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.

@TizerorFizz And yes I do think a parent who sends children to boarding school because of their job is a poor parent. They have chosen their job over their children.

Never said a word in the way you are implying. I’m 70 next year. I didn’t plant ideas in the way you think. What my DDs did enjoy was summer camps. They liked other dc. They liked having a laugh with other dc. They didn’t have friends where we live. School friends were organised by parents. DD1 only got invited to a few things once parents knew she wasn’t going to the grammar school. She got higher marks than their dc. So she suddenly became a person of interest for 1 term. She needed friends and a closer relationship with dc than she had. She 10”% gained this and was very happy. Harry Potter was seen as the fantasy it is. We are realists!

@TizerorFizz why could she not have friends where she lived?

Yep- all the ex boarders I know hated it and hold some resentment for their parents for sending them.

Well, one hated it but understands why she was sent, the rest resent their parents.

My EXDP is cannot interact with anyone emotionally. It's like boarding school, which he joined at age 5 overseas, forced him to develop a hardened shell to protect him from his own feelings that he is unable to interact on any kind of emotional level, especially with his so-called loved ones.

I would not want my DC to grow up that way.

I posted this upthread, but if you search for it there's been sexual abuse allegations from kids against basically every UK boarding school. Some of them are absolutely known for it - and have paid ridiculous in legal fees to stop it coming out.

Having knowledge of this area, I absolutely would never send my kid there. And I honestly think they should all be shut down

@Hoppinggreen - as you say, most boarding /elite private schools produce what appear to be very confident, successful men with brilliant social skills despite having internal/emotional issues.

Without sounding harsh... I lack sympathy. Many men (a massive majority of those who didn't go boarding - the normal working class man) suffer from lots of issues and usually a combination of financial and emotional issues of all sorts. At least the boarders do not have to worry about finance and privilege. Who is to say the boarder wouldn't have had other emotional issues if he hadn't gone BS?

I understand modern boarding. I worked in a boarding school up until 2019. Lots of things I did as a parent for my DD I did for students in the boarding house. I definitely did some parenting/child rearing. Your standards weren’t applicable during school time - they lived by ours. I totally understand it’s the best for some teens. It’s not the best for most, even post 16.

• Since 2012 at least 125 people have been accused by children of recent sex attacks at boarding schools.
• There are at least 31 ongoing investigations.

https://www.itv.com/news/2018-02-18/shocking-scale-of-sexual-abuse-at-uk-boarding-schools-revealed-by-itv-documentary

There is no maths to do- boarding children spend more time day to day/week to week at school ‘with people who don’t love them’ as the PP said, than at home with their family. That’s literally the point of boarding school- to have them be there the majority of the time.

Sometimes. I was a weekly boarder though so got to go home every weekend. My sisters were with me too which helped.

Quite. There’s no such thing as ‘quality time’. There’s only time. Time doing the washing up, eating a sandwich, slobbing around, avoiding tidying bedrooms, mooching about all weekend.

When people say they make sure to spend ‘quality’ time with their kids, it usually means ‘not much’.

I know men from a variety of social backgrounds, from ex Boarders at top Publice schools to men who barely managed to finish school at 16 and the ones who Boarded are by far the most damaged.
And yes, a lot of them do have money but its no compensation for being unable to form relationships

I started another thread about how much quality time people actually spend with their 15yr olds at home during term time. It seems boarding parents are not missing out on much!!! - that is a joke comment by the way.

Being honest, I wouldn't 'send' my child away if they didn't want to board.
My DC were brought up visiting boarding schools as part of sports/music activities and also our jobs.

They loved the idea of having their friends on tap, the amazing facilities, and all their activities under one roof.

Our kids also participated in local clubs during the (long) school holidays.
They both had access to phones to call us whenever they wanted to, and we saw them lots as they were both close by.

I see no evidence of emotional scars on either child. Everyone comments on what lovely, rounded young people they are.

We made it very clear that DC could change school if they ever wanted to. They didn't.

It upsets me to think that people think we are dreadful/negligent parents, because we enabled our kids to have the education/upbringing they wanted to have.

Not everyone who goes to boarding school is sent away against their wishes at age 8. Some families have a strong enough bond and communication to allow their DC to take advantage of boarding if they want to.

Sorry your husband had that experience. There are many that have their own room and additionally plenty of break out spaces for groups and individuals, also generally very large grounds. Among many other options.
You'd be surprised about how many people scrimp and save to provide this opportunity, its not all the demographic you imagine.

@iamsoshocked but why did you feel they would be better off sent away? It's such an unusual concept for the majority of parents.

Even if you "scimp and save" these kind of school fees are beyond the reach of average parents.

"After compiling a 15-page dossier of alleged incidents at multiple institutions, Moon wrote an open letter to the heads of Eton, Tonbridge and others, serving them notice on the “chauvinism” that she said “runs deep inside the UK’s private boys schools.” “It ends now,” she wrote...

Individual schools have also launched investigations. Highgate School in north London – where girls in Year 11 (aged 15/16) and above held a walkout in protest – has commissioned an immediate external review of the sexual abuse and harassment allegations raised by student testimonies...

One letter, penned by former Dulwich College student Samuel Schulenburg, accused the south London boys’ school of being a “breeding ground for sexual predators.” The letter was written to his former headmaster to raise awareness of problems at Dulwich, and detailed anonymous stories of sexual violence and harassment put forward by girls at James Allen’s Girls School (JAGS), the sister school of Dulwich College...

“Every time we go in to do a series of our sessions on healthy relationships, we’ll get young people that come forward and tell us about experiences that they’ve had,” Brailsford said. She added that it’s “too common” for schools to suggest that girls who come forward with disclosures leave the school, “even though they’re not the one that perpetrated the sexual assault.”"

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/03/uk/uk-schools-rape-culture/index.html

I do think it is horses for courses. I grew up in a boarding school as my dad was a senior teacher in one. I begged to board there at 11 and did for two years. I did love it but I think because my parents were emotionally quite distant I felt a great sense of belonging (and thought it would be like Mallory Towers). I am very happy to be in a loving relationship and have a wonderful family. I now work in a mixed day/boarding school and my daughter is a student there. She has boarded one night a week for three years. Completely her instigation and choice and if she wants to come home she can.

it is for her a glorified sleepover with her friends. She loves it but she also knows she can drop it any time she likes. We have a very close relationship. My son never wanted to board and that is fine. I do not feel this is proper boarding though.

i know many people who have had negative experiences of course and some of the boarders at my school are there because their parents have made that decision. I do feel for them. In all the cases in my experience, it has been when the child has felt impotent in the decision about this and feels helpless to speak out or make changes.

For me, it is not boarding school per se that is necessarily the problem, but the reasons each child is there. Whatever makes the parent or child choose to make that move.

Friends with many people who went to boarding school aswell as both my husbands and my sister husbands - no one has had that experience
Having children cost a lot of money, most have to scrimp and save anyway, for people i know they only send them away due to religion, family tradition or snobbery, case point of my sis in law who came crying to her parents as she couldn't afford to send them to boarding school, yet was aghast when the suggestion was to send them to the school 15 mins down the road, the number one school of the county with bus collecting and drop right outside her door. Sacrifices and scrimping don't compare to the affect on their lives and affects on their future as a person nor their relationships with their family. I still don't see it as an "opportunity", i see it as cruel. No one i know apart from sis in has sent their own children or will do to boarding school. Going to university is shocking expensive far better to put their savings into a college fund and help support them then. Time enough when they move out for college

@HuntingtonHaven18 to be fair, if your father was a senior teacher there, you had an advantage.

@CarmelaBrunella well yes and no. It depended on whether my father was liked or not (students and other teachers) . I did have some unfair treatment by some teachers (not in the boarding house) but think that could have happened in any school. That is a whole other debate - whether it is ok to have your children at the school where you work…

If people are scrimping to pay £50k a year or whatever boarding school costs now then they are insane - as I will keep saying those that do it usually do it out of a misplaced sense of snobbery, because they want to keep up with the Joneses by boasting my child's at Winchester, Wellington, Rugby whatever ... I always think of the Middletons sending their kids to Marlborough to get a foot on the ladder. There are plenty of much cheaper day schools and even .... good state schools! As for large grounds the point is not finding somewhere to hide but to be in an enviroment where you feel safe and don't need to put on a front that - as enough people have attsted on here - is incredibly emotionally damaging.

@Hoppinggreen totally agree with that. It isn't a compensation at all. And yes many of all classes and from all school levels have issues forming relationships. The wider issue I guess, and the reason many parents do board, is that despite all the MH issues, almost all the top jobs in the country go to children who have finished these schools and some parents are willing to risk the chance of MH issues it seems for this opportunity. Just a sad state of how the schooling system is run I'm afraid.

It won't end.

I was horrifically bullied by a group of rugby playing boys at my school between the ages of 12-17.

5 of them held me down and lifted up my skirt, trying to pull down my underwear to do a "period inspection" when I was 12. Our (male) teacher walked in and told ME off. They'd put fake blood on the seats I was sitting on to make it look like I'd came on. Pretend to masturbate while I was forced to sit next to them in class.

I was physically hurt and sexually assaulted. The mental abuse was the worst. Teachers did nothing. Fees were more important than the welfare of students.

I wept earlier this year when I found out the ringleader of my bullying experience and the one who did me the worst damage, has recently been made the Head of a boarding school. An excellent one at that. One of the youngest in the country. He's an absolute psychopath, and he will be loving the power he has. There's no way he'll do anything to end rape culture. He'll enable it.

One of them is now an inspector (police) and the other became a gynaecologist 🤢. And so the cycle of turning a blind eye to abuse continues.