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 .!

I boarded from 7. My father was in the army and was posted to Germany. I went to a really lovely school, with ponies and cats and dogs and hens. I was homesick to start with - very homesick - but I remember it almost being a point of pride that no one would ever know. But by the time I was 8,9 that was over, and I loved it. LOVED it. And had developed a self-reliance that has generally stood my in good stead.

I won't be sending my DCs to boarding school. There's no need, and I want them to live at home with me.

But I needed to go. And my parents chose a brilliant school. And I have stayed in touch not only with school friends, but the teachers and pastoral staff. It's like a huge extended family - which is what the best schools are.

Just wondering what people think of children with special needs at residential school

My son is 7 and attends a specialist day school and I hope to be able to cope with him at home for a long time to come but he is extremely challenging and when he is taken out he is 2:1 . I’m a single parent so find it so so difficult managing by myself . He has autism adhd and learning difficulties .

So it’s not ideal in these cases but for some a last resort and may meet the child’s needs better

In general though for purpose of this thread I agree that 7 is extremely young and it’s very sad for the child missing out on a large part of family life . I can’t get my head around parents and making that decision either

I worked in refugee camps in the 90's it was full of displaced children running around having fun. Children adapt to the circumstances they are in. The issue is that their parents didn't CHOOSE it. And none preferred it to being with their family. !
I am not anti boarding. Mine went for six form. They chose to. One didn't. Again their choice. They were old enough to make that decision. 7ur olds aren't.

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.

In my mind the parents in this scenario are putting their lifestyles above their children's welfare. Get different jobs or don't have kids.

My father boarded from 7.

I think it had lifelong impacts on him in terms of his relationship with his sisters (who didn’t board) and his social interactions.

He enjoyed, I think, public school from 13, but the sending away at 7 was too young. He had good parents and it was the DONE thing. But the wrong thing I think in terms of him being able to naturally ‘get’ family life.

We were 6, 8 and 10 when we were sent to boarding school, (the six year old weekly only). All three of us damaged for life to some degree, and our relationship with our parents has been affected badly. The reason I thinks is that my mother couldn't cope with three children and Dads solution was to remove the children. I certainly don't remember any cuddles!

when you’re at boarding school you know you have a family that loves you and that cares about you, you ring them and write to them and see them in the holidays. I guess kids that board have a stable family whereas kids that are in care don’t.

So ,very different. It used to be common for upper class boys, but these days, it's usually children of forces families who can't take their kids into a war zone, or similar.

Don’t understand why any parent would inflict this on their child - to me it is a form of child abuse. If you plan to send them off ti boarding school at 7 don’t bother to have them

My daughters school boards from 7, there aren’t many children that go from that age, maybe 3 a year?. But nearly all of them are military children who’s parents are posted all over the place. And those places are paid for buy the military. They tend to be the permenent ones.

Other people sometimes use flexi-boarding (so a night or two)if they are away on business, work nights (Doctors etc) or don’t have family support if they need to go into hospital for treatment. Those kids tend to see it as a big sleepover.

Interesting thread, I think.

My DF boarded from 13 and has mixed feelings about it. XH boarded from 8 (and was undoubtedly scarred by it - I think it explains a lot of his hopeless behaviour, inability to deal with family life etc). DP boarded from 11, and never really talks about it. I was a day girl, but seem only to know males who have boarded/are boarding!

I wouldn't have sent my DC if they hadn't been very keen to go, though. And I did say at the outset that if they tried it and it wasn't for them, that was fine and we would find a day alternative.

DD's ex boarded from 7 or 8, following parents divorce. Seems cruel to me. Dd was offered a place a music college at 9, as we lived 90 mins drive she would have had to board, we turned it down.

I was sent to boarding school at the age of 10. I was a full boarder and didn't go home at weekends. I was terribly homesick and cried myself to sleep a lot of the time especially after the wrench after school holidays. It definitely fucked me up emotionally. I am not a confident person and and am quite needy.

I went at 10 almost 11. There were two 7 year olds in my house. I remember one had a mother who was always on holiday and I used to brush the other ones hair for her as it was really thick and frizzy. We all looked out for the little ones but it was way too young. They grew up far too fast

There are circumstances that make boarding school, even very young, better than the alternatives. But to echo a PP above, there are hoardes of seven-year olds who would be better off in a well run boarding school than left with their parents, academically and socially. These are not the majority but most children after the age of 11 or so, love the freedom to become themselves without too much parental control.

AS for knowing you have a loving family, it was quite the opposite for me. I felt abandoned by mine. My weekly letter pleading to come home were ignored.

I don't you can generalise. Some boarding schools are brilliant, and some are not so good. Bit like families.

Oh and our letters home were checked to remove and references to hating it there and wanting to come home...

I know of 2 7yo boarders and 1 8yo.

1 Mum had died a few years earlier. It was the "best" (and only) option available to Dad.
2 - Mum sectioned.
3 - Army single mum.

All 3 with limited options. Fostering and care being the alternative.

I'm sure there are others that go just because it's what their family do etc. The numbers are low for such young boarders and many are for reasons not straightforward.

"You see the thing is Gin , you were sent away by people who said they loved you , I was sent away by people who didnt like me "
part of a conversation I had with an ex prisoner and Borstal boy discussing the effects of alienation and institutionalisation from early childhood .
He said he could spot a boarding school boy a mile off in prison, with some similarities between him and the working class inmates but with an added sadness too . This is an extreme example , but as an ex public schoolboy myself and a therapist working with mostly men with these issues in later life ( and stil struggling with mine ), I saw the long lasting effects of early boarding impact on a person's ability to function healthily .
Some , if not many , boarders were fine with the experience and seek careers and institutions ..army , law ..that repeat the structures, attitudes and hierarchies of their schools , but can run into trouble later in life when relationships and career need a different mindset .

I don't personally agree with boarding schools at such a young age & isn't something that I would ever do with my children but I can see that it would suit some personalities but not others.
I have two boys, the eldest would have got on well-he is quite a well rounded boy, my youngest however although tough in appearances can get quite emotional over the smallest things and certainly needs a good cuddle every few days.

Dd is a day pupil at a boarding school. She read Enid Blyton all her life and appears to love the school. She is there longer than usual day pupils due to pick up times. She is thriving. She's not boarding though and has a lot of evening music (2 instruments and 2 groups), football and dance lessons which I am not sure she could attend as a boarder. She seems quite happy with the boarders as well as the day pupils, but I guess the boarders have less in common as they are not going to the evening activities.
I literally touch wood that she's doing ok as I thought the boarders might be against her as a day pupil. I think some children (confident ones) can thrive in a boarding school, but the more shy child might flounder.

I was a boarding house parent for 4 years before I had my own kids. We took them from 4 years old....

The youngest in my dorms (I covered 4-11yr old girls, 40 kids in total) was a 5 year old. But the boys dorm did have a 4 year old in.

It was in some ways heartbreaking, and I wouldn't send my kids to boarding, but when I saw their lives in the holidays it made me realise that for those whose parents are wealthy but don't want the "hassle" of their kids, boarding was perhaps the better choice. In the holidays the kids would be full time with nannies, would have drivers to take them to play dates/ meet friends/ go to the mall etc. It was sad that they used to say to me "I wish you were my mum" or "please can I stay at school with you?" when their drivers came to collect them for the holidays. Once when a mother came to collect her daughter, the child clung to me, crying, and said "I want to stay with you". I did wonder how that mother felt then.

The thing that reassured me about them being so young and in boarding was that I was there. And that sounds really arrogant, but I knew that I cared. I couldn't be a "proper" parent to 40 girls, but I was around from 6:30am, would do their hair if they asked, would help them make their beds, would tie shoe laces, would chat, would listen to kids read... I tried as much as possible to do "normal" stuff, to make it less regimented (which it obviously had to be to a certain degree to make it work). Then I'd go to breakfast with them, teach all morning, eat lunch with them, spend the rest of the lunch break in the dorm so they could find me for a chat/ would use this time to catch any girl I had a concern about or needed to talk to etc. Teach some of the afternoon (but often had free time thankfully!), then was around in dorm again to mostly just be available. Would stay around for showers (the younger ones would need help, the older ones got their privacy), and to again do hair etc, then ate dinner with them. Whilst the older ones did "homework" I spent time with the younger ones, playing board games or doing "fashion shows" (heaven help me), or doing art and craft etc, then would move around doing this with all the age groups as they finished working. Bedtimes were staggered, so I did a story for each group (even the 11yr olds would beg for a story!), and we would sing a song of their choice before lights out. Inevitably someone would ask for a hug, which let to most of them wanting one, so I would then go round and hug those that wanted and would tuck in any that didn't want a hug. If they wanted a kiss I would let them kiss my cheek and I would kiss the top of their head. Then I would go home (to my adjoining flat), and hope the night was quiet! If anyone was ill, I always asked to be informed (we had 2 other staff who would cover most of the night wakings). Depending on how ill / what was needed, I'd go through, but illness, even mild, was surprisingly infrequent.

There were 2 of us covering the dorm, in addition to the 2 overnight staff. The others cared about the girls and gave them as much attention as I did.

So whilst boarding sounds awful, and I wouldn't at all be able to put my kids into boarding, having been on the other side I can say that, whilst far from perfect and "family"-like, it isn't necessarily entirely isolation and loneliness and nobody there to listen to them or care for them.

I would worry that my kids would not get a caring boarding house parent though, and so would alter my lifestyle in whatever way possible to avoid them boarding. There are parents though who do see it as the best option, for a variety of reasons, and so I just hope most house parents genuinely do care.

DH was sent home from (a long way) overseas to board from the age of 7.

I think he went home once a year. His mum,. AFAIR, came over for opne of the other holidays, othwerwise he went to other relatives.

Then his parents came back to this country to live - but he remained at boarding school.

He doesn't resent the early boarding - it was a practical response to a logistically very complex situation. He does mind that he remained at boarding school while his sister was allowed to return home and went to a day school until 6th form - and it has always been difficult that his parents still continually refer to 'how much they sacrificed' and 'how lucky he was'.

I boarded from 11, relatuively locally - as in i could go home for exeats and half terms as well as the long holidays. i acquired an education i could not possibly otherwise have had, and the social difficulties i had were much more about being age-accelerated and a scholarship kid than the boarding itself (in fact the boarding probably made the extreme income gap between my family and those of others at the school very much less visible).

You can draw your own conclusions about our long-term views on our education by the fact that both our children attend state comprehensive....