To ask you, if you despise boarding school, what exactly you think goes on there?

[RainyDaysAndMondaysNeverGetMeDown]

As the title says, if you are one of the many anti-boarding school parents on here, what exactly do you think happens to children at boarding school?

And yes, I am a parent of boarders, having sworn I'd never be.
But having seen how my DCs have thrived (in a school 20 minutes away!) I'm curious to see how much of the perception is reality.

Your posts are not persuasive OP

I still can't understand why a parent would want to send their child away from home instead of enjoying life together.

You have a very different relationship with your children when you’re only seeing them at weekends - you’re not involved with the everyday minutiae of their lives. All those little conversations, the ups and downs.

They become more self reliant because they have to be. I’m sure boarding schools are very different now from the way they were 20+ years ago but even if they do provide emotional support, it’s not you giving them a hug or making them a snack and telling them they’ll get through it,

No, my child (16) is opting to attend (not being sent) to a boarding college for blind and partially sighted young people (between the ages of 16 & 25). Yes, it’s slightly different, when you factor in the disability, but it’s still a boarding school/college. It’s a 4-hour car journey from home for us. Because that’s how woeful the national offering is for blind young people. I don’t want to derail the OP’s post but I wanted to offer a perspective of life with a young person who simply cannot live in a family home. None of us knows what really goes on in other families. We all just do the best we can. My parents didn’t send me to boarding school because they couldn’t afford it as my dad was a docker and my mum was a bar maid. I attended the local sink school. I have plenty of axes to grind with my parents about their parenting. But they did the best they knew. As do we all.

There's not much bonding going on in the evenings is there?! What parent is reading to their 13 year old in the evening?

Some of us actually sit and talk with our teens every single evening.

Would you want your children to be raised in an institution? Because that is what you're doing when you send your children to boarding school. One very possibly with high academic standards and great sports facilities, but an institution nonetheless. You're handing over your parenting duties to people who are raising your children in return for money (just like the care system), not because they love them.

I'm yet to meet a boarder that doesn't have mental illnesses or abandonment issues.
Even from the ones who say they loved boarding.

There are state run boarding schools for children with SEMH needs.

Family dinner times, movie nights, just checking in and asking how their day was... These things matter.

I just think that choosing to spend so little time with your children seems a weird parenting decision. They're already at school for the whole day, and if you work then maybe childcare or clubs til 6 or 7pm. So it's not like you get to spend much time with your kids anyway even in regular school.
I think I'd be really unhappy in that type of environment and would miss home and my mum terribly.
My uncle worked in a top boarding school. In the middle of nowhere. A lot of the kids befriended him and his family as theirs were on the other side of the world. It felt like they were seeking out a second family almost. This was great in a way as my uncle and his wife were wonderful people. But if they hadn't been, the potential for things to go wrong was there. The boundary between teachers and students often seemed much more blurred.
Of course the standard of education at the school was amazingly high. And most of the kids went on to do successful careers.
I just think it's not something I would ever get involved in.

Is this a joke?

I wonder sometimes if those who defend boarding schools do not understand what normal healthy family life is like because they never experienced it? In threads like this on MN there is always posts saying you do not really see your kids anyway when they are at a day school, that some parents work long hours, that teenagers don't really need their parents on a day-to-day basis.
I can see that if your own parents were neglectful whilst still providing material comforts, that you may simply not understand what most children do get on a daily basis from their parents.

You would hope so wouldn't you.

Being wounded with a platform DM. Having doors kicked in. Having my eight-year-old called a fucking imbecile or fucking retard on repeat. Having the police out so often you wave at them when they pass in their patrol cars because they are so familiar. Being arrested, held in a cell, interviewed under caution. Sleeping with your purse under your pillow. Even then, your child steals the bank card of your elderly mother who is on the dementia pathway. We have no time for the fun stuff you describe because we are terrorised.

@WhompingWillows people have engaged with you and sympathised with your situation. But now your comments just seem like derailing.

I just can't understand why anyone would have children and then send them away to school. There are so many stories from ex boarders who have suffered with mental health issues as a result. It is just lazy parenting

I'm against it because I was a boarder. Enough said, really.

I don't have strong opinions on what other people do with their children and I find some of the vehemence against boarding from people on here who have never experienced it a bit odd/disproportionate, but my own DC will never board. It fucked me up a bit, Boarding School Syndrome is talked about for a reason, and it affected my relationship with my parents very negatively in my teens and still affects me now.

No real affection (no matter how nice the house mistresses are, they're not your Mum and you aren't special to them); no break from the school environment; no escape if you are being bullied; can be immensely lonely if you're not one of "the popular ones" (and probably even if you are tbh); no privacy; little autonomy; and now I look back as an adult and a parent and I am absolutely horrified by the way we were spoken to and treated by some of the staff out of school hours. I was happy enough boarding at my Junior school, desperately unhappy boarding at my Senior school, I think both affected me negatively, though, even the place I felt relatively happy at at the time.

Being wounded with a platform DM. Having doors kicked in. Having my eight-year-old called a fucking imbecile or fucking retard on repeat. Having the police out so often you wave at them when they pass in their patrol cars because they are so familiar. Being arrested, held in a cell, interviewed under caution. Sleeping with your purse under your pillow. Even then, your child steals the bank card of your elderly mother who is on the dementia pathway. We have no time for the fun stuff you describe because we are terrorised.

This is not the norm is it

@WhompingWillows I can't begin to imagine how tough your life is and I think the majority on here completely understand your position.
Due to years of underfunding in social care this is your only option. Your situation is in no way comparable to the OPs .
I wish you all the best and hope life improves for all involved.

I wouldn't say I despise boarding schools - that's a rather emotive term - but I have opinions, and in my view, for the majority of children living away from home at a young age is not in their best interests. Obviously there are exceptions,such as children who require specialist support in a residential* *setting, and it's almost unavoidable for families in very remote locations such as some of the Scottish Islands. Boarding may also provide a more stable environment for families who move very frequently such as military families and may appeal to children with particular talents such as music, dance etc who can't access sufficiently high quality training at home, but even then, there are lots of potential pitfalls.
I know quite a lot of people who have boarded at both regular Boarding schools and specialist performing arts schools, some of my generation and some my children's peers and I struggle to think of many who haven't been damaged in some way by their experiences. Those that I know who only boarded for sixth form seem to have generally had more positive experiences than those who went at 11 though.
I agree with those who have said it's the separation from the family that's the major issue, but also the lack of "escape". Most children have at least 3 spheres in their lives - home, school and hobbies/social activities- and for a typical child whilst there may be some overlap those things are likely to involve different people in different places. So if things aren't brilliant in one part of life there's hopefully some respite in at least one of the others. But a boarding pupil doesn't really get that do they - everything is in the one place, with broadly the same people. Quite a lot of people have told me that they found never being able to escape from bullies and the lack of privacy very difficult.
As ever, some people will thrive in environments which others struggle with and obviously there's a wide range of experiences, but there's nothing that any of the past or current boarders that I know have told me that makes me wish that my own children had boarded. I think all the parents of boarders that I know believe they're acting in their children's best interests though and most have found it a difficult decision. I don't know anyone who has done it because they wanted to get rid of their children. I don't, on the whole, share their opinions, but I don't think they are bad people.

Thank you for your compassion and understanding.

Thank you for your confirmation. I don’t think so either. But I have experienced years of gaslighting by social workers who have repeatedly told me that all teenagers do these things.

Thank you for your confirmation. I don’t think so either. But I have experienced years of gaslighting by social workers who have repeatedly told me that all teenagers do these things.

Fine but I don't see how this is relevant to the thread

*There's not much bonding going on in the evenings is there?! What parent is reading to their 13 year old in the evening?

Some of us actually sit and talk with our teens every single evening*

And sometimes it’s just serving up food you chose to cook because you know they like it and sitting in the same room watching a TV programme you both like, with minimal conversation but maximum communication that they are home.

Bullying
Being away from the people who love you most
Being looked after by people who are paid to do so and clock off after a certain time
Not getting a chance to just slob out and be a brat/ have a rant/ for weeks at a time
Constantly being around people who judge you on whether you are popular/ clever/ good at sport
Your “family” becoming kids who are often quite messed up.

I know quite a few people who went to boarding school and none have what I would consider strong mental health, some have very very serious issues. Plus my kids are only going to be kids for 18 years, if I live to 80 that’s less than a quarter of my life. I’d like to see them most days in that time.

I am the friend of a number of women who boarded in what I would term second tier co ed schools and they have all been somewhat damaged by the experience. The need to fit in with mean girl cliques and pecking orders that encompass your whole life rather than just school hours in order to survive is part of it. Peer pressure to be sexually active and rampant cocaine use is up there as well. They all seem to have suffered from eating disorders, cutting and low self-esteem which they learned to mask realy well to their detriment later in life.

I have one guy friend who went to a top public school who is very tight lipped about it usually, but has alluded to horrific bullying from both staff and students leading ro panic attacks and behaviours he has had to work hard to unlearn. He is adamant he will never send his son to board.

More generally I think parents outsourcing the upbringing of their children when they dont have to is pretty unforgivable tbh.