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.

Ah but in this case their decisions affect society.

Most of the powerful men in the last Tory government went to boarding school and their trauma was played out on the whole nation. They never learned to care for others and treated us all with contempt.

Obviously Eton is extreme and they are extreme cases. But boarding school as a concept does affect society

My EXDP boarded at a single sex school from age 5-18 overseas, and carries deep trauma from the experience which he refuses to seek help for. Dormitory living, so there seems to have been a lot of bed sharing and early sexual abuse, which he can't face talking about. He has a desperate need to control, and hates any kind of order due to the rigidity of his school days, which is a trigger for him emotionally. His issues stemming from the experience, and lack of acknowledgment of them and addressing them, contributed heavily to the breakdown of our relationship.

I'm not against boarding schools, but wouldn't send my own DC unless they absolutely wanted to go.

Severe parental neglect is what goes on at boarding school. Can’t be fucked with your kids, ship em off! Pretend you didn’t have them for the majority of the year cause god forbid you actually raise your own kids.

I don't despise it but my only experience is anecdotal...a distant relative who went years ago and never forgave his parents for sending him, and a celeb I heard recently on a podcast who still resents his parents also.

I think there will be a proportion of children who enjoy it. Sounds to me like this is your children. There will also be a proportion of children who hate it and are very affected by it, which they may or may not express, and so for me it's just not worth the risk for something that's unnecessary. That's the crux of my view, really.

My instinct is that unless they really want to go, there will always be some sort of negative impact but I really have no evidence for this. Although I would have thought it's obvious that most children would prefer to be with their parents but perhaps not.

If your children have asked to go then there's no reason to judge you. Especially as they are home at weekends.

I mean, you only have to look at the sexual abuse allegations - there's basically sexual abuse allegations (teachers on pupils) for every UK boarding school (or has been historically). There's been TV documentaries about this - and I know family members who had this experience.

How any parents think it's a good idea to put vulnerable children in the care of other adults overnight for months on end I don't know.

Different obviously if they're day boarders and you can monitor it a bit more

This

My Mum was sent to boarding school at 7. She didn't see her parents at all during term time. Thankfully her school seemed to have been good at the pastoral stuff and she came out of it with strong friendships and fond memories of her teachers but a distant relationship with her mother. She does have some mild 'boarding school syndrome' symptoms, she gets very anxious, is a perfectionist, and I would say struggled with showing affection as a young parent, her love could be quite conditional in comparison to my Dad (who grew up in a very affectionate lively home surrounded by the extended family). She was adamant she would never send us to boarding school.

Her experience is obviously very different from @RainyDaysAndMondaysNeverGetMeDown 's children's experience where they have chosen to board as they get older. Or indeed from my nephew's experience who chose to board for 6th form so he could go to a school with specialist sport provision. That was absolutely his choice, his parent would have been happy for him to stay at their local secondary.

DD is going into Yr 8 as a day pupil at a boarding school. Most of her friends are boarders and she would love to board but we can't afford it. All her friends are flexi boarders so board 3-4 nights a week for the following reasons: military family, disabled parent, parents who work in London 3 days per week. All of her friends are well adjusted, happy girls with great relationships with their parents. Their parents are all caring and involved but have personal circumstances whereby boarding enables more stability and consistency for their DC on a weekly basis

Significantly there is no boarding before Yr 7 and this does make a difference. DD hangs out with them in the boarding common room during free periods and really enjoys it. If we could afford it I would allow her to flexi-board as she does sometimes feel that she is missing out by not doing so.
The school is rural NE though, not an academic hothouse and overall is run as a big family so I think this does make a difference.

Neither is boarding school, in this case.

You don't know if all her friends are well adjusted and happy with great parental relationships, @twistyizzy . I hope they are, but you can't tell from your standpoint.

Yes, you could. But if it’s not a boarding school you can go home every afternoon (and weekend) to get away from it and be with people who love you and have your best interests as an individual at heart. If it is a boarding school, you can’t.

I would add to this - OPs experience where the kids are older and come home at the weekends, is a lot safer imo, and probably the best use of boarding school.

But I know plenty of people who went as younger kids and described it as a prison due to all the abuse. I'd never send my kids to one. Also my experiences are all UK based so don't know if it's different in different countries

I thought the whole point of boarding school was that it was 24/7?

Yep! If I paid some random to have my kids fulltime because I couldn’t be bothered to raise them I would rightly be subjected to scrutiny by social services, yet thats exactly whay boarding parents are doing.

Would you be happy for one DC to change their mind whilst the other boards? Is one of your DC dominant? If so would they tell you they're fine if the dominant DC told them they must so that they can continue to board. This is another part of the issue with boarding. You must really understand and be on it with child psychology to have the slightest idea. None of us have any idea how our DC will turn out but we should try to do what we believe is best for our children. All you have to go on is data and from that perspective, you know that boarding is not in your children's best interests.

What's the point of having kids if you don't want them living with you, for even the short years up to 18? How can you get to really know them, and share your own values?
And seriously, this isn't the sort of thing I'd usually raise but, don't you think your DCs are safer from sexual predation in your own home?
The amount of sexual abuse in private schools is really worrying. And IMO, if you think that's the bad old days, I think that's naive.

Well as we know the parents and her friends have been for sleepovers etc then as far as I'm aware they are happy etc. They sleep at home 3 nights a week minimum so get that parental involvement etc.

I went to one nearly 500 kms from my parents (they were on a sheep station) and I loved every minute of it. Felt sad for the first couple of weeks but then I settled in and absolutely loved it. I am still friends with my roommate from there (40 years later). My daughter was a day girl at the same school and we had her boarder friends for weekends and they were happy healthy well adjusted girls. I can’t say anything negative about it. The idea my parents sent me because they didn’t want me around is just absurd.

Not necessarily. As I've posted, you can do flexi boarding, week day only boarding or full time boarding depending on the school.

I don't understand why you would have children then outsource the parenting. What's the point? Every adult I know who boarded either suffered bullying or abuse or just an overwhelming sense of abandonment and now has multiple issues. I've seen a lot of addiction issues among friends who boarded and huge trust issues in relationships. The thought of a good friend who was packed off miles from home age 7 makes me feel so sad. At 7 my DD had stories and cuddles every night. I can see the long term damage this abandonment did to my friend and honestly I see it as bad as other forms of neglect.

I just don’t understand why you would want to send you children away, and people that do it from age 8 just horrify me.
children are there with no escape. If they have disagreements and bullying they are stuck there with no safe space to come home to for weeks.
no matter how much they thrive in some ways they must also feel lonely and homesick at times.

I think it’s because it’s true. Your children spend the majority of their time in an institution. I have no doubt it suits some families, but a boarding school is an institution.

Does that word bother you? If so, why?

Interesting reading all the different viewpoints.

Some parents just don’t want to actively parent even when they have a choice. I know quite a few wealthy parents here in SW London who have never been hands-on parents even when they don’t work themselves, always had nannies then the kids go straight to boarding school age 13. The relationships always seem a bit emotionally distant to me - there’s an expectation that all time spent together is fun; exciting weekends or holidays without any of the downsides of dealing with teenagers on a day to day basis e.g. mood swings, picking up socks, pants off the bedroom floor no matter how many times you tell them to put them in the laundry bin etc, all the mundane things that happen when you live together.
I must admit I was a bit envious during GCSEs when these families seemed to outsource all the exam stress (no worries about whether DC would actually make it into school in time for the start of the exams!) but in general I think I’d miss my teenage DC driving me nuts at home!

It's still 24 hours of the day. Why are people pretending otherwise?.

why not?

Posters are sharing their reflections on their experience of boarding school, or their perspectives on sending their children to boarding school

@WhompingWillows is giving her perspective that in her circumstances, it is the right decision.

Can she not post about that because her situation doesn’t represent the norm?