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.

Just bring your kids up, don't farm out parenting. A professional parent can not be the same as a parent. Sure your kids might make an attachment to a matron, house parent etc, but why would you choose this rather than parenting your children yourself? Place you live is isolated? Move, don't send your children away to be brought up by an institution.

I didn't board but I was at a private school as a day pupil that had boarders.

Didn't hear one good story from any of the boarders. They were all utterly miserable but great at keeping it in because of the 'sacrifice' fee wise parents were making.

To be fair though, lots of people saying it's not normal to send your child away. PLENTY of people on here see nothing wrong with having a baby and almost immediately going back to work handing said baby over to a nursery for 12+ horus a day. You could argue it's basically the same! Devolving parental responsibility and letting someone else bring them up. Or once they're at primary school having wrap around care and only seeing them for an hour a day. I think people need to be less sanctimonious about all this!

If I were 20 mintures away, I'd simply drive them there and back every day as I do with my children now (live rurally, nearest school is 9 miles away)

How do you know they are not day pupils there?

If you were anti boarding school then I'm afraid I don't understand the question you're asking? Surely you know why?

Oh please.
They boarded from 13. They weren't sent into social care.
Their school day is 8.30 - 18.15.
Redo your maths.

I went to a boarding school. It wasn't dreadful, but there really is nothing that would persuade me to send my children. To this day what sticks with me vividly is the sheer, crushing misery of homesickness on the first couple of days back, which only felt worse when we'd been home for the weekend (we went roughly every three weeks plus half term). Even with having friends it was lonely, because there is just no-one in school who cares about you as much as your parents and family, and as people have said there was the constant stress of having nowhere that you could just go to to be on your own and escape.

Because OP says in her first post that she is a parent of boarders.

Because OP said they weren't?

I agree. I should have been more specific.

I would move house rather than send a child away. “However we live in a remote area. They have no friends (there are no houses) within walking distance.”

Thanks I'd missed that. Tired 😫

I watched a documentary a while ago about a modern boarding school. The children boarded from 8 and were allowed out to meet their parents for tea once a week. There was a brother and sister. He was 10 she was 8. She cried every day. When she saw her mother on Wednesday afternoon she cried and when she had to say goodbye she cried. Her brother said that if he didn't see his mother on Wednesday then he could cope . If he saw her he was desperately homesick. He had to board so he coped by shutting down his emotions for 6 weeks st a time . They interviewed the house parent who had had to take distressed children out of the refectory ( to stop all the others bursting into tears) and asked her if any of her future children would be sent away to board. She had been a boarder as a child and said there was not a cat in hells chance that she would ever send them.
I dare say there are a lot of children who are feeling sick at the thought of going away next week.

I have 3 adult DC.

When they were 13, if they'd chosen to live in an institution over living at home, I'd feel as though things had gone terribly wrong somewhere.

I do not post on school threads generally, however, I do have strong views about them as a parent.

It is not natural to be separated from your primary caregiver for weeks at a time. There are lots of studies about the impact of this separation with some saying it is comparable to trauma.

Lots of things support children to thrive - I have no doubt your kids will have a fantastic education and will outwardly present as confident and high achieving young people.

In reality though, what we need to develop resilience and to truly thrive is connection - it’s to feel loved and well cared for.

I get to put my kids to bed every night, cuddle them every single day - even my 14 year old. They come
to me if they have problems, if they are worried. They haven’t been forced in to being self sufficient from a young age because they have us.

But they were 13 and I had to respect their thoughts.

No. You do what’s best for them. Which isn’t sending them away so you can avoid laundry 5 days a week and have good relationships with their matrons. Are you genuinely asking why people wouldn’t make the same choice?

What’s so special about your house that moving wasn’t possible while your kids deciding to move out was?

I guess there are quite wealthy families who have relied very heavily on nannies early on and haven't been very hands on and wouldn't nec be chatting to their kids day to day anyway. In this case boarding school gives them more consistently than the posh neglect at home.

But I'd be changing my life so that wasn't the case in the first place.

100% this!

It’s no where near In the same league. People send their children to childcare for a portion of the day (not the entire day and night) because they need to in order to work and earn a living. No one needs to send their children to boarding school.

plus the child is at boarding school, day and night and weekends. A nursery aged child may be there 10 hrs a day, but they come home and night and stay their on weekends.

We are not separated for "weeks at a time".
If you were away on business for a week and didn't see your DC would that be ok?

Based on knowledge of child development plus extensive family experience, I think boarding for 11s and under is insane.

From 13-16 it's just a big gamble. It's a tome when you are just starting to separate from your parents whole still needing them. It could go either way. Not a risk I'd want to take.

16 upwards it just seems that boarders I know have very restricted lives compared to children at home. They all seem fine but they live under so many rules compared to the flexibility of home life.

The people I know who speak glowingly about boarding school are either girls going from 13 onwards, or childen with abusive families, or occasionally those who want specialist training (ballet, music, sport). Still a risk.

I don't understand why you don't just drop them off and pick them up as day pupils. 20 minutes drive is nothing. My 12yo is on a bus for an hour. And you can drive them to sports and friends on the weekends like everyone else does.
Did you really let a 13yo decide where to live? To avoid washing their footy uniform? What about if they's asked to live at a mates place? Weirder and weirder.

Why not just move from the remote area so that your children can actually live at home? ETA: Actually, how remote can it be if you are only 20 minutes from the school? Why not just let them do the after school activities and then pick them up?

A few years ago I watched a documentary about young girls attending boarding school. They were only about 8 years old. One of the girls really struggled with homesickness. The school's solution to her homesickness was to limit her weekends at home and to encourage her parents not to visit. It was so sad to see how she absolutely clung to another girl's mother who came for a visit. Not even her own mother, just a mother figure.

No child should go to boarding school that young IMO. I would say that 13 is the bare minimum age for boarding, as your children were @RainyDaysAndMondaysNeverGetMeDownand they should be the ones driving the decision (like yours). But even a 13-year-old seems so young to be away from home.

No, I am blatantly not asking why people didn't/don't make the same choice.
I am trying to understand why so many people seem to feel it's appropriate to comment on my choice.

But presumably they’d still be with their other primary care giver in this time

My teenage years were often when bedtime became even more important. I remember feeling so lost and confused at times (hello hormones, periods, navigating relationships etc) and my mum would sit on my bed and listen and hug me when I cried. I look back now and think about how she was giving up her evening to be there for me, to hold my feelings and I realise how precious that was.