in thinking that if it's generally accepted that the family is usually the best place to raise children....

[gabygirl]

...... (except in cases where there is serious abuse and neglect) when it comes to the care system, why so many people seem to abandon this principle when it comes to the issue of boarding school?

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this issue all morning. Last night I sat up until midnight watching that documentary on channel 4 about the boys who were abused at Caldicott. It stirred up so many sad feelings in me and made me cry. I felt so sorry for those men.

I went to boarding school myself at the age of 11 and although I wasn't sexually abused, I was so starved of intimacy and affection in my relationships for the next 5 years that it really affected my sexuality when I finally became sexually active at 15.

Did anyone else see it? The other thing that was sad about the film was the men's desperation to protect their parents against the knowledge that they'd exposed them to abuse, and in one case turned a blind eye to it even after they knew it had happened.

SG I don't think you can extrapolate that parents who 'allow' their children to be unhappy at boarding school would have done the same at home. Because children are very very good at hiding their distress, and at adapting themselves to an unsympathetic situation because they feel there is no option, and because they act to prevent their parents being upset. I am not saying this is your daughter by the way!

On another tack, boarding school is a wonderful release for those with toxic parents.

But What I'm trying to say is that their parents are unable to see past that in their own children. I never rely 100% on what my dc say to me, I always look at their behaviour, reactions etc as well.

On boarding threads there have been posters who told their parents they weren't happy and were still left there as well as parents who didn't see through the pretence of everything being okay. However I think that goes on in many many homes I don't think MN is really representative of the majority homes.

All parents fail their children to some degree at some point because the perfect does not exist.

Sometimes children prefer to tell their teacher to gauge what an adult reaction will be Debz. It's nothing to do with how open and honest you are with your kids; it's to do with them trying to work out the best way to tell you the news.

Nope, not in Plymouth - used to teach there, and then moved schools to Cornwall. My home is in Cornwall, but we are currently in Belgium, as the RN posted dh here.

So - all houseparents are experienced parents?

And what they are doing at work is 'parenting' the children in their charge?

Foster parents are carefully vetted before being they attempt to establish this type of dependent relationship with a child.

Do school houseparents undergo similar scrutiny?

"if the child was really distressed I'd break all the rules and give them a hug."

I know in state schools that teachers are discouraged from physical contact with children to avoid accusations of abuse. How does this work with house parents in private schools? I suspect it means they are not free to give children the normal physical contact these children would have with their parents at home.

"but to boarding houses staffed by professional, caring adults who will give the kids a hug and encourage them to tell them about their worries"

I'm sorry, but you keep insisting that all the staff who work in boarding schools as house parents are without exception emotionally literate people.

That doesn't square with my experience at two very popular boarding schools. There has been quite a bit in the press about the poor conditions of employment experienced by residential staff in many schools. Living on site is HUGELY disruptive of normal family life.

Almost all my house parents were an odd bunch - people who simply would not have lasted 5 minutes in the state sector.

Teachers do have an important pastoral role, but there needs to be a limit on this, for their sake. A teacher is primarily trained to teach, not to take on the role of substitute parent to large numbers of children in their care.

As for houseparents - what is their qualification for being a substitute parent? They don't have the vetting or the training of foster parents.

Houseparents are NOT all actual parents. My friend was one for a decade, from the age of 25. He still doesn't have any children.

Agree - there was only one house parent in either of my two boarding schools who I remember, who was part of a couple. They were ex-missionaries and very, very creepy.

Other than that they tended to be New Zealand and Australian teachers having a couple of years in the UK.......

gabygirl, good post.

Even if they're a nice couple as I know some at a fairly well known public school, that really doesn't mean the child has the attention they get from a parent by any means. It's completely different and bad for them just to have that.

I just think that if someone is going to spend more time with my child than I am, in a pastoral role, I'd really want to know an AWFUL lot about them. For a start I'd want to know about their political and religious views. Wouldn't want a Tory, Daily Mail reader or a born again Christian being in this sort of position of intimacy and influence within my child's life. God forbid.

Just a thought for those who are pro-boarding. My DH never opened his mouth to his parents about the hellish time he suffered as a boarder until he was in his late 20s. His mother had no idea. She cries every time she's had a couple of drinks now, about how she didn't know, and how they were only doing what they thought was best for him.

He had told them about minor bullying when he was younger, and his moronic mother had gone in to talk to his tutor, and accepted his word that he'd deal with it. He did. By taking my DH aside and telling him that he should make more of an effort to fit in! My DH didn't bother telling them anything after that.

He is amazing at concealing what he's feeling. He has a public front that doesn't falter even when he's falling apart inside. In the past few years he's finally started to deal with all these issues from boarding.

Don't assume that boarding doesn't cause damage because it's not immediately obvious. Boarding teaches children to bury their feelings as a survival strategy.

Oh, and even in the dark days of the early 90s they had matrons etc. It doesn't help if children don't tell them what's going on.

combustiblelemon - I think my sister's been very badly affected by her experience of boarding school. She learned to be very secretive at school out of necessity, and has remained so in her adult life, so it's been hard for her family to be really close to her. She's always been clever, organised, hard working and independent (having to shift for yourself at the age of 11 does teach you some life skills) so she has done ok career wise. However, she seems incapable of real intimacy with people. It's almost as though emotionally she's never matured beyond adolescence. She over dramatises things, self-harms, and has low self esteem.

I love my mum, and I suspect that inside she knows that sending us away was a bad thing to do, but she won't allow me or anyone else to talk about it. If I say anything she says 'Well, you've all turned out OK haven't you?' and 'You can't always go raking up the past - it doesn't help and it makes me feel so upset'. She acknowledges that my sister is very screwed up by I don't think she understands the part boarding school might have played in the way she's developed. Why should she - she wasn't around when my sister was going through it. She has no idea what it's like. No parent does, if they haven't done it themselves.

What I really want her to do is just for once, let me freely say how it was for me, without her trying to shut me up, and then maybe for her to say 'I'm really sorry it was like that for you - I wish things had been different'. I sometimes feel I could let it go then - if she just acknowledged what happened. But she won't say it.

I went to boarding school, and although I enjoyed the company of my peers, I found some of the (senior) staff to be emotionally abusive, and they abused their authority. In addition, the Headmaster made advances to me, which as an adult, I can now identify as sexual grooming.

The consequences of me 'blowing the whistle' on his inappropriate sexual conversations with me, was that I was made out to be a fantasist, thief, and generally trouble. I left the school by mutual agreement. This created lasting feelings of guilt and shame for me, for something which wasn't actually down to me. I have no contact whatsoever with any of my former school friends. I have blanked this episode of my life out, but it had negative consequences for my education path, and in turn my career.

I have worked hard and done well for myself since, but if you were to ask me would I be sending any of my DC to boarding school, the answer would be a categoric no.

This thread is making me worry about my dp, that perhaps he didn't enjoy it half as much as he said he did.

I was badly affected by living with my parents. But I feel no need to extrapolate that everyone else feels the same way. My parents loved me, but certainly I never felt that was unconditional, and I knew perfectly well that my mother didn't like me very much during my teens (I didn't like her either). I learned to shut away my feelings because that's the norm in my family (as it is in many families from similar backgrounds). For me boarding school was a great release (although I had much less freedom there in many ways), and it certainly helped me down the path to emotional independance. At 17, in my year out I travelled the world, and spent at one point two months out of contact with my family, and once I went to university considered that I had left home. I think staying at home beyond school age, should you be self sufficient is a little odd, but then children don't seem to have the same sort of independance that I had growing up.

I hate that undertone in the op, you're a bad parent if you choose boarding school. Have read a lot of this thread and the presumptions made by people who have sometimes have no idea what they're talking about and just have a big fat prejudice against boarding/rich people/private education the whole lot in a sort of vague, Dickensian, better to be poor and gather the family round, all you need is love, not like those nasty distant upper class people, kind of way.

You plainly have no idea what it's like to see your children move from school to school, having to drop and pick up sets of friends and go through god knows how many house moves, teacher changes etc etc. Quite frankly the security of boarding school sometimes seems like heaven compared to what I'm putting my children through.

And yet you'd presumably say I'm doing the "right thing" in that soppy way?

Come off it everything in this debate EVERYTHING depends on the individual child and individual circumstances.

I had to interrupt my post.

Obviously op you MUST know everything depends on circumstances. You were just airing your prejudice.

Sorry was cleaning the oven last night, so wasn't posting.

Stuffmyturkey - agree entirely.

GG
So - all houseparents are experienced parents?

The ones I know are.

And what they are doing at work is 'parenting' the children in their charge?

One teaches, and the other may teach part time, but will be looking after the children in their charge.

Foster parents are carefully vetted before being they attempt to establish this type of dependent relationship with a child.

Do school houseparents undergo similar scrutiny?

Enhanced CRB check, and you don't last long in the job if you are not good at it.

"if the child was really distressed I'd break all the rules and give them a hug."

Yes, I did that, and it was in the comp at which I taught, and it was one of my tutor group who was very distressed. There was however another adult present. I also told her Mum that I'd given her a hug and she was fine about it.

As to conditions for houseparents, my friend has been a senior housemistress in 3 schools, and Director of Boarding at another. Her accommodation has always been very nice, and as she is divorced; has two grown up daughters, and two grand daughters, then yes, I'd say she is a very experienced parent.

Inadequate nurturing in children, surely leads to inadequate adults?

Being deprived of hugs, kisses, unconditional love must have some consequences?

oh crap

being at boarding school doesn't deprive you of unconditional love

do you seriously think teenagers sit around hugging and kissing their parents the whole time?

how about being deprived of security and certainty and comfort and routine?

But we are not talking about children who suffer neglect at home are we? The op stated that providing abuse or neglect wasnt going on at home.

As far as i was aware boarding schools take children of all ages, not just teenagers?

powerful posts from gaby and combustible and yearofthecat. Of course it's true that it's easy for people to think "it's better now because you don't hear any of the stories like you did from the 80's." Of course that's alot to do with the fact that children often don't speak up and as older adults that may be the time they are finally able to.

I think it is a perfectly valid choice for thiose in the forcs or other similar jobs. My friend works for the UN. She is a single Mum and her kids go to school here. It makes perfect sense and they are happy.
However I do wonder why people chose it when there are perfectly good day schools close by and often the Mum doesn't work....seems odd to me, especially termly boarding.