I have mixed feelings on boarding schools. It is just an opinion, and private education of any sort is out of our league financially anyway.
I can certainly see the point with regard to military families and other parents who have to travel a lot, as it provides a fixed point and some stability in the lives of the children.
If, and it is a big if, I had the money to send my children to private schools I would do it with no question. I would only board them if at some stage later on in their school career they actually wanted it for themselves. All three are very different characters.
My eldest would almost certainly have loved some form of boarding from the age of about 13 onwards. She was academically very bright, and pretty confident to boot. She is now at uni and loving it (and I well up with tears after every holiday when she goes back for another term).
My second daughter may have benefited, but is a much less confident character anyway and the least academic of mine, so possibly would not have liked it. Day girl maybe??
My third daughter, although very academically bright, is a very, very sensitive little soul and this is causing her a few problems, so I might be dubious about boarding her. Perhaps as a day pupil until we saw how things were going to be??
Pie in the sky for me anyway as we cannot afford it, but I am not judging other people on their choices. Each family is different, and so is each individual child. Some may take easily to boarding school, and others may not. Horses for courses.