka ntm the countless victims of real child abuse on here. The OP needs to understand this.

My Dad talked about sending my younger sister to private secondary school when she was in primary- as apparently she was so much more intelligent . Didn't happen in the end but was talked about a lot.

I got better grades and more education in the end. .

She does have a better career - but then I took time out for the DC and she didn't have that option.

So if they are decide on academic grounds at 7 - then they are being a unfair - I'd go with poor parenting rather than abuse. However if the eldest has a talent that can only be nurtured at this private school that is slightly different.

I don't want to go down grammar school route as don't want stress of 11 + or feeling I was sending a DC to an inferior school. That said is the private school better ? as not all are better than state alternatives.

No YABU, I went state and my sister went private, I couldn't have given a monkeys! Interestingly she opted out of her private school at 16 and went to the same 6th form college I went to as she thought it seemed better.

I know of 2 families in which they send their sons to private school but not their daughters as in their culture it is still the norm for the males to be the main breadwinner.

YABU. You don't know all of the reasons for their decision and in any case, it's not affecting you in the slightest, therefore not something for you to pass judgement on. Also, I think it's extremely insensitive and offensive of you to label it as child abuse. Get some perspective, OP.

My DD1 went to a state school until she was 16 and did her exams and DD2 went to state primary until she was in P6 (Scotland).

We then moved area and both girls went to private school. DD1 for two years of sixth form and DD is currently still there. DD1 has never been bothered by DD2 being in private school longer than her.

In the town we live there is a lot of cross over between the private school and the state school. DD2's best friend is leaving the private school after her GCSE's to do her last two years in the state school. Some young people will probably come from the state school to do sixth form at the private school. It is absolute a non issue around here.

It could only be considered child abuse if the parents made a great deal of the child at private school and they got better clothes, better, food, better living conditions and the other child was very much neglected. However we have no way of knowing how this will pan out for the children in question

A similar thing happened to my father and his brother. Both passed 11+. It was a looong time ago, early '40s. In those days, if you got through, you still had to pay to go to the grammars unless you got a scholarship. Uncle was paid for, Dad wasn't, simply because Uncle was illegitimate and family lore says his schooling was paid for by the real father and Grandad (who was forced to marry his pregnant cousin despite it not being his) refused to pay for his own son, my Dad (G'dad was the tightest person you ever met).

Dad has spent his entire life convinced he was thick and worthless because he didn't get to go, and was made to leave school at 14 and work to support the family while Uncle was still at school. He was told Uncle was paid for and they could only afford one, not realising that everyone had to be paid for in those pre-Education Act days. Dad has spent his life being treated for depression and lack of confidence.

It really can have a massive psychological impact when one child is treated differently.

Why on earth do you think this is child abuse?

I have two children, one who is very academic and will very possibly go to a private secondary school, and the other one who is not so academic but very much into art and creativity, acting, writing plays, etc. He is not less intelligent, just different and he would not be happy/thrive in an academic environment. I do not think that making the decision to send your children to different schools because they have different abilities is in any way shape or form child abuse!

YABU, different children need or want different types of school sometimes.

Where I work (private prep) we often get families who made this decision for the opposite reason. We have lots of children with SEN or who are of quite low ability who have academic siblings in the state system because their parents feel that they don't need the class size and resources we can provide and don't see the point in paying two sets of fees when one of their children will get on perfectly well in the state system.

We're just deciding on a school for DC2 and may end up with one private one state.

DC1 started at state. The school went into special measures after she'd been there a year and a half. There were some very 'challenging' children in the class who were not well managed and the class was in chaos. She was the youngest in the class, very quiet and essentially ignored by the teacher. There was hardly any work to show us and she was constantly bullied - kicked, stabbed with pencils, hit in the face etc. We were desperate to move her as she was desperately unhappy and it was affecting her confidence and sense of self. We looked at state and private and found a wonderful nurturing prep that had a space and has completely changed her.

Now DC2 (several years younger) is coming up. The local state has changed Heads, replaced several teachers, made huge changes to the ethos and policies, is now 'good'. DC2 is oldest in class, very confident and has loads of good friends from nursery who will go there. DC1's school is single sex so he can't go there. The alternative school for boys is very old-fashioned and pushy and we don't want to send him there so he'll probably go state to start with and keep it under review.

So far as I can see it's about making the best decision for the child concerned within the options you have.

"
You are equating financial spend per child with how the parents feel about the children and you can't do that."

I think that children do equate financial spend on a child with attention/ nuture etc. Child abuse can be emotional as well as physical or sexual or neglect. Favourism hurts children pychologically. Throwing all of a families financial resources at one child causes all kinds of conflict. It can cause conflict for parents to spend lots of money training an olympic gymnast and to ignore the non talented sibblings.

Abuse may well be a strong term and maybe favourism is not abuse as the duty social worker would define it. However the potential for giving so much of the families finance to one child has potential to cause hurt and deep resentment in the future. I don't know what a duty social worker would think of a family lavishing attention on one child and only giving a very basic existance to the other. Its not kind the abuse that the state would intervene in, but it is toxic. Children need more than basic food, clothing, bog standard state education. They need to feel valued by those who look after them.

My mother used to brag about having to pay £50k to get my younger brother through Uni and this was before the top up fees. He did not need to get a part time job. He is now in a career where he earns a 6 figure salary.

I was told to get a job as soon as I left school to pay my board. There was no money for Uni for me although I was often told I was the most intelligent in the family in the vein of 'why are you in a shit job Peace?. You could have done so much better'. I am at Uni now at 42 .

Calling it abusive she did a lot worse is a bit extreme but it definitely comes under the category of 'emotional neglect' IMO.