AIBU to think that boarding school is cruel

[Wrinkley]

Can't help but think that boarding school is really unfair on children, especially younger ones. Apart from all the issues of the trauma of being separated from parents, what if they have any problems at school? There is literally no escape. To me, it just seems cruel to subject children to this type of life.

I went to boarding school and, at 11, it was tough at first. DP and sisters lived overseas and, in those days, contact was by letter as the country they were in only had a limited phone system. It was hard.

However, my parents' marriage was imploding violently. My Dad was vile to my Mum who was herself a ranting, aggressive alcoholic who was often very, very cruel to us (verbally, not physically).

My sisters who did not go as they are younger were much more scarred by what they witnessed. I had great friends but, more importantly, stability and teachers who put ME first - not my baby sister or a failing marriage.

Not everything is black and white.

One poster on here said she saw her children once a fortnight, wow, whoop de doo. Most mums see their kids every day

Well, once a fortnight for the 8 week term... plus a whole weekend exeat each term, then a month at christmas and a month at Easter and 2.5 months in the summer.... Having long holidays was ace.

Mums see their kids every day? There is a quality v quantity issue at play here.

Anyway, I fucking loved boarding school. Whilst also loving my parents and having a v happy stable home life. Mum didn't want me to go, but she was big enough to put her own desires behind my best interests.

I'm all for daycare and boarding but it's definitely not the same thing tanith

I think it depends upon the child. For some it is better than the alternatives.

How is a young child going to nursery for a day, so say 8 hours max, the same as going to a boarding school?

I remember seeing ads for a horsey boarding school when I was a child and I REALLY wanted to go there plus I was did ballet as a child and was obsessed with going to live at the Royal Ballet School.

Here in Australia lots of children of farming families board. There aren't really many other options for many of them so I think it's just seen as a normal part of going up.

"I'm all for daycare and boarding but it's definitely not the same thing tanith"

Not to an adult, of course not. I said "to a young child". At that age, a day is a very long time - I'm a daycare provider myself, albeit a childminder, not a nursery.

I went to a boarding/day school but didn't board.
There were a few children who were most certainly better off there than with parents due to overseas postings etc but there were also some very damaged children who were not really wanted by their parents. They had so much materially ( over compensation?) but would be desperate to come home with me at weekends to a "normal" family environment.
I also know some older men in their 70's in our family who can still remember how it felt to be sent away at age 7.
It's not something I could ever consider - if we were in a situation where DH had to go abroad I would stay here with the DC. I would never send them to boarding school. I have a 7 year old and it makes me very upset to think of little ones of his age living away from their parents.
There will probably be people who said it did them no harm but I can't see how you could possibly have a close relationship with parents who chose not to live with you.

To a young child, being at nursery for a day equates to being at boarding school.

Right...

When I was at boarding school I didn't miss my parents at all. I was too young to work out that this may have spoken volumes about my home life. I was, however, utterly miserable at school and it was a very damaging experience for me. Every 3rd and 9th weekend was spent with my grandparents which was the one thing I had to look forward to (parents were abroad but I was the only one sent away to school).

There were definitely children at my school who thrived and some who really struggled (not much in between). The worst off were the very young ones- I went at 11 but there was one 7 year old and she really suffered. Kids with fighting/divorcing parents tended to prefer school, even though it was a very old-fashioned one with really basic facilities and no privacy whatsoever.

The weekly boarders seemed to do well too- weekends were pretty dull at school but they got to go home and have family time, while busy working parents didn't have to feel guilty about long hours.

I wouldn't ever send my children to boarding school, but I don't judge people who do. Aren't most of us just trying to do our best and get through the day?

Where are you OP? Busy cutting and pasting your article for Daily Wail?

Yes YABU boarder from 7 onwards. 7 - 12 was bloody brilliant. All the day girls wanted to board.

I do wish people wouldn't rush to judge something they have no knowledge of. Boarding in 2016 bears absolutely no resemblance to the boarding school experience of the 1970s and 80s

How do you know what boarding school today is like, in every school, in every country? Because it was a major part of ye olde boarding school culture that the parents were not allowed to know what went on. (The staff didn't know most of it either.)

Some lines of dialogue from the (excellent) movie "Another Country." (Which admittedly in a sense slightly contradict my point, but not in a reassuring way.)

Guy Bennett: God, if our parents only knew what actually went on here.
Judd: They do know. Fathers anyway.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0086904/quotes?ref_=tt_ql_trv_4

OK that movie was set in the 50's. But it resonated with my 70's and 80's experience.

OK, that movie was set much longer ago than I remember.

I posted negatively about boarding currently.

DH boarded (parents in armed forces) and loved it. My parents had left the armed forces to avoid me boarding!

I have always felt very strongly that I would not want my DC to board so we had the argument before marriage and DC.

yello

Given your experience is, oh, about 40 years out of date not sure how your experience of sitting on the loo to warm it up for people is helpful to discussing today's boarding school culture

But its ok for you to say about your experience?

Dh hated it, i have two military freinds who board 4 children between them who love it

My sons would hate it my daughter would love it

It works for some but not for others

Yeah because quoting from 'Another Country' which is a FICTIONAL play written in 1981 about sexual exploits at a boys public school in the 1930s is obviously way more relevant than the first hand experience of a parent of a currently boarding child.

creme

Oh thats a quote? thats funny

I kind of thought that people were allowed to talk about their experiences of this type of thread (obviously if they are not works of fiction )

So dh 30 years ago doesnt count either?

Fair enough

Just the parents who have sent their children now can talk about it.

I boarded for 6th form and I loved it. It was my choice to go and I had a very happy home life, but my siblings were quite a bit younger and I didn't live very near school /friends so just missed having company outside school hours. I was a big fan of Mallory Towers... and while it was nothing like that it was actually great fun! And really just a bridge between bring at home and then relatively unsupported at university.

As with most things it depends on the school and the child. I do struggle to think of sending a 7-year old away though, and feel that if they are better off at boarding school at that age that is (exceptional circumstances such as a remote home setting aside) a poor indictment of their home life rather than, in and of itself, a good thing.

I never said actual real life experience didn't count. I said that quoting likes of dialogue from a play set in the 1930s was irrelevant.

In my earlier post I highlighted my own grim experience of temporarily boarding over 30 years ago and how very different this is to the current reality for my DD.

That was the 90s, btw. So not current but not cruel and awful even back then!

DH boarded from 13 because his parents were posted abroad. I don't think he liked being away from home overly but he did like being able to go to a very swotty and not at all sporty school which suited him much more than the average local school would have done.

People don't realise that the terms are shorter, I think. It's not like being away the length of a state school term.

I think it's cruel to send your children to boarding school if you're expecting them to have a stiff upper lip and get on with it because it's convenient for your own life. I shudder to think what coping strategies children in such circumstances may develop.

However, if you're sending them because it's genuinely right for the child and you are prepared to end the experiment if it stops working (and look beyond the glib 'oh she loves it' to see if it's really working both academically and emotionally), it doesn't have to be cruel. I agree that some parents are so time starved that they're only home to say goodnight - in those circumstances, boarding may well be better than watching tv waiting for the door. Children's lives should be predictable, occupied and set up for the child's benefit and wherever this can happen is the best choice.

Good to see the OP return