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 worked with a woman who was an RAF child. She boarded from 7. She was one of the most manipulative people I have ever met.She talked about her boarding school a lot. It struck me that you are either a manipulator, to survive the experience, or you are one of the manipulated and people please in order to survive. I was very glad I met her when I was an adult with good boundaries. There was a transactional edge to absolutely everything. As a child I would have been terrified of someone like her

Mine were weekly boarders for a few years. I don’t recognise the descriptions of their schools from comments above. They both had their own room and shared a bathroom with one other child. The food was excellent. They got a good education. They made some good friends. With hindsight, would I have sent them? Probably not, but we moved a lot with my job, and this gave the stability for the final years of their education.

There is no way on god's green earth that I would have been separated from my children for so much of their lives! I worked FT - my free time was all spent with my kids!

It is utterly insane to me that anyone would have children to have them shipped out and looked after by others.

no matter what happens to my kids in school I’m here. They have their own safe space, bedrooms and privacy. We can’t talk about anything and they know they are loved and safe here.

not sure how anyone would think sending their kid away is good for them and isn’t going to foster feelings of abandonment and resentment

Thank you for raising your head above the parapet and saying how much your children wanted this and are enjoying it.
You've made your own sacrifices of not seeing your children everyday to allow them to further their own interests - I applaud you.

Simply I wouldn't want to delegate the love of mothering to a stranger. These children may have a good education but they have a lack of love why would I do that to mychildren

I don't like it because ideally I think children should live in a home with their family who lives them not in an institution with people who are being paid to care for them.

1. The Independent Inquiry in Child Sex Abuse found that boarding school children are at the highest risk of sexual abuse

That was in 2023.

Perhaps things have changed since. But given no laws have, I very much doubt it.

2. There is not a single piece of child development research that suggests premature separation of the child from their familiarities is in the child's best interests.

Remember the child not only loses access to their family, their wider community/extended family, their pets/friends and toys/hobby mates, they also lose access to any personal space. And then they are told they are privileged, implying they are ungrateful for not appreciating it.

But aside from that, boarding school is just wonderful for people. People being parents.

In my experience, when adults face abrupt change, e.g. house/job moves they find it stressful. Parents of boarding school children assume their children don't.

The difference is that adults can convey their sense of stress. Children are busied out of it - so they can't process it.

And that's why the ratrs of self-harm, eating disorders, alcoholism & drug abuse are far, far greater in ex-boarders.

3. It's children bringing up children. A house "parent" can have up to 65 children to monitor per day. Sure there's a better teacher/student ratio but there's fuck all adults about for entire chunks of time. Oh, and most interaction is of the negative interaction, e.g. to corral children, reprimand them, remind them of their obligations.

It's not that people are "anti-boarding school" it's that they've got insight into bringing up children.

I guess for me it would be the constant presence of people that get on your nerves. That being said, I would never say that another parent shouldn't use it. I know of children (and parents) who have thrived through the use of a boarding school, where neither party would have coped if the child had been at home. Had some involvement with a special school growing up, which had some day pupils and some boarders and those that boarded often received 24 hour 2-2-1 care, with a change of workers every few hours to keep them fresh. They would have never had funding for that through home and carers would have struggled massively.

That kids are being brought up almost exclusively by employees of the school, who cannot possibly care about and advocate for every single child as if they were their own.

Erm, that’s a bit unusual..

I think I am quite normal, and so are most of the many other ex boarders I know

I think children at boarding school are surrounded by people who may well be kind and caring, but who do not love them. I also imagine that they don't get much individual adult attention in the form of long one-to-one conversations in a variety of settings, and therefore those adults don't really know them.

I suppose that spending nearly all of their time with the same peer group means that if they are bullied, it would consume their lives as there is no escape home to safety.

I also have the idea that in an attempt to prevent mischief, homesickness, and bullying, schools seek to keep boarders relentlessly busy. For some kids, having so little downtime would be exhausting and stressful.

Imagine having kids just to send them away for the majority of the year..

Boarding schools should be abolished imo! Cruel!

How much love and how many cuddles does a child receive when consigned to a boarding school?

I can’t imagine a child in a boarding school not feeling abandoned and having issues all their life

I think this is absolute bollocks. I have 3 teens. We see them about 5 times each during the average school day. (A chat in the morning, usually inane, a couple after school before dinner, then dinner and then watch TV or have a chat later in the day). So many opportunities to notice if they or down, or they can bring up something worrying them. When they are away for the weekend at friends or school trips I speak maybe once briefly on the phone. It's just not the same. Obviously holidays we spend a lot more time together.

They will soon be gone and I love the time with them.
My dad went I boarding school and it fucked him up. He was never bullied or hurt but felt distant from his parents.

16/17 year olds actually need lots of parenting and home support. Every year they get older makes a such a difference, wait until they are 18 then they can leave home for uni.

Assuming you just mean Tory MP’s here

NRTFT but I just cannot fathom why on earth you’d have kids if you don’t want them to live with you! My two are the absolute joy in my day. They 100% do my head in at times for sure but I love them so powerfully. And, they’re thriving in their two bit state primary and in my genuine, unadulterated love for them.

I haven't read the replies but I never talk about how the separation from my family affected me and how bleak it felt; I used to feel physically sick on returning to school despite good friends there. It affected me still as an adult and only realised years on that my sibling feels similar to me about boarding school and was certainly traumatised by it too.
I don't disapprove of people choosing it and in many instances it might be a reasonable or good choice for a child but damage can be unnoticed and our parents literally saw what looked like normal happy children as we got on with it , and teachers never asked us how I was emotionally in 10 years of boarding school . We had no discussion or sense of choice. We are a very close family still but I am so glad I see our own DC every night as that's when you can tell if anything is wrong .
As one example an older, taller girl used to push me under the water in the school pool and hold me under as long as she could , but I never told anyone, even a friend. It was terrifying but only as small part of what I coped with . Children can appear popular and do very well yet still hide substantial emotional stress; that goes for both me and my sibling who were at different schools .

Firstly, and it may be my fault for not stating it my OP, but DC were 13, not 7 or 11 or 12.
Secondly just because I have a good and open relationship with the people who are around my DC 24x7 (although it's only 5 cos they're home at weekends), doesn't mean I'm not involved. It's like saying people who have nannies aren't parents!

What I was trying to portray is that I have a 360 view of my DCs. My friend don't all seem to have that .
Ii know where they are at any given point of the day (if I needed to. I have never checked).

Also selfishly laundry. I don't have to wash sweaty kit.

All of this but mostly 2 for me. Children should be with their primary carer.

Family/couples therapist here

I see lots of older adults (usually men) who struggle post boarding school and are really trying to make intergenerational changes. Lots of detachment/ unhealthy independence

I used to wish that I went to boarding school as a kid but as an adult I'm glad I did not.

Excellent post. Says it all.👏