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.

I went to a top private school in London and had a similar experience although saw my parents each day. Sometimes I wonder if private school is far more toxic than what it's worth. That being said, I have good grades and a high paying job. Is it possible to succeed without paying for it mentally in some way?

I don't know what goes on there, but I know what it does to people, having socialised and worked with many of them over the years.

There are two sorts, broadly.

Those who hated it and wish that it had never happened to them. A few have posted here.

And those who tend to avoid talking about it. And tend to avoid talking about anything personal at all. They usually have a very easy and polished way of befriending people at a surface level, for a short while, but have very few long-term or close relationships.

Am I generalising? Yeah, of course. I'm sure that there are boarding school kids who loved it, and who feel it was the making of them. I've just yet to meet one.

Actually, I'll qualify that. I know quite a few who feel that boarding school was the making of them. They just aren't happy with what it made of them.

@Emptyandsad what a sad story. I hope that you find happiness in your life now. 💐

I had a school friend who went to boarding school for sixth form. Drugs were freely available (which they definitely weren't at my school) and one of her friends tried to commit suicide and had longstanding emotional.issues. I wouldn't want my DC to not be able to "leave" / have space from that sort of situation. Result of boarding will be more peer infuence and less parental influence and support on a day to day basis (and being able to spot signs of drug taking etc), which I think is a risk.

You have to ask yourself are these people doing this job for the love of it or because they are getting paid.

It’s like being a waiter. You can stick a smile on your face, and be an excellent waiter thinking about what your customers want and giving it to them before they ask. Making their experience at the restaurant fantastic.
If that is what you have to do to keep your job then you do it.
However would they do it without getting paid?
No

Why would you have children just for somebody else to look after them?

I hadn't read @Emptyandsad 's post when I wrote mine, but I think it's interesting that we both used the word 'polished' and both touched on the difficulty boarding school kids have making relationships as adults.

Because that's what the system was designed to do - turn out socially-adept, emotionally-repressed people whose surface is polished to a high shine, but who are hollowed out.

If you're going to run a global Empire, that's the kind of people you need.

Even if we pretend teens are capable of making such a decision and happily choosing to go to boarding school, it makes you wonder the impact of effectively being raised with, and spending huge amounts of time with, what will likely be a high number of students who are not there entirely of their own volition and thus do have visible signs of emotional issues as a result.

I'm sure the matrons care about pupils, in the sense of being kind, caring and wanting them to flourish and achieve the potential. But, they switch off when off duty, and if they leave their post, the relationship ends

It's no substitute for a parent who loves you

Same. DS16 makes me laugh so much, we have so much fun and carry-on together. Lots of cuddles, too.
DS17 doesn’t let me cuddle him and mostly communicates by text, but we are still very close and we do spend time together.
Hell would freeze over before I’d willingly be without them.

I went to state 6th form, already had ED from grammar school. 6th form introduced me to weed, speed + cocaine.

My line of work has a lot of people in it who went to boarding school. I've lost track of the number of nights down the pub that have descended into them comparing their respective traumas and hangups about it.

I'm sure some kids thrive there, but I'd never want to take that risk with my kid.

My dad too. Nothing truly dreadful happened to him but he was completely miserable. In his mid-70s now and if I said we were sending my 10yo DS to boarding school in a year, he would be aghast and heartbroken.

My family member and his siblings still bear the mental scars from boarding school. It has affected their entire lives, most notably their ability to have meaningful relationships with others. That is without anything particularly untoward happening to them (to my knowledge). Their parents surely also thought they were doing them a favour, and were unaware of the long-term damage it did to send a child away for their formative years.

If you think technology can replace daily interaction with a parent/caregiver, I wonder whether you would feel the same way about a technology-predominant relationship with your partner. If you can come up with some reasons why predominantly talking by app/FaceTime would not have your preference in terms of experiencing sufficient emotional closeness, apply those same arguments to the current connection with your children throughout term weeks. FaceTime does not replace sitting around the dinner table or getting ready in the morning together.

Anecdotally, I have seen a fair few children with parents who let them do their own thing reassess their youth when they grew up and started having children themselves. A lot of them now interpret their youth differently. Why was I allowed to go to boarding school/endless summer camps/etc.? The key point always comes down to this: did they not love me enough to want to spend as much time as possible with me? Crucially, this also applies to children (now adults) who wanted to do these things themselves, and pro-actively asked their parents for it.

I find it much sadder when I hear of babies or toddlers or in fact, any young children being put into childcare full-time for long days. The holidays for Boarders are so long…. I think 22 weeks a year spent away from school at my last calculation. This is time with no homework/commitments so can be spent 24/7 as family time, often away on holiday so it’s true quality time together. The reality of boarding school is very different from peoples’ perception….. especially those who are telling stories of boarding in the ‘olden days’. Modern boarding is very different.

Yes, that is true. But I was referencing the trauma and counselling training needed to help some of these children who have really disturbing backgrounds and wouldn't necessarily be getting a comforting cuddle and a sick bowl from mum at home anyway. The ones who have stable, functioning, loving home lives, I absolutely agree they shouldn't be in boarding. The few that are, yes, it's sad to see at that age. Young International boarders I particularly struggle with. Though the majority are only there for a year or a term to learn English. I don't know how I feel about that short term aspect.

A colleague of mine sent their DC to boarding ballet school at 11. She would talk to me about them being injured from over practising and them having no choice to just take a night off, doing the dance when they were ill because it's expected, the older DD calling home in tears but having to hang up cos her time on the phone was up (presumably they weren't allowed free use of mobiles?), DCs not having much downtime to just relax and watch TV etc. everything focussed on sport.

I just kept thinking how if it was my child who was feeling overwhelmed with schoolwork at least I can give her a hug at the end of the day, say no she's not coming to sports practice because she is ill or injured and needs rest. I can help her with homework and let her relax for the rest of the evening/ weekend. The staff at that boarding school don't have the pupils' best interests at heart, because their success in dancing reflects on the school and must be pushed. The pupils can phone home but there's nobody there as a constant presence who actually loves them as individuals. Staff leave for a new job or just go home at the end of their shift and (if they have any kind of decent work-life balance) forget about the pupils and focus on themselves and their own DC until back at work. They quite reasonably aren't going to go the extra mile for pupils if doing so would cause them problems at work cos it's a job and the job comes first. Also in such a specialist school, I can't help thinking about the kids who lose interest in dancing or just aren't good enough to make the grade as professionals and are therefore cut adrift after essentially 'wasting' all that time on practice at the expense of other skills / experiences.

We once drove past Fettes and my DS asked what it was so we explained it was a Boarding school where children stay separated from their parents. His little face was aghast and he made us promise we would never ever send him away like that. He made us promise again at bedtime. Of course we could confidently say we never would do that and he was reassured.
We sometimes cycle past at the weekend on our way to the park and we see the children in the grounds and it feels bizarre that we are enjoying family time and they are isolated behind gigantic wrought iron fences.

Not been brought up by their family.

I can't imagine having kids and shipping them out for someone else to bring up

I’m against it because I believe school is for educating, not for parenting.
I think it’s incredibly sad to have children and then dispatch them off to be raised elsewhere.

There's a great book called "the Making of Them" by Nick Duffel, which I was given by a friend. Reading it was a complete revelation to me; every page had something which resonated for me and explained so much.

My brothers and I (as adults) told my mother some of the things that went on at school. She said "I'm sorry, I don't believe you". This was a woman whose love for us was undoubted; she told us how every time she put us on a train at the start of the school term (having put on a brave face for us) she would sit in the car in the car park and weep.

Myself, before that train journey, even when I was 18, I would vomit with nerves. But the second I got on the train, and met up with my friends who were already on board, the veneer was on, and I was the cheery confident boy, joshing and swearing and smoking and chatting shut. The ability to disguise yourself with a hard shell was scary, looking back

My DD went to a single sex boarding school at 13. She'd been assaulted at 12 at an outstanding state school (we didn't know this at the time). She had been sanctioned for non attendance. Obviously she wanted to escape. She chose the school and boarded three nights a week or more. She had academic scholarship.
She hated it. She was bullied both by the others girls and two teachers. The pressure was relentless. She was expected to do all the tours and open days and be a show pony. She developed an eating disorder on top of a speech condition. We had made the school aware of the condition and they initially offered some help. Later they used it against her. She still has it now as a 21 year old. Her eating disorder was the result of selfish behaviour at meal times by others. She's atopic and was left with little choice at the dining table. She just went without until a kind dinner lady told me she wasn't eating. Finally she got herself expelled for a uniform infringement. It was later over turned but she didn't want to go back. The girls were watching her from the window as she left after tea with the headmistress. She is a very clever person and is now a medical student. Her first university loved her. She's off in the autumn for her next degree and will commute. She's a total home bird these days. I thought I was doing the right think but her 'in special measures' comp saved her. I will always be grateful to them, although the stench of weed was a bit much.
She will no doubt earn well and she will never be on the breadline but private schools are the devil's work for her. No child of hers etc.
Personally I will inform the school when she gets her PhD because one teacher was a frigging psychopath.

I don't despise them but I wouldn't have ever sent DS to one. In many ways the teen years need parents to be more present. DS would chat most when I was driving him to sport practice/matches and late evening when he would launch himself on to my bed.

Because far too often the priority is school reputation not the individual children. www.gov.uk/government/news/inquiry-reveals-there-were-serious-past-safeguarding-concerns-at-ampleforth-college-and-abbey

I’m not sure 10 years ago constitutes the ‘olden days’ because that’s when I finished. The problem is private entities are that, private, there is no accountability or the threat of reporting to ofsted or a random investigation.

you may tell yourself that they are different than they were, but when the foundations of the system are broken, there’s only so much change that can happen. Private entities are a law unto themselves and always will be.

theres a huge distinction between children in day care and boarding school, they sleep at home, they come home every night, the spend weekends at home and fundamentally they are there out of necessity, so the parents can work in order to afford to live, seldom is boarding school a necessity

My husband really pushed to board when he was 16-18 because he hated the 1.5 hour journey to and from his secondary school in Sydney Australia. His twin didn’t want to board, so he didn’t. I don’t know if it was because he was older, or that it truly was his choice to board (he really had to persuade his parents as mum especially wasn’t keen), that he only boarded weekly but he is one of the kindest, emotionally secure and reflective people I know. He is/was also very sporty so just loved that he could play on a different team every afternoon/evening and not have to get home at 7pm and up at 530 every morning.
I do also get the feeling that boarding culture is very different in Australia as far more “ordinary” people (as opposed to Eton educated sons of millionaires) board due to distances from home to school.

I also was in a long term relationship with a man in the past who boarded from age 8, including going to Eton, and whilst he would claim it was the greatest thing that ever happened to him, he is one very messed up individual.