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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel really uneasy after reading this article??

51 replies

MyHouseIsASquashAndASqueeze · 06/02/2010 11:15

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1248547/Would-send-child-boarding-school-eight.html

I know that boarding school is something I would neither choose nor could afford so it's not a choice I'll ever face. I personally think 8 is far, far too young to be sent away from home like this but obviously that's a gut feeling with little real experience.

I just find the way the mother speaks about it slightly disturbing:

"She's my soul mate,' says her mother, Sandra. 'But I feel I'm making a sacrifice here, and I'm hoping that, in the future, it will prove to be for April's benefit."

I've never heard anyone refer to their child as their soulmate before (especially when they're still only 8).

I don't think I have a main point, but it's just weird isn't it?? I find it hard to understand anyone sending a child that young away, but especially when the mother obviously feels so uneasy about it.

OP posts:

scottishmummy · 06/02/2010 11:19

its dm of course they write it up in creepy judgey manner.that what you get reading dm.

southeastastra · 06/02/2010 11:21

i started to read it then gave up. the programme sounds interesting - will watch that.

cory · 06/02/2010 11:23

The mothers really get on my nerve. As far as I can make out, there is nothing actually forcing them to do this, they're not in the Forces or anything. They have chosen to do it. So why can't they just make their minds up either to go on with it- or not go on? I feel like yelling Make your mind up, you stupid woman!

HopingLovedTheSnow · 06/02/2010 11:27

Agreed - I went to boarding school at 8 and to say that it has scarred me for life would be something of an understatement.

I would beg my mother at the end of every holidays not to send me back and she would give me an enormous guilt trip about all the sacrifices that she was making so that I could have the best possible education.

It makes me sick. (I am actually shaking a bit as I type this)

No DCs yet (TTC No.1 as we speak) but I would never, ever, ever even consider sending my DCs away. Never.

After years of therapy to get over this experience, and a non-existant relationship with my mother - believe me when I say no end justifies the means

Original poster

MyHouseIsASquashAndASqueeze · 06/02/2010 11:29

I know the DM's shit, really I do. I'm more interested in the phenomenon itself rather than the reporting of it, although I'll concede that the mother may have come across strangely in part because of the way the article was written.

OP posts:

Mumcentreplus · 06/02/2010 11:51

..boarding school?..not for me or mine..I just cant see how you can form a true relationship,how can you really know your child or vice versa..there must be a coldness between you and perhaps abandonment issues?...I just could not do it...
even if I could afford it

on saying that though..I did ask DDs what they thought about boarding school..explained what they entailed etc.. DD1 said yes please! (and she has never seen Harry Potter so no pre-concieved ideas I think she would last a week tops!..lol) ..DD2 erm NO!

hannahsaunt · 06/02/2010 12:04

Haven't read this article but the preview in the Radio Times was interesting and I'll probably watch the programme. They are all Service children so imagine the decision to send home to school is rather different from someone UK-based deciding to send the 8yo away.

MegSophandEmma · 06/02/2010 12:23

I went to boarding school at the age of eight due to my dad serving in the army. Resulting in my brother and I changing schools every other year. I loved it. I did miss my parents and it was horrid leaving to come back, but once settled (usually after a day) it was great! I still have fab memories of midnight feasts, planning escapes with my pals etc... Lovely meals four times a day (minus the black pudding for breakfast. )
Good Times.

LastTrainToGeneva · 06/02/2010 12:33

My dad attended boarding school from age 8 and was scarred for life by the experience. He always maintained he would never send his children to boarding school, and was even terrified of me moving to university digs at the grand old age of 18!! He would phone me twice a day and keep telling me to lock my door when I went to sleep at night. He was quite obsessed with that detail, so I often wonder what bullying he was subjected to at night time He never spoke of his experiences to us (only to my mum, and she won't spill the beans either) so I can only guess.

tialys · 06/02/2010 12:44

My brother went to boarding school from age 7.
Growing up, he never felt part of the family, and even now, 15ish years on, I don't feel at all close to him or his family. He may as well be a distant cousin that I never see

He looks back fondly on his school days, but I think part of him regrets that he missed out on family life.

I could never, ever send a child of mine to boarding school, even if it guarenteed a better future. What's the point in having children if you only see them for a third of the year?

baskingseals · 06/02/2010 12:45

i think boarding school is the reason for emotional coldness. You have to be self-sufficient to survive, to the extent that it can wreck relationships for the rest of your life.

I honestly cannot think of any possible benefits to the child.

they have caused a lot of damage to my family.

almostreal · 06/02/2010 12:58

I read that too and felt awful for those poor kids. Naively I was quite shocked at the amount of manipulation by the school telling them basically to lie to their parents and also the parents being limited in there contact with them to 'help them settle' I was shocked to find out the children in the article concerned were still at the school.
I really believed times had changed.
Why one earth do parents feel it's in the child's best interest to be independent from them at such a young age?

I had considered boarding school for DS once he was 11+ and only if he wanted to go but now I don't know if I could trust the system to be open and honest with me like the claim to be.

ImSoNotTelling · 06/02/2010 13:03

My dad went to boarding school at 7 and he is still quite angry and upset that his parents "sent him away" like that, and considers that they were emotionally cold to do such a thing.

personally I have known people who went to boarding school and loved it - it will depend on the school and the child etc etc - and also they all went for secondary school.

I probably wouldn't do it at all, I can't think of a reason i would want or need to, and certainly not before secondary school.

pigletmania · 06/02/2010 13:11

I used to go to bording school, and in Junior school there used to be girls as young as 7 there and that was 12 years ago since I left. A few of the girls there who were very young had parents in the forces so they needed stability as their parents were being posted from one place to the next, its nothing new really. I personally would not send my dd that young to board but its personal choice and should be up to the child as well, not only the parents.

themildmanneredjanitor · 06/02/2010 13:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Vallhala · 06/02/2010 13:20

I feel uneasy insofar as it's an incredibly one-sided article which will result only in the anti-boarders speaking up in outrage. I suspect that those who have happy children in boarding schools have better things to do than read the DM!

I know of boarders who adored their time at school, independent day-schoolers who hated the public school system as well as those who loved and thrived in it, happy home educated kids who are head and shoulders above their state-educated peers and everything in between. But, that wouldn't sell newspapers to Angry of Tunbridge Wells, would it?

pigletmania · 06/02/2010 13:20

I personally liked my school experience, I went at 11 when my dad was terminally ill with cancer, I made the choice to as I wanted a fresh start (being bullied at school) and it was a beautiful school with such wonderful facilities, and made friends for life there ones that i have known for about 20 years.

It was a Masonic school, and as my dad was a Freemason who was terminally ill my fees were paid, my parents never could afford them so I felt lucky. I missed my mum dearly, but as an only child to an older mum I would have been on her apron strings (she is a very needy and emtionally dependent person) and would have ended up looking after her all through my adult life like my cousin now in his 50's, instead of having a life of my own. Going to the school helped me break away from that and to form my own independence. I see my mum regularly and have a good relationship with her so alls not lost

Mumcentreplus · 06/02/2010 13:27

Boarders who have had good or great experiences are welcome to comment..I think people are just giving opinions Vall..I haven't read the article ..just commented on my feelings about Boarding school in general..

CherylsLeftCashley · 06/02/2010 13:29

The Daily Mail loves a good 'Disturbed Mother = All Women are DANGEROUS and MAD' type story.

Here's a tip. Don't rea it.

almostreal · 06/02/2010 13:29

DH and his brother went to boarding school for a year, they were forces children, he feels this is a poor excuses to send a child for boarding school. That the non forces parent should stay back in the UK if they don't like the constant school changes (or if there is no base school) that the parents are ultimately sacrificing their children in order to stay with their spouse.
He says it's a view many of his childhood friends shared.

pigletmania · 06/02/2010 13:32

Well I loved it, yes when I first arrived at 11 and at the same time dad was ill , i was upset, miserable wanting to go home, but as I got older it became easier like one big happy family. There were times like weekends when all the weekly borders would go home that i missed my mum but looking back I felt that it done me some good, though I would not send my dd to a boarding school,we neigher can afford it and i would miss her so much I could not function

Ziggurat · 06/02/2010 13:34

My Mum was sent away to live with her grandmother to go to school from the age of 5, and then to boarding school from 11, but that was because they lived in the country, miles from any school.

She loved boarding school - and I was bitterly disappointed that I didn't get to go myself as the way she painted it, it was straight out of St Clare's or Mallory Towers. She was still in touch with heaps of her school friends right up until she died.

My school took boarders in from 13 and looking back now, that seems very young to me, though is quite late by many standards.

It depends how you've been brought up - some families simply wouldn't see anything wrong with it, whereas it is anaethema to others. I don't understand persisting with it, when the child is desperately unhappy - that seems pretty unforgivable.

As it stands, I wouldn't send my children to boarding school, even knowing that there are plenty of positive experiences.

lottiejenkins · 06/02/2010 13:36

My son who is profoundly deaf went away to residential school when he was seven. It has been the making of him. He is with his deaf friends and peers. He wanted to go and wasnt worried when i left him. He comes home once a fortnight and cant wait to see me, when it gets to 3pm on Sunday he equally cant wait to go back to school to see his friends.

pranma · 06/02/2010 13:57

My son in law and his brother boarded from 11.He says he would send his dc if they really wanted to go but dd says absolutely not and I think as the boys grow up a little he is enjoying them so much he wont want them to go.

Pikelit · 06/02/2010 17:33

Although I'd always been at independent schools (enjoying only 18 months in a decent, state school!) I didn't go to boarding school until I was 13. By which time it never occurred to me to be homesick.

However, I remember looking at the utterly distraught little ones who cried piteously for their mothers and resolved then and there that I'd never put any child of mine through this cruelty. 7 & 8 year olds need home, they need their parents to tuck them up in bed and be around for them. No matter how experienced and kindly, house mistresses and Matrons can't ever compare. And no, it isn't a character building experience at that age. It's unreasonable and unkind to ship your children off while they are barely out of babyhood.

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