To think boarding school is cruel?

[MinnieMous3]

I really can’t understand why anyone would send a child under 16 to boarding school (unless, say, they had such challenging behaviour the family could no longer manage it).

I feel like even if the child enjoys it, it won’t sit right with them in future that their parents were happy to optionally spend so little time with them.

There were also a lot of interesting posts on the previous thread from partners of people who went to boarding school, and how it impacts their lives today.

My best friend went to boarding school from the age of eight and her parents were internationally based, so she it was full boarding and she would often go to friends for exeat.

She is possibly the nicest, most socially capable person I ever met - she gets on with anyone and everyone, and has a great career.
Up to that point boarding was just a brilliant thing for on paper (despite the few years of bullying and homesickness) however the problems were evident from the moment she had children, she had and still has absolutely no idea how to parent. None at all.

She goes from being too strict to being too slack in less then ten minutes, she hasn't been able to form a proper bond with either dc, as she simply does not know how to. In the end, she got a nanny because it was easier and better for dc, and went back to work, and worked every hour so she could avoid dealing with them herself. I think they made her feel inadequate.

When she is with them, she spends every minute doing 'activities' with them, as that is all she knows. Holiday clubs are a must and are used for the maximum amount of time. It is sad for her and for dc. She also keeps secrets, and never lets on when she has any problems - everything is always 'fine' until its not. Her marriage ended because she was too cold and distant according to him, and to be fair she was not bothered when it did. It is like part of her has failed to grow properly.

So yes the problems were not immediately obvious, I had known her twenty five years before the first became apparent. She said she hated boarding when we were young, but now has rewritten the past to something she loved and her parents did for her as a gift, it is strange. She was abused at school and it was pretty bad by any standards, but still a leading school of course, and thats all that matters.

Her dc are now going to have the same fate, as she can't cope with them, they are out of control teens now and they are going to be packed off asap.

I think there is a 'boarding school cycle' that is almost impossible to break, because where on earth do you learn to parent if you are not parented yourself?

I think even 13 is too young to really make an informed choice about whether you really want to live away from home. How easy is it in reality to tell your parents you've changed your mind and get a place elsewhere if you don't like it?

I only know a couple of people who boarded and back in the late 90s so possibly a different experience from today. They are both very independent and confident but also both very emotionally closed people. Anecdotal of course.

I can only compare to the wives and exwives I know who were married to people who went to boarding school who have been through something similar

It sort of creeps up, you accept that they keep even silly little things secret. It is almost like they get off on knowing something you don’t and it gets worse as they get older.
It is the things that people praise about their children going to boarding school like the independence and self reliance that become almost like a mental illness. Those things don’t go with a happy family life.

Dh kept a secret, a pretty big secret that if we had known about from the start we could have done something about it and our lives wouldn’t have been wrecked.
Something happened and he thought like always he could fix it so carried on as normal He admits it didn’t cross his mind that he should tell me what had happened but in the end he blew through a 6 figure sum in 6 months trying to keep up appearances because he didn’t want to tell anyone anything.
He has done something similar a few times before but I have twigged early on what was going on and I have ended having to adjust things and regearing myself to the new normal and pointing him in the right direction until things get back on track and we have discussed about him not keeping secrets and the need he has to be self reliant and independent and thinking only he can fix things. Which is fine if he lived on his own but he lives with me and our children and he needs to take account that his actions affect us as well.
This time together with Covid and lockdown it was too late to do anything and it has cost us as a family probably around 1/2 million which was pretty close to all we had.

The thing is I know loads of people who have gone to boarding school who have done something similar and I know loads of people who haven’t gone to boarding school who when I have asked when this scenario has happened to them what happened and they have all said it wouldn’t have crossed their minds to keep their spouses/partners in the dark.
The only way to describe it is if you marry an ex bs person then you might think you are an equal partner and you might be an equal partner if things are going well and you are young but deep down you are not on their level and don’t deserve access to their lives.

I boarded from 13 plus out of choice.

I have a disability and was struggling in mainstream so along with my parents decided to board in a specialist school.

I both loved and hated it for different reasons but I do know that academically it has helped me loads.

I'm still very close to my Mum (she's been down 3 weeks helping me with my newborn). She didn't want to send me but knew for my chance to thrive and mental health I needed it.

However I will say that many who had been there from a young age were emotionally volatile or detached or had straight social behaviours.

lavenderlou Mon 29-Mar-21 14:15:18
I think even 13 is too young to really make an informed choice about whether you really want to live away from home. How easy is it in reality to tell your parents you've changed your mind and get a place elsewhere if you don't like it?
...
Some do, it depends on the parents of course. My child didn't board but always knew if he was unhappy at a school we'd find somewhere else.

I remember reading an interview with Nigella Lawson; she changed schools more than once because she didn't like it, her mother backed her. The Duchess of Cambridge was unhappy at one school, parents took her out and she went to another where she was happy.

We have to listen to our kids.

I think listening to children is crucial.

Some of our friends sent oldest child boarding, child loved it.

Sent second child boarding, child called home in tears. They went there either the following day or the one after, packed up her things and took her home. If I remember correctly, they found a day school to take her mid-term.

Nothing is ever going to resolve this OP.

I went to boarding school at 7 because my parents moved around a lot in areas which were deemed unhealthy for children (see army, diplomats engineers, anyone working abroad). Decades before mobile phones. We loved seeing our parents during the holidays and wrote twice weekly as did they. Our great relationship lasted until their deaths. They had little or no choice.

Forty years later my DC went to boarding school at 11. Both of us were in careers (especially me) which meant working late or leaving home at 4am. There were no easy careers to slide into when we had DC especially in rural UK.

I know a lot of people who are doing shifts and box and cox to look after their DC but rarely see each other. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, shopworkers. Any better?

I would've loved to go, my teenage years were awful at home

When she is with them, she spends every minute doing 'activities' with them, as that is all she knows. Holiday clubs are a must and are used for the maximum amount of time. It is sad for her and for dc.

I think this is a thing not just among boarding school parents, but parents in general now - the kids always have to be busy, busy, busy with a thriving extracurricular life or they won’t look good on Instagram/have a well rounded CV/impress the university admissions/fit in with their sporty peers.

Kids seem to have so little time to play, explore, entertain themselves or just do nothing. They’re constantly driven here and there to clubs.

My friend who went to BS was constantly kept busy on her home visits with yet more sports and clubs. She says now she doesn’t know how to have down time or be by herself - we went on holiday together and she was actively panicking when we got back because her house mate had gone away for a couple of days and she was going to be home alone with not much to do. I had to promise to phone the next day.

@newstart1234

I agree that boarding school is ‘lazy’ parenting, but only in so far as all paid childcare is.

FFS this thread is getting plain stupid now

Haha maybe.

I think you might have misunderstood me though which is the major pitfall of written discussions. I don’t think parents can or should provide absolutely everything for every child. Children learn from others things that they can’t learn from their parents. Hence nursery , after school clubs, holiday clubs and boarding school. It takes a village to raise a child and all. These things are or shouldn’t be simply so adults can work but also to give children a breath of learning opportunities.

Two friends of mine are deeply troubled by stress and exhaustion and the self inflicted pressure of high expectations. It’s almost destroyed their relationships and their family life is nearly non existent. They were day pupils at a academically strong state school which may explain the pressure they feel. They’re both hoping to send their kids to the same school to get the same experience though. Any psychological issues can always be explained by something but people will make decisions based off what they think is best for their child individually and I don’t think that’s cruel.

"FFS this thread is getting plain stupid now"

Now? It's been full of ignorance from page one, post one!

I'd like to take this opportunity to declare that my DDs fees are not even 10% of the £20000 yearly fees being quoted here by the way..... Assumption is presumptuous. (and I can't claim any fees back from the military because its state funded school). My "childcare bill" is about £400 a term and I am most def not in the middle/upper class wage bracket. Firmly in the working class category.

@terrywynne

I hope that OP and other posters on this thread talking about having a 'proper family life of savouring every moment with their child, realise just how privileged they are to be able to have that 'proper family life'and judge others who don't.

There are hundreds of thousands of families around the world where the parents either leave their children behind for years so they can work abroad for better wages, or send their children to boarding schools because it is the only way they will get an education. Do they not love their children because they don't see them every day? Even though they are making huge sacrifices for their children? And yes some of those children will be affected and may never have a good bond with their parents but the alternative may be even worse.

I do understand that many people have a terrible experience of boarding school. Just as many have a bad experience of a day school. But there's an awful lot of judgement and not much empathy for others on display here.

I think the main point of this being all the terrible situations in the world are not the choice of the families, boarding school is definitely a choice.

What I have noticed is the emotional detachment. I think boarding school life can make some people who struggle or are bullied just focus on survival , so they become very focused on themselves and getting what they can out of a situation. At the same time they aren’t in touch with their emotions and sometimes cut off from physical experiences. If you feel no one gives a shit and it’s survival of the fittest I think empathy for others goes out of the window. My mother once said to me she made a conscious decision to act as though she was happy because that’s what got approval. As a result I think she lost touch with her real feelings and she just goes through life acting . As a result I have no idea what her real feelings are and I don’t think she does either. She has a nasty side that comes out and I think these are all the repressed and and examined feelings she bottles up. People comment on how ‘happy’ she is, but I think it’s just her face that she puts on to the world even now.

Unexamined

Boarding school is not lazy parenting, don't be ridiculous. My Parents wanted me to have s good education how is that lazy especially when I boarded weekdays and went home for weekends and holidays. I'm going to tell my Mother folk think she's a lazy parent I expect she'll join up here to suggest otherwise

I was not suggesting that boarding parents are lazy!! Only that boarding is a way of acknowledging the limitations on what a person or couple of people can do! Similar to parents who send babies to nursery so they can work to pay the bloody mortgage! It’s not laze itself I was responding to another post. I went to boarding school specifically because my parents worked in specific demanding jobs that required constant moves. The path of least resistance would have been for them to send us to a day school and get less demanding jobs, possibly part time. Clearly (to me) they were not lazy.

I think in the days before contraception boarding schools offered respite to parents who didn’t want to parent . They often used the excuse that there were no good schools near where they lived. What they meant sometimes was that they didn’t want their precious darlings mixing with the riff raff .

She says now she doesn’t know how to have down time or be by herself - we went on holiday together and she was actively panicking when we got back

I noticed that too! She always have to be someone, anyone. They continually pack family time with general others.
My friend is literally never alone, and will do all she can to avoid it.

We also went on holiday, and it was our first and last. For her she was literally packing in stuff from the crack of dawn to the end of the day, endless activities anything to keep the dc quiet. Our idea of a holiday is to collect shells, potter in the woods - wake up late. I think she found the whole thing painfully infuriating waiting all of the time. I asked her whats the rush? And she said she didn't know, but every day of her life is the same. Get up and out, and keep running and running. I wondered what she meant, keep running from what, to what. A sense she couldn't just sit down and relax, and chill. She always had to be doing something. It was really exhausting, no wonder she preferred adult holidays without dc.

The timetables and the rigid life of a boarding school I think shows in behaviour and adult routines as well. Some people call it discipline, and I suppose it can be used that way to benefit some, but it is important to be able to relax, to cuddle up quietly and chill without words, activities. Just with silence. If you are always have to prove yourself to the whole world, are you not going to burn out. I take her to the spa now and make her relax, well I will again when it opens. I worry about her health.

All the money they are earning only seems to serve to make them more apart and more miserable. Money should buy more time with those you love, not less.

It is interesting with the routine. DH does not try to be constantly busy though, we quite like chilling out. We will see with DD. She is so far very relaxed as well, she spent the morning reading, curled up in the sofa before meeting a friend in the park for a few hours. I must say that her discipline seems better though. She was quite excited to walk me through her revision schedule for the holidays (it looked like about 2-3 hours per day). This was completely initiated by her, I had nothing to do with it. This is new since boarding school, before I had to nudge her to do homework and she never revised “to get on top of things”.

I have found that the most lethargic children are the over tutored ones. We never tutored but is seems to be a plague around here. Children are spoon fed information (and pushed to excel in all areas) until they would give anything to just be able to do nothing. I find that terribly sad.

I also find it sad that this thread is so judgmental. Boarding can be a brilliant decision for the right child or the very best choice as a family. I find the verbal assault on military families unacceptable. To you all, thank you so much for the sacrifices you are making.

In terms of lazy parenting, I find the following to be lazy parenting.

a) having a nanny even though one parent is home (this happens a lot, mums are always very glamorous).
b) putting children in lots of full day camps in the holidays unless you have to for childcare reasons. I think children need to relax. However, I am a firm believer in 2-3 hours of sport per day .
c) not eat all meals you can with your children (that is when you model table manners and talk about your day!)
d) letting children watch TV, IPads, play computer games etc unless very limited time in the weekend. (Unless you have to for work)

Probably the last one is my very worst. There are so many children who seem to spend their lives on IPads, in front of the TV or on social media. It is incredibly easy as a parent as it makes them go quiet and doesn’t create a mess but I do think that is extremely bad for them.

Currently need to pop off to put dirty football clothes in the wash and tidy up the living room. I think the Lego literally covers the entire floor.

moth

My oldest still emails me almost every day (outside of phone time, which is naughty but I am not telling

How does phone time work out of interest?

Do they hand it over and how do you email if you have to hand it in

Also do they do homework on laptops?