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.

Why did they send me to summer camps during the holidays

they did this to dh as well…really don’t get it

and honestly he has parents who wanted to do their best by him….they didnt send his older brother and they are both annoyed for opposite reasons

I think it's sad, my dd is 18yo and her childhood has whizzed by. Why any parent would want to miss more of it than they had to is beyond me.

To not see her Monday to Friday at age 13yo would have broken my heart, if she chose to board that would equally break my heart and I'd assume I'd majorly fucked up somewhere.

The teen years are really tricky to navigate and dd needed me more during the teen years than ever.

The only boarders I know in rl who enjoyed boarding had useless parents 🤷‍♀️ I've also known people irreparably damaged by the time they spent at boarding school.

IMHO it's neglect 🤷‍♀️

Well, boarding schools are a form of institutional care, so I wouldn't dismiss the social work comparison out of hand. Plenty of similarities between boarding school and foster care

My parents loved us deeply, but didn't / don't connect well on an emotional level. Very uncomfortable talking about feelings. As an adult, I think of this as "avoidant attachment", which I attribute primarily to their time at boarding school https://tobyingham.com/boarding-school-syndrome-and-attachment-theory/

To answer your question "what exactly do you think goes on at boarding school", I'd guess - physical needs met potentially to a high standard, fun experience for some, miserable for some. But for me, the key thing is that, however kind and caring the staff are, it's their job. They're there because they're being paid to meet the children's needs. They don't care about the pupils in the same way that parents do / should

Some of the stories from my friends times at boarding schools are shocking (albeit 30 years ago). Kids being dangled out of upper floor windows, boys behaving like pack animals towards the girls etc. One friend enjoyed boarding but loathed the school holidays at home as she had no friends around all summer and felt bored and lonely. I know some children board mid week and live more locally and they enjoyed it. They were older though (15 plus). Personally I would just miss that time with my own children.

what teenager wants to hang out with their parents if they can be hanging out with their friends!

I'm sure many teenagers would stay up all night and eat nothing but Doritos and chocolate if given half the chance, doesn't mean that it would be good for them. Teenagers' brains are not developed well enough to make decisions like that.

A friend of my daughter’s was sent to a very prestigious boarding school when he was 8 years old. He is the only child of his parents’ marriage, but both have much older grown up children.
They sent him because “they want him to have better opportunities when he’s older and to mix with influential people.” None of their other kids went to boarding school.
Before he went his mum asked what I thought and I said “Honestly, it might give him better opportunities when he’s an adult, but he only gets one opportunity to be a kid”.
She shrugged and said I was probably just jealous that my child wouldn’t get those opportunities. I still don’t know specifically what they were, but she’s managed fine without them.
They are now all at GCSE age, and he has kept in touch with a couple of the children he used to go to school with. All she knows is, in his words, he’s never forgiven her for sending him away.
An ex boyfriend of mine also went to (state) boarding school, for similar reasons, aged 11 because his single mum didn’t want him going to the local comp - she effectively thought he was too good to go there. He understood her intentions but also used the same language of never “forgiving her”.

I went to boarding school form age 5 - hard for the first few weeks but loved it.

The key is the child - some are suited to boarding school and will thrive much that at their local state school. Others however, will not.

Our DS went at age 12 after the local school said they could help him become a plumber or sparky, but couldn’t help him into politics. The friends, results and experience of being able to be independent has worked very well for him.

Our DD was offered it but didn’t want to go.

There are very few, if any, ‘perfect’ households. You as parents decided what is best for your child’s future, not just the here and now.

Military paid for the boarding school. Opportunities are there to be taken.

I quite enjoyed it but also am sure the experience made me make some terrible choices, particularly between 16-25 (met DH at 25 so may well have continued making bad choices….!). On the surface I have a very strong relationship with my parents but there are definite holes particularly with my Mum when I compare our relationship to that I have with DD.

I hope your children have a positive experience.

I just cannot imagine I would be fine with my children living and being educated away from me. I would be thinking ‘what on earth was the point in having kids?’

I find it interesting that the vast majority of ex boarders on here are saying ‘no way’.

i think, if you asked my parents, they would say hat I was happy and thriving at school, certainly after the initial adjustment period, and that it had been the best thing for me.

it wasn’t.

earlier on I shared some of the things that happened to me. There’s others I won’t share. I’ve also been reminded of things that happened when reading others posts.

the thing to remember is that, I was so unhappy at school and it’s had such a lasting negative impact, but I would never have told my parents at the time. I didn’t scream or cry or ask not to be sent back, I just lived with a dread in the pit on my stomach and put on a happy face.

i don’t want to upset those of you with kids at boarding school, but please understand that just because your kids say they are happy, they may not but don’t feel they can share it with you.

@rickyrickygrimes

Namely, close regular (daily) interactions with their parents. Some part of a child shuts down to deal with that.

This. No child is better off boarding if they have a happy, secure home life and loving parents. Nothing replaces parental contact and love - nothing

The only boarders I know in rl who enjoyed boarding had useless parents 🤷‍♀️

Interesting. The only person I knew who boarded from 11 and didn’t complain ( though also didn’t speak in a complimentary way about her school experience) had a very controlling mother ( controlling in terms of what her daughter achieved, her appearance, her body size, everything). I remember her daughter, age 19, after a challenging visit home, crying and saying. ‘ I just want someone who loves me for who I am’.

My mum said they weren’t allowed to express any sadness in letters home as they were being ungrateful towards their parents.

I think you are trying to convince yourself, not us.

Having read the first page I can’t see any positives. For those who suffered bullying and abuse, how awful that your parents sent you away to grow up, instead of parenting you lovingly each day.

This was my experience. I ended up enjoying it but was desperately homesick for the first couple of years (Y5/Y6 - so young! Military kid…).

But for me, the key thing is that, however kind and caring the staff are, it's their job. They're there because they're being paid to meet the children's needs. They don't care about the pupils in the same way that parents do / should

This is key. Children are very aware the adults who care for them are paid to do so. Staff also leave. It’s the same in care homes. It’s the lack of unconditional, secure attachment.

I don't think Michael Sandel has specifically mentioned boarding school, but his thinking about what money should and shouldn't be able to buy comes to mind.

For me, I want my children to feel and know that I am raising them because I love them and want to do this with and for them. I don't want them to be raised by people who are paid to do this (transactional care). I use the term 'raise' as with boarding school you are not just outsourcing the education but also wider aspects of care.

Where people are unable to raise their own children, or unable to do it in a safe and healthy way, I think boarding schools are not a bad option. I think it's a less desirable one though.

I appreciate that some children want to go to boarding school, and not necessarily because home life is bad. I think that an appropriate response to this is to say no (just as you would to them asking for junk food everyday) and let it be known that you are confident that the best start in life for them is being raised by loving parents, even if that might seem less fun right now. You can make sure they get to spend lots of time with friends and doing extra curricular activities. You can also make sure that are nurtured everyday by people who love them.

My ex was sent back to the Uk to board (army parents), he was bullied very badly to start with and developed attachment issues IMO, as an adult he wouldn't live anywhere apart from the town where his parents lived so we ended up splitting up. Then his parents sold their house and moved away without a second thought to him!

I couldn't imagine not seeing my kid every day. I wanted to influence how he grew up and developed. I'm sure boarding school isn't always awful but it's not for me or mine.

Just coming back to this, reading the posts, and it’s making me reflect on the fact that social services / child protection are so sure that the best place for a child is with the family that they can be left in questionable situations for longer than is healthy.

How does this theory fit with boarding schools? (To be clear, I don’t mean those offering specialist provision for kids with complex special needs).

I hate the impact it has on the rest of society, particularly their state peers.

After COVID DD went sailing for a week, she was the only state school kid on the boat and the keenest sailor by a long way.

The private school kids were there as just an extension of paying others to look after your kids. She learnt a lot, including textiles is strong multiple private schools because the teacher does your work! But ultimately she felt all of these kids would have been in the damaged, hard time group at her local comprehensive.

She went back a couple of years later, this time one other self funded state school kid. A bit older, the kids all did want to sail to a point.
One boarder from Charterhouse, stood out with his only lives 20 minutes away but its great for sport and mates. He was a nice lad, pulled his weight and had excellent manners but was assessed as not boyfriend material!

DD and the other state kid ended up doing all the cooking. There just wasn't time or staff to teach beginners to organise a meal, chop an onion.

DD felt all of the private kids were a bit hollow, a bit unattached, a bit sad. Waiting to pick them up was the weirdest bunch of unemotional adults. Nothing like the excited, sometimes reserved but always warm hugs, at the state school when the kids turn up back from a language trip.

I wish the sailing people would do state school only trips. It's certainly made DD question the bluster and outward confidence of private school kids.

Why is that the answer please? Genuine question.

Are you saying that if you find your child problematic the best thing would be to make it someone else’s problem 30 odd weeks of the year?

Also, even if someone DOES think that would be best for their child they’ll need to find he finding somewhere.

Assuming they are both convicted? Because this post could cause you a whole lot of trouble otherwise…

I went to boarding school for my last three years of school. I loved it-it was quite a relaxed mixed sex school. However, I struggled when my children hit their teen years because I had no role models or blueprint for raising teenagers.

Why have children if you don’t want to spend time with them, see them grow, be there at the firsts, listen to their chatter and actually bring them up yourself?