I'm sorry but boarding school at 8...

[TheVanguardSix]

I just don't get it.
Not in this day and age.
I don't mean to come across as antagonistic but as I watch DD's best friend prepare to leave next year for boarding school at the age of 8, it just feels sad. It's amazing how the dynamics of their friendship have changed already. And I can't help but assume it has to do with her knowing that she's leaving... preparing to board (she will only come back for Christmas/Easter/Summer hols... not even half-term. Her parents will visit her over half-term).
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against boarding school at all even if it's not in our plans. I get why people send their older kids to boarding school. We know lots of our older DC's friends who started boarding school at 11 and 13. But 8... it just seems so young.
There must be something positive about it. Otherwise, why would people choose to send a young child to boarding school?

I went the day before my 8th Birthday, and I LOVE LOVE LOVED it! With my friends all the time, doing loads of sports, activities, arts and crafts, running around woods, climbing trees. Brilliant fun! They pack your days so you’re busy and occupied, you get longer school holidays to spend real time with parents and siblings. My mum and Dad never had to chase me to do homework, got cross with me because they had to drive me to another activity, and I did LOADS!
Yes it is different for different kids, but unless they try it you don’t know.

'I go to more school events than most working parents I know, '

By secondary school the parent participation of primary tends to be much less. It's more important for the evenings and breakfast time for chats and catch ups. Meeting for plays and shopping and all these non stop activities all seems a bit forced , it's the pj and slippers in front of the telly that I think are far more important for family time and chats.

I expect that I am in the minority here, in that I have just spent the afternoon with my 11yo (currently at boarding school, where he started at 8yo.)

I also boarded from 8yo. So I know what it's like, now and 30 years ago. And I didn't plan to send my child to board and feel irritated by the righteous indignation of other posters who want to inject a bit of melodrama by accusing parents of boarders of putting their children into care. Boarding was never part of the plan for us, and only one of my dc boards (the others don't want to and have no reason to.)

The reasons parents may choose boarding at 8 include specialist provision (for SEN, mobility impairment, visual impairment, hearing impairment), vocational provision (music from 8, dance and sport from 11) or overseas postings as a result of military or diplomatic service.

I'm sure there are better things to clutch your pearls about than loving parents ensuring that children receive an education appropriate to their needs and their family needs.

8 is far too young, poor thing.

I wouldn't do boarding school even at 12, but 8 is too sad. Especially when I consider my nearly 8 year old and how much he needs me.

I do think there is a hierarchy amongst children and horrible if you can't even escape at night.

Much prefer to let me children have their own time at home to relax, the same way I do.

If you don't work, why don't you have your DD at home with you @gillybeanz

Do you think people just board their kids because of childcare or what?

A friend of mine went from the age of nine and loved it. Her parents had died, left her a fortune but she had no real family to take care of her as her only surviving grandparent was 80 and very frail. Obviously she would have opted for being home with her parents but after losing them, boarding school mended the gap. She spent her holidays either with her grandmother or, once she died, with friends and someone who had once been her parents' neighbour.

Oh my goodness! I got totally carried away with visitors and have only checked in now to read through the posts. I still haven't finished but wanted to pop back and check in.

Yeah it's a weird one. I think the decision is so well intended and DD's friend is from a family where this is just the done thing. I think this is how some people 'manage' their families.

DH went to boarding school at 10. But his home life was a disaster and his parents had split up, both alcoholics. He was a very bright boy and he got a scholarship. He really enjoyed his school but he handles stress poorly and has anger issues that will never resolve themselves. I don't think boarding school is to blame but it's kind of a message. "We're sending you away to school because we can't handle you or our own lives." That's not the typical boarding school story but it's DH's.

DD's friend is only 7, about to turn 8. She expresses no feelings about it. She doesn't really talk about it. But there's a trimming down of her life at home... toys being given away, early childhood being tidied up and permanently put to bed, home becoming a place to visit rather than a place to be a part of. She'll leave at 8 and that will be it.

'The reasons parents may choose boarding at 8 include specialist provision (for SEN, mobility impairment, visual impairment, hearing impairment), vocational provision (music from 8, dance and sport from 11) or overseas postings as a result of military or diplomatic service.'

There are many state schools with facilities for special education needs including visual and hearing impairments. Deaf schools that board nowadays are few and far between, are there any anymore? I know my friend's Deaf DD goes to a local school with a unit for the hearing impaired.

With Military families a parent could stay at home. My dm travelled all over when young and while yes making friends in new schools was always a challenge she said that, rather then being away from her parents, was far far preferable.
So, no one is 'pearl clutching', but there is never a need to send a primary aged DC to a boarding school.

MyrtleMaracas

Because it wasn't about childcare, it was about the quality of education in that instance.

My DS1 boarded from 8, and apart from occasional perfectly natural homesickness, which we dealt with by giving lots of reassurance, loved it and has said if the school still existed he would have wanted his DC to go there. (It closed in the late 90s due to falling boarding numbers and day pupils didn't make up the difference) He started as a weekly boarder but soon was asking to stay for all the activities.
We lived on benefits, he had a scholarship, it gave him an education that was brilliant and suited his needs. The state first school he was at had already started mumbling about his behaviour...that disappeared at his prep school. He was fully intellectually challenged (high IQ, that state school didn't want to recognise) and physically challenged(daily sport). He was happy.
Secondary school was a different matter and with hindsight should we should have brought him home. DS2 had joined him by then, DS2 stayed at state school until he was 12 then joined his brother on a bursary, having been kicked, punched and abused by a gang at his state school because he was 'brainy'.
It was a school that was mainly day pupils and a few boarders rather than the other way round. They didn't 'get' the boarding culture.
As an adult DS1 was diagnosed as Aspergers and Bi Polar. I don't believe his MH problems were due to boarding and would have occurred anyway. There are MH issues within the wider family, I believe genetics played a stronger part. DS2 was fine.
The Aspergers for DS1 wasn't an issue until he was in his 20s.
All those saying too young I presume have not used wrap around childcare under teenage. Seeing busy/uninterested/harassed parents for bedtime/breakfast (and the explosion of need of breakfast clubs suggests less than that) only from birth is more damaging as bonds are not there, an older child who is confident and knows they have that bond will be fine. In 20 years I forecast the same outrage at wrap around child care at that as boarding produces now.

I've never understood why these parents have children to just get rid if them. My dd only had to stay out over night and I'd be sobbing for her.
Please tell me you're exaggerating.

It happened. And she wasn't the only one. There were two five year olds there already and another four year old arrived a few terms later. This was in 1980.

Or nearly 40 years ago, so probably not that relevant to a discussion about the situation today.

I think 8 is mainly too young for boarding, but then we don't know the circumstances.
Bullying happens in all kinds of schools. For parents to know about it depends on the relationship between the parent and the child. There are plenty of parents with children at day schools who don't pick up on bullying and where the child is reluctant to tell them - it isn't governed by the type of school they send them to.

I have a child who might be well served by specialist boarding and it has been suggested to us.

There is absolutely no way I will be sending her.

My brother went at nine - he says he cried every night for the first half term and then never forgave our parents. I think that Marcus Brigstock observation above is spot on

I think, TheVanguard, that the problem is the parents getting rid of her toys and treating her as if she is "leaving home" rather than the boarding school. I haven't got rid of any of my boarding dc's stuff: it's all over his floor where he left it last weekend and it will be until he comes home next weekend. There is also no silliness about leaving home: this is sleeping at school during the week and some weekends during term time. Perhaps this friend of your child is being "got rid of" but it's a pity you can't see beyond your preconceptions.

www.rsdd.org.uk
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www.rsblind.org

MyrtleMaracas

Are you aware there are actually state boarding schools too?

(I don't know if there are any state primary age boarding schools).

What if both parents are in the military?

What if a parent is say, a diplomat in an area unsafe for a family? Why should one parent stay at home?

(I say this as a huge boarding school/public school sceptic, however having dealt with a number of prestigious public/private schools and a boarding state school, it's important to understsbd how a school operates and the kind of children who attend. It's not always straightforward, hence my comment about it being right for the child, first and foremost).

My DH was sent to boarding school at 9. He could not otherwise have been consistently looked after. There's a place for it.

MyrtleMaracas

Sometimes parents live very rurally and such schools are just not a feasible travelling distance or perhaps both parents have overseas postings.

There are times when it is the best decision for a particular family/child to be in a boarding school. Absolutely there are some children who won't thrive and will hate it, but is that not the same as some children who go to the local state school (even ones with good reputations)?

For me I don't understand why anyone would send their child to a boarding school. You have one childhood, why send them away for most of it? Once they're in adulthood they move out. I can't for the life of me understand it. You chose to have children surley you'd want to take care of them, spend time with them and watch them grow up. Completely baffles me.
Beyond parents passing away I think it's cruel.

And if those children of alcoholics, children of bereaved men, children of families that break down and can't Deal with their needs as children, if their families hadn't been wealthy, where would they have gone if not boarding school?

The care system, that's where.

For every child having a glorious Blyton time, there's another quietly shutting down their increasingly irrelevant emotions

Hollow laugh.

Of course all children have access to excellent state-run specialist provision a mere stone's throw away.

Off you toddle back to your straightforward life.

Jiggly

It really is simple.
There isn't a comment about boarding that I haven't made myself in the past. One poster on here who I was terrible to turned out to be so supportive when I needed it.

My dd chose the school when she was 8, told me she wanted to be H.educated to work towards gaining entry to the school. Attending school was getting in the way of her career and she wasn't prepared to go any more.
She pleaded at 8, we said under no circumstances until she was Y9/13, she wore us down and eventually went at 11.
I was told if I stood in her way she'd never forgive me and friends and family said it would be my own selfishness that would be standing in her way.
I know this may seem rare but she's not on her own, there are about 300 in her school, they are all the same. There are several other schools like this throughout the UK, all with children who have their futures mapped out before secondary school.
My dd's siblings are quite normal.

'Are you aware there are actually state boarding schools too?'

I wasn't aware of that no, but even so it isn't the private factor that bothers me it's the sleeping somewhere else every night.

Everyone must have experienced sleepovers from ages 7 and up, they are all having a great time then one will have a wobble and want to go home. How awful for a primary school aged DC to know they can't. They learn to keep it all in and become desensitised.

It's just odd that with some the parents situations is the excuse reason for boarding. Ok, living in the middle of nowhere with a dc with sens and the nearest facility is 100miles away I can understand it. Even then, I'd move.

There are much worse things you could do to a child

gillybeanz I think it may be hard to break through the ignorance here: a number of the posters don't seem to be able to imagine having children whose needs can't be met by the school down the road. I hope your dd is continuing to thrive (I'm a regular namechanger but remember your posts from when your dd started at her school.)

But there's a trimming down of her life at home... toys being given away, early childhood being tidied up and permanently put to bed, home becoming a place to visit rather than a place to be a part of. She'll leave at 8 and that will be it

This made me tear up. How could anyone do this

I don't see the point in having children if they are going to be sent away to boarding school. To me if feels cold. I do know people who went to boarding school and non of them speak positively about it. Most claim they had a sad and lonely childhood.