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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How can you let your child go to boarding school?

479 replies

Jerem · 06/03/2018 22:27

I’m going to get flamed probably by the people who send their child to boarding school full time ..

But how could you?
How can you let other adults care for your child? Why did you send them away? Why have children and not have them in your home, give them their tea, talk everyday face to face. I don’t understand how anyone could do this. I really don’t.

Anyone care to explain how you can send your child to live elsewhere without you??

OP posts:
OfflineFor40Years · 08/03/2018 12:43

Being in the military is often used for justification for boarding schools at young ages , but there is still a choice being made. These days there are reduced postings abroad and it is perfectly possible for a family to settle in one area, potentially with the serving member commuting weekly to wherever they are posted.

Many military families choose the peripatetic route because it enables them to send their children to schools which they would otherwise not be able to afford.

SmartyPantsss · 08/03/2018 12:47

By the way, we're not military & dc's don't have any special talent. Its just a lovely school and we can afford it Smile.

thanksjaneshusbandatcaresouth · 08/03/2018 12:57

Hi carryon,

Yes, it was a struggle though thankfully my roommate and I remained firm friends throughout and indeed to this day. The posh boys had superficially amazing manners and turned on the charm big time. It took us a while to see through this and realise how damaged/dysfunctional they were. I was just young.

to the pp who said this was a posh thing not a boarding thing, I dunno, I take your point though. If their boarding schools had been good though surely they wouldn’t have come out like that?

I do accept I know nothing about modern bs.

carryondoctor · 08/03/2018 13:08

It's a shame when that happens. My ex went to Cambridge and was miserable for 3 years for the same reason - he said they were all very posh public school and didn't want to know an Asian boy from up north. And Durham is also quite well known for attracting posh oxbridge rejects, like Bristol and St. Andrews!

I do think it's a dick/posh school thing not just a boarding school thing, though. There's a certain code that public schoolboys have which means they know how to talk to each other. Most of the ones I know are great, but my goodness some of their friends...

gillybeanz · 08/03/2018 13:13

Luckily I'm happy with how dd is turning out, and even though I joke about her catching posh, she still speaks normally at home, most of the time.
I do think that self assured, good manners, social skills are encouraged at boarding schools, this must help them when they are older.
Although, I suppose it depends on the child some like mine were like this anyway, but not quite to the extent she is now.

Parsley1234 · 08/03/2018 13:46

Mrs S made me laugh and I completely get it ! My son flexi boarded from 8 1 night a week and loved it he’s been away since September now and I’m really glad he is. No arguments over prep, I travel with work a lot so no child care needed, he gets to mix with his peers and older, he is learning to mix with different personalities and he is very socially adept now. I’m a single parent he is on a bursary and it is the best money I spend every month and no neither his father nor I boarded

louise5754 · 08/03/2018 13:49

What's the military got to do with it? Let the dad work away and Mum stays in one place and the kids go to the same school and come home every night.

carryondoctor · 08/03/2018 13:51

Wow Louise, lucky old mum, getting to do all that parenting single handedly!!!!!!!

GrumbleBumble · 08/03/2018 13:58

Louise there are women in the forces! There are single parents in the forces. There are people who's "little wifey" also has a career so isn't willing /able to just sit at home.

Living apart doesn't work for everyone we do it but it's bloody hard.

louise5754 · 08/03/2018 14:02

I know it's hard. Never said it was easy but bring in the military is no excuse to send your kids to boarding school.

squarecorners · 08/03/2018 14:07

Louise, do you actually have any experience of military life or have you just seen a couple of episodes of our girl and think you're an expert?

carryondoctor · 08/03/2018 14:07

Why would you see it as an excuse?? Why would anyone need an excuse to send their kids to boarding school? It's a CHOICE. Not an excuse.

louise5754 · 08/03/2018 14:12

Yes I have experience and I avoid all those type of programmes

SmartyPantsss · 08/03/2018 14:21

There's a certain code that public schoolboys have which means they know how to talk to each other.

What is this code? Hmm

carryondoctor · 08/03/2018 14:30

The same jokes. The same phrases. The same confidence. All my friends who are the same age but from different public schools seem to know it!

It's not a sinister thing, so you can relax the cat bum mouth face. It's just an observation about how a lot of ex public school pupils communicate. I went to a posh school but not one of the traditional public ones, so I got about half of it!

CatkinToadflax · 08/03/2018 14:38

I worked at a boarding school for secondary aged children with learning difficulties and autism. The majority of parents agonised about the decision to 'send their child away' and felt ridiculous amounts of guilt as they felt they had let their child down somehow.

attitudes like yours op are not helpful to these parents who have battled on before sending their child to a boarding school because it's in the child's best interests

Haven't had the time to rtft and the comment above was made pages and pages ago, so apologies if boarding for SEN reasons has been done and dusted on this thread- but the above comment relates to my family's situation exactly. DS1 (12) has complex special needs and is a weekly boarder at a specialist residential school. It never even entered our heads that either of our boys would board, but he has to in order to get the best chance possible at an education and hopefully employment and some level of independence in the future. He actually gets masses out of the boarding 'curriculum' and is being taught vital life skills that he'd never get in mainstream. He is also extremely happy there because he is one of many with similar special needs rather than being the 'odd one out'. But there are hardly any schools in the UK like the one he goes to, and certainly not locally to us.

Am I a bad parent for sending my son to board to give him the only chance he has at an education and a good life? I think there will be many of us on this thread whose children board, or who have boarded themselves, for many different reasons - and who shouldn't be criticised just because others have chosen not to follow this route.

Anatidae · 08/03/2018 14:56

Haven’t read all the comments but I haven’t seen anyone mention remote communities yet. In the Highlands and Islands region there are families living a boat ride away from their local school - some of these kids live with family/friends etc in the week/term time.

I’m now sweden and similar here - there are some really remote bits of the country where it’s not possible to get to school and back in a day.

That’s on top of people who are posted to dangerous destinations etc, military, special needs, sports etc.

It’s certainly not for everyone. I’m not sure I’d do it, but there are many ways of being a good parent. I’m not daft enough to think my way is the only way.

BasiliskStare · 08/03/2018 15:40

Would it not be lovely to have a thread about boarding which did not go this way? I fear it won't ever happen. Of course there are parents who would never countenance it , but some can discuss it reasonably. There will be parents who do it unthinkingly or who want to send their children away ( but would they be on a parents' forum - don't know) and then there will be people in the middle who make a choice at one point for one child given what is available.

Motherhood and Apple Pie anyone ? Grin

SmartyPantsss · 08/03/2018 16:14

The same jokes. The same phrases. The same confidence.

Yes, they're all clones dear! Strange that even you who went to a 'posh' private school could not understand it. They sound like aliens.

scaryteacher · 08/03/2018 16:51

Offline Using boarding for military children isn't just about the foreign postings though, it's about the intervals at which you can be moved within the UK. We sent ds to board for sixth form as we knew we would be moving back to UK at the end of term 1 in Year 13. Not an optimal time to move ds wouldn't you say? Boarding was the solution. Stability for two years, both his uncles (my db and dh's) within 25 minutes of Winchester, and we came over for every exeat etc. If you don't know when you are going to be moved, or the jobs available make weekending difficult (Faslane to Cornwall anyone?), then boarding is an alternative.

It's all very well to say 'oh weekend', but it just ain't that easy. 4 years back to back weekending interspersed with time away overseas as Iraq and Kosovo were in play meant a lack of seeing dh for long periods of time. I was used to him being away without communication as he was a submariner, but 4 years of weekending was hard.

As for reduced foreign jobs...mmm. They can't fill the ones in Belgium, they had to get a friend of mine out of retirement to come and do one here, and dh had 3 back to back Brussels jobs.

carryondoctor · 08/03/2018 16:59

Well - you know what you don't sound, Smarty? Even remotely smart! Grin

Shame you don't understand, but it can't be helped.

Toomanytealights · 08/03/2018 17:16

Hoards of military kids don't board,the vast majority in fact. I was one. My parents put us first,the RAF supported them. Dad turned down some dream jobs and commuted for 7 years. We moved our entire primary years but both ended up with degrees.

I don't think the state should fund boarding unless for SEN. Limit postings and put extra money into state tutoring and support for military children in state schools.

Sorry but I think it's abhorrent.

1ndig0 · 08/03/2018 17:25

My DH boarded from age 7 and ended up in a better-known public school. He says in retrospect that he was probably better off there because his parents were emotionally defunct people. He just says, "it was what it was," but neither him or his brother had any intention of replicating the experience for their own DC because they think its institutionalising and totally uneccessary.

hellokittymania · 08/03/2018 17:28

I have special needs and boarded for six years from the age of 12. If you lived 200 miles within the school you could go home every weekend, if you lived further away than that, you went home once a month. At first it was hard, but after I got used to it my parents weren't working in the states, I grew up in the US, so I would spend some weekends with teachers if nobody was at home. Otherwise I stayed at school a few times.

A lot of ex-pats in Asia often send their children to boarding school if there is no school around, in central Vietnam, one family sent their children to Malaysia for high school Open till that, they were homeschooled.

thanksjaneshusbandatcaresouth · 08/03/2018 17:54

I've seen Homeland and I definitely think Frannie might benefit from boarding school as a teen.