To feel really uneasy after reading this article??

[MyHouseIsASquashAndASqueeze]

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.

I used to read Mallory Towers and St Clares when I was little and always wished I could go to boarding school, it sounded like so much fun.

Pikelit, in my sons case it has done him the world of good, there was not a school in our area which could have done as much for him as the school where he is now. They are teaching him so much and im glad he had the chance to go there.

I can understand that lottiejenkins but there's a huge difference between casually shipping 8 year olds off to private school and a child attending really good residential schools because they've got needs that can't be well met elsewhere.

I also used to read Mallory Towers and St. Clares. Unfortunately I attended a dull version of St. Trinians On Sea. Not a single lashing of ginger beer.

I've never gone to boarding school - the closest I came to was summer camp in the alps from age 8. Don't remember home sickness, but it was only 3 weeks at a time and every child is different.

I went at 9,my brother at 7, sister at 13 -forces family. I had read Malory Towers etc and was looking forward to it. I got the most almighty shock on the first night about the reality of being away from my home and parents and was very homesick from then on. I relived this first night trauma every term and hated every moment.

I was bullied bacuase I was so unhappy-vicious circle. I had years of therapy to help me come to terms with it all and would never send my daughter away.I did go back to the school once and things had modernised and relaxed a little.

Since DC turned 9 I have been re living those years a little , knowing now how much she still needs us. My siblings and I made a sort of pact never to send our DCs away and have not done so.

I couldn't do it personally. I was a day pupil at a boarding school throughout my school career and saw mixed experiences: one girl who had boarded from 6 yrs old and by GCSEs was a year ahead of her age group and very well adjusted, popular etc through to the boy who had also boarded since 6 due to his diplomat father travelling and moving the family constantly...he used to alternate between getting the mick taken out of him for crying at random instances and intensely cruel bullying of others. Who knows, these characters might have been the same whether they boarded or not.

I can understand it if the nature of parents' work means an unstable childhood (we had many children whose parents were high up in the military, diplomats etc etc)and the parents want them to have consistency. Even then there are still ways and means that don't involve sending your child away I guess.

But for me (apart from financially) it isn't even a consideration. Most of my friends are publically educated, both boarding and day, and I have heard all of the arguments for...but still is a big no from us.

I couldn't send my child to boarding school. Call it 'selfishness' I suppose, but I need them with me more than I need them to have the educational advantage that such schools apparently give. That's selfish because it's about me and my feelings, not what objectively might be best for them, educationally, long term.

And I think if a child wants to not go, then they need that to be listened to more than they need a better understanding of the Pythagorean theorem or whatever.

Gotta say, heQet that I question the likelihood of a comfortable relationship with the Pythagorean theorem when missing home is uppermost in the mind.

Me, I couldn't have borne to send my boys away from me voluntarily. Even now (excuse pathetic moment) I look back at their childhood and think "how the fuck did we get from newborn to nearly 30 in such a brief flash of time?"

quite. I am the same, I can't even think about not seeing them every day. I miss them when they're at school and I know they're coming back at 330! Going a week, or weeks without them would be unbearable.

No personal experience of boarding school, but I know it would never be on my radar, for financial reasons but aboveall because i want to raise my children myself, not outsource it to an institution.
My friend was at boarding school from age 7. His mum subsequently died of cancer when he was 13. He has few memories of her but tons of memories of winning races on school sports day etc. When he told me about this, I just went cold all over. I find it impossible to imagine that his poor mum would have sent him to boarding school at 7 if she had known (of course she couldn't have) her time with him was going to be so limited. It was the school headmaster who told my friend that his mum had died, not even his Dad.
I fullyrealise that one cannot live one's life making decisions with, 'but what if I die young?' as akey factor and his mum was doing what she thought was best for him. But this story affected me profoundly when I first heard it (years ago, before having kids) and has been a clincher for me.

I boarded just for the last few years of school (from 15). I really loved it, I felt very safe at school and actually felt able to relax more than I had at home - lots of serious illness and worry in the family from when I was very small meant that I'd had quite an anxious childhood and never felt very secure. At school I felt protected from this sort of worry - free to be more of a child in some ways than I had before, even though I was a teenager by then. I found it hard leaving after my A-levels to go to university. Obviously that's a very particular sort of circumstance, though I have noticed that some (not all) people who say they particularly enjoyed boarding also had some source of difficulty or worry at home, and developed a close relationship with a teacher/housemaster instead.

Having said that I would be very reluctant to send a child to boarding school, and definitely not before 13 or so. Whatever age you are, and whatever parents like to think, once you go you have left home and that can't really be undone.

i went to boarding school from the age of 13 and had a positive experience overall (the things that hacked me off were to do with school rules/regulations rather than boarding itself). I also love my parents and have a warm and loving relationship with them (I certainly never felt 'abandoned' by them although it was a good line to throw at them in stroppy teenage rows).

I do really think it depends on the individual child and how old they are. I personally think 12/13 is about right and 7/8 too young. It's really not the same experience for everyone - some people will thrive and some won't, some of my friends absolutely hated it but some of them would have been unhappy/had poor relationships with their parents whether they boarded or not.

My ExH went to boarding school at 7 and honestly i think that level of rejection (also with his sister staying at home and going to day school) was the thing that made him a nutter. He couldn't even talk about it without anger or tears. Bad idea i think.

I think it depends on the child, the circumstances and the school. I know people who have been very happy and people who have been very unhappy at boarding school (and at day school for that matter). What I find difficult to understand is those that went away to school, were miserable, and then send their children away in turn (and usually to the same school!). I do think that 7/8 is very young (I have an 8 and a 9 year old, one of whom would probably be very happy and the other probably very miserable) but again it depends on many factors.

I too think describing your child as your soul mate is not quite right - perhaps in those circumstances a bit of distance might be healthy.

For gods sake, the thing that gets me on this issue is that it will suit SOME children but NOT others.
It also (surprise surprise) depends on the type of school that you go to.
Personally I was state educated and when I met DH (boarded at 10 onwards) I swore blind that mine would never ever board.
Now however my DS (10) is at an amazing prep school where boarding is considered normal. In his mind there is nothing neglectful about it. They have many international boarders from the age of 9.
I hope that DS1 will board when he is about 12, maybe for the last year. He will certainly have to board for secondary. We will all (DH, DS the current School and I)spend time and effort in ensuring that he is at the right school in the right environment for him.
DS2 is more of a sensitive soul so time will tell, he's only 6 at the moment.
Either way for me, boarding is not about sending them away but more about giving them the "best" start I can.
I think problems start when parents see it as a way to offload their parenting rather than a way of extending it.
Bloody DM at its best !

I think that article is very one-sided, and it is very possible that the progrmme will be biased as well.

I personally do not agree whatsoever with boarding school. It is an outdated concept imo. It is particlary hideous when chikdren are so young, however I also believe that kids need their parents most when teens so can't really get my head round boarding at 13 either.

I don't think the parents being in the services element of it makes much difference. Children of soldiers get moved from school to school. I used to work with an army brat who had been to 12 schools all over the world. However she had not asuffered in any way and was pleased not to have been sent to boarding school. But of course she was a soldier's daughter, and of course this would not be vewed as adequate for a daughter of an officer.

I think the idea of boarding schools is as entrenched as the class system in this country, and I can't see it changing much. Just the typical english attitude to continue to raise strong, phlegmatic albeit emotionally damaged individuals.

I'm just agog at a PP saying that the youngest boarder was 4?!
My DD2 is 3 and to think of sending her away to live somewhere else next year... it makes me feel a bit sick! Even with DD1 who is 8, i just couldn't not have her here. Thinking of her tucking herself in bed, not having cuddles, not chattering with her little sister- I just couldn't do it.

my dd1 is weekly boarding aged 10 - her choice , she loves it, i often ring her on her phone in the evening to in someway try nad catch her out to see if she is unhappy or missing me and she is always laughing and giglling and says she is havign a great time. i pick up her little sister most days and see dd1 and mouth " do you want to come home tonight ?" alwasy get " oh no tonight we are doing xyz or its tuck ro something". once i rang and she said she was in her dorm crying because she had got in atizz over something ...i jumped in the car and dashed to get her feeling awful my baby was crying all on he rown ..by hte time i arrived i found her wiht soem friends standing on a table in the common room doing an impression of girls aloud to raucous laughter froma ssorted staff and boarders...i felt a right pillock.
boarding school suits ome but not others , just as school itself suits some and not others etc etc

I stand to be corrected here cos not a services family myself, but I think there is a financial element too. If DC(s) board, the services pay for it, but they don?t pay for an independent day school. So if family happens to be based in an area with very poor state schools, a boarding school might look a better option.

We wouldn?t do it ourselves, but this may be a consideration.

I have just started a thread in parenting about the programme: 'leaving home at 8' which the article was about .

I have been left reeling after watching the programme, it is shocking to me that in this day and age we are still sending away our very young children. One of the boys actually said he had to emotionally cut off from his parents to survive. should a 9yr old really be learning this 'skill' of emotional coldness at such a young age ?.

I went to boarding school from 9-16yrs and despite nothing terrible happening to me during those years, I feel that being sent away has damaged me, one has to be self-sufficient to survive, you dont get much physical closeness, you have no privacy, you learn to be emotionally cold.

As i grew older i learnt suppress my feelings about wanting my parents, and enjoyed the 'family of friends' lots of whom i'm still very close with. I just wish had been allowed a childhood at home.

However, I am so sad for those poor children, especially the ones who's parents, like mine, who chose to send them away 'for their own good'. not because of work committments etc.