to think boarding schools are no longer ok...

[BaklavaRocks]

Inspired by another thread, and some old YouTube documentaries I've recently watched, I can't help but feel boarding schools for under 13's (i.e. boarding prep schools) have had their time.

Maybe they used to be an acceptable option, but with all the research we now have available, showing the damage done by separation of young children from their parents, do you think boarding for v young kids (8/9/10/11) will eventually be banned except in v exceptional circumstances?

And if our politicians including past PMs like Johnson and Cameron were not a product of boarding schools, do you think they'd have more compassion and be less cut off from emotion and feelings? and better able to relate to us common folk?

My mum went to boarding school for secondary as she lived rurally. I think it is probably why she struggled to connect with her kids. She only went home three times a year.

I wonder how full time childcare will effect the kids long term. There are definitely benefits to sending kids for a short day after the age of 3. But the studies I have read about have all said childcare does have a negative affect on kids. I worked in childcare before kids and wouldn’t send them to one. But I was lucky I didn’t have to work.
But to be honest I think childcare is far better than school. I know a lot of kids that were traumatised by school. At childcare we always tried our best to respond to the kids emotional needs as well as physical.

There is a fair bit of misinformation on here about boarding, and these sorts of comments are ignorant.

I' guess those who went themselves had it normalised, so might not see it as undesirable to institutionalise children.'

So only those who didn't board or didn't enjoy boarding know what it's really like. Oh come on.

I boarded as did my husband, he from 8, I boarded from 9 and we both loved it. Yes we had lots of work to do, early evenings pre super were for homework and sport. Day students often joined us for all of that. We ate at 5.30, finished by 6 we had free time till 7 and then would get ready for bed, dorm lights were out by 9.

In the morning, day students would eat breakfast with us and then we would all go off to classes.

During the week the difference between a day student and boarder wasn't massive.

Weekends, we all were in school on Saturday mornings, non boarders and boarders all sports were on Saturday- other than the after school sports which wee for fun.

If we had matches, my family would come to watch Saturday morning and then we would go hone after. If it was practice they would collect me after sports. I would go back on Sunday night and the week started again.

We had some foreign students who would stay at the weekend, but most of the rest of us would all ho home on Saturday. We didn't have any military parents.

Boarding to day students the only difference was between 6pm and 7am. Of which awake was about 2.30 hours.

Not as significant as everyone in this thread believes. I spent every holiday with my family, which was about 16 or 17 weeks per year.

My husbands experience was similar, both of us enjoyed it and we both have friends from those times still. We were and are close to our families and always were school was for practical reasons. I'm not damaged nor resentful I loved my school years and look back fondly.

Now I am a parent of girls who attend as day students, I can barely see a difference between the time we spend together and the volume of time spent with my family growing up. It's minimal. Yes I might be at home from 5 but I spend that time sorting washing, making super, doing chores, taking one or other to clubs etc etc. Hardly the warm fuzzy image of bonding with my daughters.

British actors perhaps. But this is just a small subset of successful actors.

Many spend all their waking hours at nursery or in some kind of childcare away from home.

It's barbaric for young children and borders on abuse and neglect from the parents. I honestly don't know why you'd have children to send them away. It's only acceptable because it's done by the wealthy, if they were poor they'd be viewed as neglectful, feckless parents. Which to be honest, if you send an eight year old to boarding school, is a fair judgement.

Even for older kids is not appropriate - maybe at 16. My kids need me just as much as teens as they did when they were younger.

I don't think being a military family is an excuse either. IMO if you have to travel the family goes with you or you have one parent who stays alone with the children. Personally I woukd recommend to my own DC they wouldn't start a family with someone in the military.

The one exception I think is residential care for children whose needs are too severe for the family to cope with. Ideally you would have support and respite built in so they could live at home but that level of support just isn't available.

40 years ago, l was a day girl at a boarding school, honestly l would have loved to have been a boarder. But this was secondary school, so 11 plus. I'm still in touch with lots of the girls. None of the boarders have anything negative to say about it really. What teenage girls don't like spending weeks with thier friends? Some went home every weekend, some only on holidays .
I think for secondary it's fine if everyone is happy.

Out of curiosity how do the kids from chaotic households fare?

I think it depends on:

The child
The school
The family

If you look at the royals, Charles was not suited to Gordonstoun. Anne chose to go to school, she's had governesses until then.

I don't think William's children are boarding, yet, and I think that might be reflection of parental experience.

I also think there is a huge difference between the odd night boarding and building up to weekly or full rather than dropping a 6 year old off for a few months.

I think it is also worth remembering that not all parents do love their children or even want them.

Charles Spencer has 3 older sisters. There was a baby boy who sadly died, had he survived I doubt Charles would have been conceived.

There has to be a boy to inherit the title.

My XH only went for secondary school and loved it, but he does also have serious emotional deficits so not exactly an endorsement for it. My cousin got sent to boarding school at 7 and his parents rarely saw him despite living less than 1.5 hours away. I don't know how he turned out. He was already badly effected as a child, but I couldn't say if that was the boarding itself or the way his parents treated him. Probably a little of both. In cases like my cousin it would be hard in a study to seperate what was the effect of boarding and parenting and XH is cut from similar cloth to his dad so again would be hard to tell what caused the emotional defecits. There are parts of the country where I live where boarding for high school is very common because of rural isolation and it being the only way to physically attend a high school.

Surely sometimes it's circumstances that dictate boarding school. My aunt and uncle worked abroad a lot ( not sure where exactly, maybe Saudi Arabia) and their children could only stay out there until they were 8. So the company paid for boarding school. What else were they supposed to do with their children?
Mind you their daughter never forgave them and she's in her 50s so it's obviously caused some sort of distress
I don't really agree with boarding school but I do see it might be the only option for parents who work abroad or move around a lot.

The comedian Marcus Brigstock said that the reason many men in UK public life are the way they are is because "they had their hearts broken at the age of 8"......

@Threelittleduck "I don't really agree with boarding school but I do see it might be the only option for parents who work abroad or move around a lot."

There is always the option of not working abroad or stopping moving around a lot.....

I don’t actually know anyone who boarded but I can imagine it’s preferable to a chaotic abusive household. I would consider day boarding as a teen so home on weekends and holidays (mine is an extrovert) but probably not younger than that, I couldn’t imagine leaving mine at 8 anywhere. I’m not even a very emotional mother but I’d worry about her constantly.

Wonder if theres been a psychological study of boarders done that looks at the long term impact.

I went boarding school and have boarding school syndrome. I can't understand why my parents sent me and I'll always hold a little grudge about what they put me through.

There's no need for that . In Australia, where remote really is remote, primary aged kids are taught by the"school of the air". Its now all facebook etc, think like Covid teaching.

It seems unlikely to me that any regime or company could actually force people to send their children away at a particular age? Sounds more like a story they told.

Oh and my cousins partner, lovely, smart etc, the first thinf he will tell you when you meet him is how horrific boarding school is. Granted that was 60 years ago,but it never goes away.

They could have not taken the job. Sheesh!

This my DH boarded and he tell this " hilarious" story of licking a child outside naked in the snow. Can't see why I don't think it's funny.

I would say, actually, quite a lot of girls would hate boarding, socially! I would have. It's always sounded like being scheduled and busy all day, never a bit of privacy as it's shared rooms. After school I always wanted to curl up alone and be quiet and read, or go wander about, or go cycling. Also, I wouldn't have wanted to be roped into sport, which it seems many boarding schools are very keen on!

There's a rather famous school about 2 hours from me (Milton Hershey, of the chocolate company) that was founded for poor children. It's entirely free. Some go because their parents want them to get more opportunities, some because they are from dysfunctional families. Their approach is that all the children live in houses of about 8-12 students with full time houseparents, and everything is done family style. So the children have chores, dinner is all eaten together, children learn things like how to help prepare meals and do their own laundry.

Alongside boarding schools coming in the way of kids being able to have a positive attachment to their parents I also think nursery prevents this happening at a far younger age.

They could have done what actual parents do, you know those people who both love their children and put them first, change jobs rather than treating their children as an inconvenient pet.

My husband was sent away to board at eight, there he and other children were exposed to sexual, emotional and physical abuse from students and staff. His ten year old brother was shipped off to the same school, nothing has changed, people just like to pretend that boarding schools are no longer quite as awful to ease their own conscience.

14+ I think it can be a good thing for the right kind of child.