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.

I know that scaryteacher, I went to boarding school myself - it was my idea, I organised for myself to take the scholarship exams and begged to be allowed to go. Because I had a family that didn't love me unconditionally, or at all in fact, and getting out of there by any means possible was my only priority.

But my personal experience of boarding school leads me to the view that it is a poor choice for the vast majority of children. In fact I think foster care would be infinitely preferable.

Gabygirl's post at 12:18 could have been me. In fact it is not worth recounting my experience as she has already covered what I would want to say. I now have two kids, there is no way I would send them to boarding school, my husband is in the forces and I am hugely worried that should something happen to me, that is where they would end up.

I once gently discussed it with mum (both parents are lovely and thought it was the right decision as they were abroad). I said in the end that you cant ever second guess the 'road not taken', maybe if I had stayed home I would have got drunk as a teenager and slept with the wrong person and got the whole family thrown out of the country (muslim state) as happen to a contemporary who did stay at home. I wouldnt want to really get into it with her as she did what she thought was best and it was hard for her, and it is done now.

But she knows I wouldnt send mine and it's therefore a slightly uncomfortable topic.

Scaryteacher, 'first-term-blues'? You mean lonliness, home-sickness, and generally wanting to leave? And because they're not allowed to go back home, they get used to it.

I didn't have children for someone else to raise them.

So EGS - all Forces kids at boarding school should go into foster care? I don't agree with you. I think modern boarding schools are happy vibrant places, from the evidence of my friends who have kids there, and the kids themselves; my nephews who love it, and my friend who is a housemistress, and as a teacher who has worked in one.

Cathpot - you need to go and look at what the schools are like now. I would far rather send ds to board than to one of the local comps were we in Cornwall, as I know from going to one, and teaching in one, the amount of bullying, needle and sheer bloody unpleasantness that goes on and that isn't addressed as it happens 'off school premises so isn't our responsibility'; even if it is happening outside the bloody gate.

Yes, CL, much like ds experienced when we moved him away from prep to the International school here, and I experienced when first moving here for about 4 months (for a term in fact). Then, we both got into gear and it was OK.

I don't suppose that any Forces family has kids specifically for the purpose of sending them to boarding school; but there are times when it is necessary to do so; there are countries in the world that I wouldn't entertain taking ds to, and I'd think long and hard about going as well.

I went to boarding school at 8 for 4 years and am still dealing with the emotional repucussions of that period to this day.

I think it is a totally different matter for teenagers who ask to attend.

Plenty of bullying and unpleasantness at boarding schools too, those aren't state school-specific issues.

'Modern and vibrant' they may be - I agree that boarding school environments have changed and in some ways for the better, and nobody is knocking the facilities (although most boarding schools don't supervise the children properly at weekends and don't provide many activities, so kids who are at school at the weekends spend a lot of time wandering around bored) - but it doesn't alter the fact that the children are being cared for by people who don't love them. And I meant what I said about foster care being preferable. I suppose for me it's a similar dilemma to the childminder vs state nursery one - I opeted for a childminder, because I would prefer my children's non-school-hours time to be spent in a home environment rather than an institutional one, as a second-best to being in their own home environment. This is my opinion, not a statement of fact, but it's not a completely uninformed opinion.

I'd imagine that many forces parents use boarding because it's a necessity. I completely understand that. I don't really understand why parents choose to board their children when they could easily send them to day schools instead.

Combustiblelemon, in my mother's case it was because she was incapable of loving me enough to care for me day to day.

In my case, boarding school was used as an upmarket/socially acceptable form of the state care system

evergreensleaves - so you were sure that your childminder "loved" your child from the minute you left them?
Children are cared for all the time by people that don't love them. It doesn't make them bad carers. Perhaps on occasions better, as they chose this career path.

For Forces families we only get a proportion of the fees paid if the children board and the family is classed as mobile - that is, they move around with the Forces. If you choose to stay in one place in your own home then it's state school, or you pay for private day fees yourself.

My option at the moment is to keep ds in a school abroad that I am not happy with, but will suffice until post GCSE, and that is only if we find out if we can stay here until 2012; otherwise, he goes to boarding school in September as we are due to move November 2010, which is 2 months into the start of year 10 and therefore unfeasible. He would board for a year until I moved back to Cornwall, and then he would stay at the same school as a day boy.

I want him settled in year 9, in plenty of time for options, otherwise trying to find a school that will match what he has chosen will be a nightmare; the local grammar has said it has no spaces in his year group, so it will have to be the local private school. It is 10 minutes from my mum and when I am back, 20 minutes from home.

The alternative is two moves; one for me back to UK a year early without dh; and for dh from our MQ into a flat, and back to six weeking again. Rock versus hard place.

When people talk about forces families, do you mean families where BOTH parents are in the forces? Because for me, I can cope far better with DH being away and getting home for a week here or there, or even weekending, than I could cope with my kids being away. DH is an adult and can cope on his own, as can I. My kids are small and need stability, which I provide. WE've never even considered moving around with DH- it's just understood he will be home when he can. Let's face it, we couldn't move to the Gulf for 9 mths, and the years he was at the other end of the country were doable. We still have a good marriage and appreciate any time we get together- I knew he was in the forces when we married. I suppose if BOTH of you are in the forces it might be more difficult, but I thought if you had kids they tried to accomodate that??

I reckon it should be up to the child. If they like boarding school and thrive then fair enough. If they don't they shouldn't be forced to go.

For us, it's dh who is in the Forces.

At primary, the children can be moved, but at secondary, your options are rapidly limited depending upon their age. It's coming to crunch time for us as ds is coming to year 9 in September, and unless the appointer lets us know 18 months in advance that we can stay here, I need to start making provision for the possibility of boarding school for year 9 at least, and then as a day boy thereafter when I move back to UK.

Yes, I can cope with weekending, and sea time, and have done so for 16/22 years, but it was the six weeking that got me, and the fact that as ds has got older, he needs a male role model. Ideally, his Dad would do that, but if it that isn't possible, and it sometimes isn't, then boarding school can do that. At 13, he is rapidly outgrowing the female influence and needs the male.

Thing is, if you get bullied in a day school, you escape when you leave at the end of the day. In a boarding school obviously not. If you are unhappy at school, the same applies.

As for children in boarding schools receiving affection from staff - maybe, but it's clearly not the same as actually living with your family.

I really don't see how boarding school can possibly strengthen family relationships. How on earth would that work?

Of course there are some families where it's the best or least-worst option - including forces families who feel it's appropriate. But for most people I doubt it, tbh.

Boarding schools flourished when we had an Empire to build and needed to turn little boys into emotionally detached men who could travel thousands of miles to subdue the natives without much of a backwards glance at their families. Hardly applies these day.

days - clearly the lack of a boarding school education!

Scaryteacher you have just given me helpful advice on choosing a boarding school. It is a very difficult route for parents to choose. I don't think many people understand that it is not just for parents who can't be bothered or have too much money. I hope at least a few will try to see that.

Edam I think you are wrong about the reasons boarding schools flourished (though I do sense shome rhetoric shurely!). There are many more international schools now and previously a family working abroad had little choice.

I absolutely take the point that boarding schools are different places now (esp from my point of view as was at school in the 80s), as are state schools. I would not expect some of the more jaw dropping experiences I had, to happen now (fun often but still, in retrospect, alarming).

I am also not saying I had an horrific experience, I did not, and as I have said, who knows what my teenage years would have been like at home.

However. If you send your kids to boarding school they will need you less. This is fact. They will need to be more independent because you are not there. What then happens is , as has been pointed out, down to the kid and the school.

In the best situations, kids who board form strong long lasting bonds with their peers from whom they take considerable support. They will rely on their friends for emotional support and guidance over and above you as parents. No doubt this would happen to a certain extent to any teenager, but a child away from home is forced into independence.

In brief I wouldnt send them because I would find it too hard to give over their upbringing to someone else. Because I think if you dont see you kids every day you can easily miss when they are hiding damaging situations. Because I would miss them, because homesickness at 13 is so horrible and I dont want them to feel it.

I feel odd thinking about it all really, sad I think. I am a happy positive adult and I love my parents and enjoy them being with them, and I cant imagine not having been to school as that is where I made my closest most important friends who are still with me now. But I cant get past the fact I wouldnt send mine.

Oh yes, horrible days when kids were shipped back to this country from India for a good education, and didn't see their parents for years on end. Kipling, I think, was one (of many). At least there are planes these days.

But the primary reason for boarding schools was to turn out Empire builders. Who would then send their own children back to England to school and so on and so on.

WhatFreshMistletoeIsThis - there are talented teachers working in both the state and the private sector, but their job is to TEACH your child, not to PARENT them.

In general housemasters and mistresses have no special qualifications for taking on this 'loco parentis' role with children at boarding school. Some of them are teachers, some of them are not. Some are parents, some are not. My understanding is that these jobs are not especially desirable because they don't pay well and they usually require people to live in. Obviously this isn't something that's going to appeal to many people with normal family and social lives.

It's not just about something being 'badly done'. Even when it's 'well done' you're still talking about young children being 'parented' by people they have not had long established relationships with, who are caring for large numbers of children.

Evergreensleeves:
"because I would prefer my children's non-school-hours time to be spent in a home environment rather than an institutional one, as a second-best to being in their own home environment. This is my opinion, not a statement of fact, but it's not a completely uninformed opinion"

It may be your 'uninformed opinion' but there is a growing body of evidence, some of it from the the field of neuroscience, that babies thrive best when they have one to one care below the age of 18 months. This evidence is rooted in a new understanding of the way the architecture of babies' brains develops - how their brains are 'hard wired' for life through the interactions they have with their primary carer in infancy.

Edam -- I trust you jest.

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