Boarding school for 7yr olds.

[Patchworkpatty]

This is not a TAAT but follows on from one earlier today where I appear out of step with the majority posting there. So want to ask the AIBU vipers opinions.

While discussing the other thread it lead me to do some internet investigation about the age of children in boarding schools in this country - and was horrified that there are many prep schools that offer 'full boarding' (not weekly and home weekends) from the age of 7 ! I am genuinely shocked and sad that such young children are sent away from home. These places appear really desirable to those parents desperate to ensure entry into 'the better public schools' .

How is this different from putting your 7 yr old in care ? IMHOthe only difference is that you pay for it and there are more activities. Surely it's not right to do this to such young children . I really thought that had stopped in the 1960s .!

@LaurieMarlow and no one is asking for you to send your children at boarding school. So that’s fine.

Personally I can’t see that I would want to have my 7 year old boarding. Or even at 11. But other people differ.

I don’t have a problem with boarding schools. I have several friends and family members who boarded for secondary school and they thrived and are perfectly well adjusted adults now.

However, I have an ex who boarded from 7 and he has extreme difficulties expressing his emotions, he can get very defensive and has a constant need to be in control. We ultimately broke up because he is emotionally unavailable and cannot commit. I am convinced the majority of issues stem from being sent to boarding school at age 7.

I think the key to a successful boarding school experience is secondary age + and flexi boarding.

I went from 6. Personally it was a double edged sword - family breakdown led to a very unhappy home life. Some tough decisions were made and my grandparents stepped in and paid as neither of my parents were fit to have me.
I don't think I would have done as well academically had I not been there. However the emotional issues that come from having no sense of belonging/never feeling you are doing the 'right' thing (be it manners or using the wrong word at home vs at school) from such a young age has certainly made me less confident than some of my peers who had far more stable families living overseas. The ones who got homesick were usually the ones who had something to miss IME.
Btw whoever found the letter in the book? We were made to write every Thursday and letters were scanned for any hints of sadness and torn up if they weren't 'appropriate'. You were just made to stay and re-write until it passed and could be sent. It was, in hindsight, similar to the army - you feel like just a number and any individuality wasn't required until Senior school (although this was mid 80's and teaching has changed remarkably since then - we had teachers telling us we were useless/throwing books/tearing posters off our dorm room walls - fairly sure they'd not be allowed to do that now).

Boarding schools for the prepubescent were invented so working couples in the 18th and 19th cent. could live abroad eg India doing their jobs for the UK civil service. A lot of jobs only took married men ie you had to bring your wife.

Prior to that, boarding schools started age 13, eg Eton & Harrow, because even in medieval times you didn't get the boot from the family home till you were 12.

Ditto joining the Navy - 12/13 was the youngest year at the naval schools.

Prep schoolers I know who boarded were a) leftovers from failed relationships b) both parents wanted to work c) parents genuinely thought they were doing their best for the child.

None of these pupils as adults has done the same for their children.

I don't think they let you board 5 yr olds any more without a really good reason.

The children I know who have boatded since the early 00's have been forces or from families where there is one parent or where one parent has severe mh problems or a combination of both. In the circs it has been the best decision.

But my point is that those who coped well with it or enjoyed it simply didn't get a choice or know any different !
What are the circumstances when this is ok ?
Shit relationship? - get divorced.
Work issues ? Change your job.
Parent dead ? Downscale your life and work p/t until they are old enough to be left alone after school.

I really can't think of a situational where boarding at 7 is in anyway the 'better' choice.

I had a bf in my twenties. Who was sent away at 7.. when we went to meet his parents he sat on his mothers lap and twirled her hair.. then stood to attention and called his father 'sir' ...
but also avoided them 99% of the time. 50 shades of fucked up.
Taxi for Partchwork...

I boarded from 11.

There isn’t a chance in hell I’m sending my kids boarding. Not a chance. Hand on heart it was the making of me but ultimately the breaking too. I’d give up any of the making to have stopped the breaking. Only the resilience learned got me through the bad bits.

I couldn't have done it but I think some children would be fine with it as teens. I've only known a few people who boarded and they all loved it.

In my experience at sixth form boarding, Martin would give you a cuddle and an extra bit of care when you were sick

That’s my job as my 7 year olds parent.

Like @Elderflower14 I can see the need for some children with SEND.
I had friends who were expats living in really remote areas of Africa running safari camps. The extended family all sent their children to boarding school from 5, in their minds it was that or no school.

I think there will be situations where it’s better for a 7 year old to be at boarding school than at home. But just as with a child being in care, it’s second best to a decent parent or two looking after you - certainly not something to aim at or give you status.

Sorry that is not meant to include children who board at schools/establishments related to receiving support for a disability.

I boarded from the age of 10 (in the 1990s)
The 3 women I count as my close-to-the-point-of-being-sister’s friends are all dorm-mates from those days

I don’t think my school took 7 year olds, but there were 8 year olds and I remember cuddling them on their beds when they were homesick

Yes, I’m good at emotional decompartmentalising, no I don’t consider myself emotionally shut down
I was able to enjoy far more opportunities by boarding than I would ever have done by not boarding, and it made me a pretty self sufficient teen and adult

I would give my DC the option of looking at boarding schools from 13, but no younger unless there were exception circumstances

@LaurieMarlow and no one is asking for you to send your children at boarding school. So that’s fine.

I just think it’s bizarre to outsource parenting duties to that degree in this day and age, unless there are very specific circumstances.

I went to a school where there were boarders from 7. Dredging my memory, there were 6 at that age. One had a high powered lawyer mother and her two older sisters were there too, went home at weekends. Two were army kids one with grandparents in the town and one with an aunt who they went to each weekend. One's dad had died and it was the school her cousins went to so her mum sent her there, mum working full time, often abroad.

The other two were cousins from an Asian country and it was seen as the best thing you could do for your child to send them to a school in the UK. That I couldn't understand at all, they spoke no English at the beginning and had no relations apart from each other. They had a new guardian each year through some kind of agency and went home in the summer and Christmas holidays.

I find myself unable to shrug my shoulders and put these poor kids out of my mind because there are only a very few of them and worse is happening to other seven year olds. Children of that age should be at home. There are a very few exceptions. The poster whose child was profoundly deaf may be one of them. There are hardly any others.

@Patchworkpatty oh gosh, I’d forgotten about the bizarre relationships with parents. My ex had that too! It was a bit more normal with his mum, but the relationship with his dad was more akin to an army officer and solider.

My OH was at boarding school from 5 to 17

He has been left a detrimantal life legacy because of it.

If a child's at boarding school at 7 these days, they've got a hell of a lot worse problems than being at boarding school, if you see what I mean.

Nowadays it's the least worst option for children with no functioning family. It's fostering for rich dysfunctional people.

I feel very sorry for parents who give up their children and send them to boarding school

I feel more sorry for the poor souls left to be thrown to the luck of whatever greets them at the door of the boarding school - luck of the draw if that's good or bad

Very sad

I don't intend to send dd who is 7 now, however I do remember in Seniors several girls wanted to board. They didn't have to but chose to. That is different IMO.

Plus there's always a niggle that I don't really know what I'm doing, not having been "raised" as it were within a family. My friends and I hung out in gaggles and rarely had 1 to 1 with an adult. I worry I'm not doing typical family things from time to time, but (as a pp mentioned with her ex) I know I have control issues - stemming from me wanting dd's upbringing to be almost polar opposite to mine - so I set high bars for myself in the parenting dept.

I boarded at 7 and can assure you matron did not give us a cuddle if we were ill as suggested earlier in the thread! They were very distant and I don’t remember any warmth.
We were busy and looked happy but there was certainly no sense of affection or care other than in a functional way to check we were up on time, clean hands at meals etc.

Maybe times have changed but I don’t think anything can replace the love of a family. I think it affected me so much that it contributes to me lying next to both children every night as they go to sleep and listening carefully to anything they want to tell me about their day even now over 10!
Despite my views on boarding I strongly don’t blame families who choose this route and there are usually good reasons or parents feel they are doing what is best so I don’t judge. I do also know some children can thrive- I always suppressed very intense homesickness but I have friends who enjoyed it so much would send their DC too

A close friend boarded from 6, and hated every minute...resents her parents horribly.

I went to a school that had boarders, and many boarded from 7. Some boarded to the point that they only went home over the summer, other holidays, exeats etc were spent at school.

Families do what they have to do, but it wouldn't be for me.

I am absolutely evangelical about the brilliance of boarding. But when DC1 was offered a boarding place at a choir school when he was 7, I said it would be over my dead body. XH and I fell out about it in a very big way.

It felt completely monstrous to me (I am a SAHM, and my DC didn't leave my side until they went to school). Though, that said, I realise that my decision to send children to board at 13 might feel monstrous to other parents, when it has been one of the very best decisions I ever made, and my DC couldn't be happier. So I wouldn't necessarily want to condemn anyone else for their decisions.