Comments from SIL about daughter’s school

[BellamellaB]

My daughter is in year 6 in a private school where they offer part time boarding so once or twice a week she boards (her choice - she loves it).
My dh is close with his brother so we spend quite a lot of time with him and his wife (SIL).
They have a daughter a year younger than our daughter.
Always got on super well with SIL but as our daughters have started getting older I’m feeling some animosity from her. All centred around my daughter’s school.
I could take the odd dig here and there but now my daughter has said about a few remarks that were made to her by SIL and cousin at a sleepover last weekend.
School referred to as ‘snobby school’
by SIL.
Cousin said children only board at school
if their parents don’t want them!
And a couple of other things.

It does feel like it’s escalating.
The cousins are close and I don’t want this to come between them.
Not quite sure how to handle it.

Any experience of this kind of thing?

Thank you for reading :)

Why are some of you so keen to defend your choices and homogenise children and their childhoods? Clearly private school and part time boarding or whatever isn’t the right choice for so many but is for some. Hopping on a bus to the local state school at 11 is also potentially stressful for kids, an increasing number now are home schooled too, no doubt there’ll be some potential issues arising from this In The future.
My guess is niece has been talking to DD and hearing about her adventures at the school sleepovers and possibly liked the sound of it and asked her mum about it. SIL panicked and shut down the idea by slating the school because she couldn’t / wouldn’t offer this for DN.
no sane, normal woman would care enough about someone else’s kids education to have commented otherwise. Much less risk looking like a bitch or jealous. I expect she’ll let it go in time. Don’t pander to it though, mention any achievements or interesting events just as you would normally.ideally infront of DD so she can see that you’re not embarrassed by sending her to a lovely sounding school.

@FUPAgirl ok fair point but you say you think it’s ‘crazy’ as an option, you ‘couldn’t imagine’ a family member doing it. Not the height of even handedness.

That was in response to a comment a poster made, not choosing to board!

I'm thinking maybe it's a cultural thing, I'm not in England. There's 2 boarding boarding schools that I'm aware of in this country. My friend teaches in one and says every single boarder is Chinese and their families remain overseas. Perhaps that skews my perception. We are blessed with excellent grammar schools too and private education isn't on offer as it isn't needed. Perhaps if I lived in an area where boarding was the norm, I would feel differently.

I went to a public school surrounded by a fairly deprived area - in my experience, unless they are totally sheltered from people outside their school social circles, private school kids become aware fairly quickly that some people feel negatively about their school. I don’t think it’s helpful to write it all off as “inverse snobbery”/unwarranted jealousy or start suggesting the only difference in circumstances is hard work. There are genuine social inequalities at play, and people aren’t wrong to be mad at them frankly, even if the way those feelings manifest can be.

Obviously a grown adult encouraging and making these comments to a child is unacceptable, and should be addressed. OP seems to already think she knows the cause is that SIL can’t afford the same school, so I’m not sure what pages of people crowing she must be jealous adds as this point. If you want the cousins to hang out without these kind of comments coming up, I’d suggest doing as some people have suggested and raising it in terms of addressing the impact on your daughter, avoiding getting drawn into mud-slinging about the underlying choices. And if it does descend into arguments or the comments don’t stop, then maybe this is sadly one of those issues that is going to cause a rift despite your best efforts.

@FUPAgirl yes and now you admit you potentially have a skewed perception because you are in a different country with only two boarding schools and you are taking the views of your friend as the basis of your whole argument, and should certain circumstances be different you might feel differently, you might just be a bit more even handed and less vitriolic about decisions others make.

@IgglePiggledidawiggle Its interesting how people with no concept of boarding in the uk know all about it!

When my DD told primary “friends” she was going to board I was invited round by a couple of mums for coffee! Why weren’t we using the grammar? Basically it was for dd to start again doing what she wanted.

As an example: she had done all the training for netball at her primary school and never got a single competitive game. At a state primary school. I thought she might get a chance to get involved in what she wanted at boarding school. She dropped the notion of netball but she flourished by joining in and being encouraged to participate. She had 12 activities going in y 10 and the school asked her to do less! We always felt it gave her scope to grow as an individual.

Maybe so they can learn reading and comprehension.

Your sil is jealous that your daughter is going to a boarding school and is telling her daughter how she feels. Her daughter meanwhile is probably noticing the difference in both schools, can see your daughter is staying in her school overnight a few times a week and has more activities than she has.

At this stage I tell your sil I know your not happy that we sent x ( your daughter name) to a boarding school but has been a good choice for her. It's a pity that you let your daughter know how unhappy you are over this as she is now making nasty comments to my daughter about her school. I would also say to her it's a pity if your daughter loses my daughter as a friend because of the smart comments she is hearing.

She might note happy hearing this but she has no one to blame but herself. She is unhappy that you can afford this but she can't. You have stopped talking about your daughter's school in front of her and you never said anything bad about the school her daughter goes to either.

I went to a boarding school and being honest it gave me far more than the poor secondary school in my town.

Your not the only person to hear comments re a school picked for a child. One of my friends decided to send her son to a school in the nearest big town rather than her local secondary school. Her local secondary is rough, the exam results are not great and it has poor extra activities. Her son had been bullied in primary school and the bullies were going to the local secondary school.

She wanted him to get away from them, to make new friends and get a better education.
She heard a few comments over her choice but she said to me I did what suits my children.
Her son is far happier, has made new friends and is doing well in this school.

Your sil is jealous that your daughter is going to a boarding school and is telling her daughter how she feels. Her daughter meanwhile is probably noticing the difference in both schools, can see your daughter is staying in her school overnight a few times a week and has more activities than she has.

At this stage I tell your sil I know your not happy that we sent x ( your daughter name) to a boarding school but has been a good choice for her. It's a pity that you let your daughter know how unhappy you are over this as she is now making nasty comments to my daughter about her school. I would also say to her it's a pity if your daughter loses my daughter as a friend because of the smart comments she is hearing.

She might note happy hearing this but she has no one to blame but herself. She is unhappy that you can afford this but she can't. You have stopped talking about your daughter's school in front of her and you never said anything bad about the school her daughter goes to either.

I went to a boarding school and being honest it gave me far more than the poor secondary school in my town.

Your not the only person to hear comments re a school picked for a child. One of my friends decided to send her son to a school in the nearest big town rather than her local secondary school. Her local secondary is rough, the exam results are not great and it has poor extra activities. Her son had been bullied in primary school and the bullies were going to the local secondary school.

She wanted him to get away from them, to make new friends and get a better education.
She heard a few comments over her choice but she said to me I did what suits my children.
Her son is far happier, has made new friends and is doing well in this school.

You would just be checking you hadn’t missed anything out regarding options for their education in an even handed manner

What an utterly bizarre concept.

I should check with my dc if they'd like to go away to boarding school - leaving their current excellent school, extra curriculars, family, friends - to ensure I hadn't 'missed anything?

Dh and I own a one bed flat 5 minutes down the road. Maybe I should check with my 16 year old if he'd like to leave home now and move in there? Y'know, just to make sure it's not something he'd enjoy and I haven't 'missed' mentioning a potential option. Afterall, how much more independent can you get?

Of course, I wouldn't. Because suggesting this to a just turned 16 year old would be utterly ridiculous. Much the same as I'd consider mentioning to him the possibility of him going to live elsewhere for over half the year would be ridiculous - even if it was in school format.

@SomethingDifferentt gosh another 4 paragraphs of squawking now. Debate club. It’s something they do at my kids school where you present the positive and negative of a concept. It’s not an
alien concept to is it?

Sorry: alien concept too is it?

No idea what you're going on about now @IgglePiggledidawiggle 😬

If you can't grasp the meaning in posts we best leave it there.

Im sorry you cant afford the best for your child = thats Nan Speak. .......not cricket.

The cousins may not be close forever and it is normal during adolescence. I lost all my friends after teen years because I was academic and they were not very smart. It’s natural and it is not necessarily a negative. Hanging out with them was not only boring but it was holding me back from friendships that helped me grow

BUt it is jealousy. The woman has openly wished she could send her own child there ... so now makes snide comments about it because she can't. Not an unheard of reaction of jealous people.

And the OP's child isn't boarding there. She sometimes spends the night through choice, presumably because she wants to sleep over with her school friends on occasion.

The SIL is behaving poorly and needs to stop making comments in front of OP and/or her daughter.