to consider sending my 9 yo DD to boarding school?

[BTBuzby]

She is really keen to go. I need to move her out of her private school soon anyway and I think it would work well. We've read lots of books about it and looked around a few but I'm getting lots of negative comments from family and friends alike for considering it as an option.

Does anyone have any recent knowledge of boarding schools and the reality of day to day life there?

We would be grateful for any feedback. Thank you.

Tricky. As I say, I wouldn't countenance it at 8/9. But at 13+, I'd recommend it for most children. FWIW, mine didn't even attend Reception, never mind Nursery, because I saw no need as I was at home anyway and I liked their company. I still like their company now. But I am evangelical about the merits of modern boarding, and would send the others if they had similar scholarships.

BTW, my sole Boarder had never even had a sleepover as a younger child. He was, however, able to compartmentalise when he was 13. He hated school when he was at prep school. Now he counts the minutes until he can return. The school must be doing something right.

BlackType

Aw, ditto. My dc never went to childcare, nursery, or pre school.
The one that boards was H.ed for 3 years before boarding too.
I loved spending my time with them also, I couldn't have gone to work, I would have missed them too much.
What is important is that the children are happy and sometimes we have to put our selfishness away and do what's best for the dc, even if it isn't what we would ideally choose.
I had reservations and didn't want my dd to go, but we assess on a half termly basis and if it wasn't working we'd bring her home, as I'm sure any parent would do.

Btw, no house assistant/ parent would tell a child to turn their pillow over and try to sleep at my dd school. Not good practice at all and I'm surprised the school is still running if this is how they treat the children.

They are cuddled, played with/ read to, or just have a chat, hot chocolate and toast. There's little homesickness and it's the younger ones, but reports say it hardly lasts past day two.
I think it depends on the child and quality of staff tbh.

Oh gilly - you tell yourself that!

Not cuddled by their mother. Children do what they're told. It's outsourcing parenting.

You'll have compliant accomplished young adults. Well done. 70k well spent.

Outsourcing badly - what is the ratio of House patents to children?!

I don't need to tell myself anything, we are lucky that dd is happy and thriving, and never had a day of home sickness
It probably wouldn't work for all dc but atm mine is happy.

Tailith
Without a bursary 70k would pay for just over 2 years at dd school, it's not cheap.

applesandpears56 2 parents and 1 assistant to 10 girls at my school. This will of course differ.

They got taught well, fine, but emotional wellness is just as important and how can they do that if they have to sever relationships?

Jesus christ you don't sever relationships when you go to boarding school. At age 9 they will be home every weekend in all but exceptional circumstances anyway! You don't "send them away" - most will be in local-ish schools.

The absolute rot people post about a subject they have no experience of apart from reading Roald Dahl's "boy" is hilarious.

Is boarding at 9 suitable for all families and children? Not by a long shot. Should it be demonized and held against standards from 20 years ago? No.

@Talith what about their father? Does their father not cuddle them???

Not if he's not in the boarding school.

I'm sure their peers and employees will make them feel loved.

Why would you sever relationships?
I'm so glad that me and dd have the relationship we do, she can tell me anything and often does, she cuddles me (in public) she'd never have done this before as it wouldn't be cool.
We speak daily, I see her mug on a screen every night.
I go to meet her for coffee, see her most weekends.
I spend more time with her than alot of my friends where both parents work .

I used to be like a lot of people on here, I remember quite well joining in with the comments about outsourcing parenting, and other negatives associated with boarding.
Then principles had to go when dd wanted to board, and lo and behold I found that I was wrong. Until you have a child experiencing it you really haven't a clue tbh.

Either child can potter in to my bed and sleep. Download. Rest. They'll get up in their room. With their things and their clothes. With the family pets. Not with strangers.

I can see it might work for some families if the expectation from birth is you go at 8/9 and that’s the exiected norm but to me it’s completeky alien.

I didnt need sny house mistress comforting or condoling or even laughing with my kids at bed time as they had me their dad their siblings and the dog and cat.

The recent programme on boarding at 9 clearly showed home sick children sobbing while the principal was matter of fact about not being able to do much but support until it passed.

That’s boarding school filmed now not 10 years ago. I accept it’s great for some but I bet it’s bloody destroying for most

Either child can potter in to my bed and sleep. Download. Rest. They'll get up in their room. With their things and their clothes. With the family pets. Not with strangers

This.

Also

Hungry? Get some toast.
Tired? Go for a lie down on your bed. With no one else in the room talking.
Feeling grubby? Have a shower when you fancy.

etc etc etc

Living at home vs living in an institution

None of our 3 dc ever came into our bed.
If they were ill we'd sleep in their rooms.
Two are grown ups now and haven't suffered from it

My dd has enough food whenever she wants it and isn't restricted as to when she can shower at school. Unless of course it's half way through Maths.
At home otoh we have one bathroom between four of us, so sometimes somebody else is in there.

I can't speak for other schools or children but my dd school isn't an institution to her, it's her second home.
Her siblings can't believe what she has done and said no way could they have done it.

Most parents don't take the decision lightly, well the ones I've spoken to and/or met.

Hello to HG, I'm still apologising for the most awful things I said to you

Very interesting first post by the way Op

Mmmm there’s another boarding school thread too!

DNs both went age 8 and it was one of the more brutal things I've seen. They are 14/12 now and the effects are quite clear and not positive. The older one has almost entirely shut down emotionally. She doesn't let anyone in. The younger one has become a chronic pleaser and is very unsure of herself.

They are a forces family and the argument was that it was best for them. Their dad clearly never liked children much and I think he finds this arrangement far more tolerable. Their mum did it to please her DH but I think probably regrets it although would never say. She should have kept her girls and let her DH come home when he could. He's gone on to affair after affair while deployed and she sits alone while her girls are at boarding school. The whole thing is a mess.

Anybody come up with the headline yet?

Jesus christ you don't sever relationships

You kind of do though - not physically, but emotionally. Lots of first hand experiences on that other thread from now grown up children who have said that the only way they could cope was by emotionally detaching themselves and how is that healthy?

I do find there's a conflict between claims on threads about what a sahp does versus what a working parent does, on which there is always a chorus of the slightly dubious claim that earning money to pay for childcare and food and a roof is just as much parenting as physically being with the child, and that thinking about/ worrying about/ doing things in behalf of or in the interest of your child without them physically near by is also just as much parenting, and the claim here that paying for school childcare is sending them away to be parented by someone else.

Lots of parents - mainly father's, but we are frequently told women shouldn't feel bad doing it too - work such long hours they don't see their kids awake Monday to Friday. How is a parent of a weekly boarder doing less parenting.

I am partly playing devils advocate, but a lot of comments in this thread are emotive in a way that would cause uproar if the parent was paying a nanny to "parent for them".

As for the Guardian article - I used to buy the Guardian but it's not a newspaper any more, all newspapers contain hefty helpings of bias obviously but the screwball opinion pieces dressed up as serious articles the guardian published now are unreadable. That article is an opinion piece by an American with a stereotype of repressed, messed up Brits to push, to give him an "angle". All the annecdotes are from the British ex pat community in one Asian city, who tend to be a very specific tiny subset of people. I suspect non boarding school educated, non British members of the same expat community - especially the ones who live their whole adult lives in an ex pat bubble in a country with a huge gulf between rich and poor, and who are there as single men without family - are all just as damaged as the ones who have a British public school background.