Home sick and wants to leave

[Peggycat]

How do you all cope when your child messages saying they are finding boarding school too stressful and want to leave? He only started in Sept, and I imagine homesickness is hitting hard. Any useful strategies, or things you have said to your child that helped them? Thanks for any advise offered.

My two boys were fine so can't offer advice based on experience.

I would reassure him that you won't force him to stay but ask would he be up to giving it a bit longer, say until the end of term.

If he knows that you've listened to him and understand his homesickness he might be a bit more relaxed and give it a go for a bit longer.

I was a day pupil and boarded for a term twice. The homesickness is real! It's a real physical feeling. I remember being inexplicably upset then getting over it, then my mum popped into visit and I was so annoyed as it reminded me of my homesickness which I had gotten over! Age 11-13 is a tricky time, I loved boarding when I was 15 though.

I think naming it for what it is helps, they may be saying I hate it but do they realise its homesickness? My mum went to a convent and she always tells me the story of doing badly in class and not feeling happy and talking to an older pupil who said oh you're homesick and then she felt much better knowing that's what it was. Do they have a scheme to help younger pupils settle? I also agree with the ' stick it out a term and then we'll see' approach as you don't want to discourage them from sharing their feelings. Keep them in the loop with all the mundane things going on at home.

I think if he hasn't settled at all by half term I'd reconsider boarding. I went to boarding school aged 8 and the experience scarred me for life. It's better at secondary level but even my friends from my secondary school (who started at 11-12) say the experience of being plucked from home and left at school was negative. None of us has sent our own kids to boarding school.

It's good that he is happy to talk to you about how he's feeling. Give it a bit of time, but don't dismiss his feelings.

@DornfordYates this post appears in active. Nobody is hanging around on a boarding thread only to write negative comments. Most of us don't even clock which board posts in 'active' are from.

Op - I mean this gently, and I'm sure you have your child's best interests at heart - but there's a reason increasing amounts of adult ex boarders seek therapy for 'boarding school trauma'. It really is a thing for some. I wouldn't be messing about with my child's mental health, the world is hard enough as it is for kids these days

Our child just started boarding. We are lucky as we live just over an hour away and he is a weekly boarder. We thought he would miss his old school at first but then make friends and as it was weekly boarding we would be ok. We prepared him for missing his friends etc.
The first ten days were terrible. Lots of tears and begging to come home. We always said he had to try it til Xmas.
Three weeks in he has made friends, much more relaxed and enjoying himself thank goodness. He still phones me three times a day, sometimes only for 20 seconds to say he's well but he knows we are here for him. I am sure there will still be ups and downs.
Are you able to come over and stay near the school for a couple of weeks? Our kids love it if we watch their sports matches etc and it is nice to meet their friends.

I would definitely give it till Christmas. It's easy for people to say "oh pull him out and put him in a school in your home country" but that in itself has big downsides given you're moving back to the UK next year - he'd only be there a year and then have to join a new UK day school in Year 10 (many of which will either be full or not take Year 10 starters, especially if they haven't done UK curriculum before). It's infinitely easier socially to join a school at a natural joining point (Yr 7/9/12) than half way through a "stage". It's not therefore a definite that he'll be happier under the alternative scenario- it would involve 3 new schools in the space of 2 years. If we were talking about a child not settling at a day school in term 1, no-one would be saying "just change schools" and it's not as though you can just change him now to a day school he can stay at until year 11.

I also think it can be tough being a new international boarder of UK nationality because you can lack cultural references/ shared experiences that people just assume you have because you're British. That in itself can make you feel a bit cut adrift. My DC moved back from Asia (where they were born) in Year 6 (day school) and found it a bit tough with that - little things like the fact that they hadn't done UK lockdown which was still fresh in everyone's minds- but soon settled in.

But agree with PP that it's important to let the HM know the situation.

This is a really difficult decision to be in. There is the option of pulling him out but then he'll have to move schools at the beginning of Year 10 which is always going to be difficult.
I think the thing to focus on is getting to the bottom of homesickness. As others have said, is it simply that the honeymoon period is over and the daily grind of lessons plus the very different environment is getting to him? Or is there something else going on? Is he being bullied? Does everyone else have different clothes to him? Does he not like the food? Is it something as simple as he's not quite sure when to shower in the morning? If he is in a dorm, is a room mate's snoring keeping him awake? Has he lost a bit of kit? Some of these are easy to solve? Some of them more challenging!
What do his weekends look like? Is he at a proper full boarding school where everyone is in at the weekends and they're busy or are most people going home and is he feeling a bit lost & lonely then? You say you're heading back to the U.K. in a year so do you have some relatives or family friends who could scoop him up for the weekend or just go & watch a match, give him a hug and make a bit of a fuss of him?
What are his plans for half term? Is that only three weeks away? Is he coming home? Are you visiting him?
This may be one of those situations where, regardless of the cost, time and seeming grumpiness of his reception, a flying visit from you might sort out the rest of the term

This is silly. No housemaster can wish away homesickness, all they can do is give false reassurances to parents so the parents feel like a responsible adult is helping.

Homesickness is only cured at the point the parent-child bond is weakened to the extent that the child no longer emotionally depends on their parent(s). For some it happens faster than others. OP should hang in there and ride it out, her son will get there in the end.

Hahaha total rubbish.
this but in particular looks like it came off the back of a third rate gcse psychology paper (clearly a fail ).

“Homesickness is only cured at the point the parent-child bond is weakened to the extent that the child no longer emotionally depends on their parent(s).”

the inference from this utter claptrap is that all children who board do not depend emotionally on their parents - given that pretty much every child who boards will experience some homesickness at some point (maybe a few days maybe a few weeks) , you’re trying to say that at age 13/14 the child is done and dusted emotionally with their parents. Crikey - I must have words with my children, who having left school, keep living at home and being goddamn emotionally dependant on us parents.

This ludicrous and baseless thinking is right up there with the narrow minded parochial twerps who say “why bother having children at all if you are going to have someone else bring them up via boarding”. Of course the answer to this insightful question if back then we couldn’t access the morning after pill so clearly lumbered with these dreadful human beings, cluttering up our homes whereas now we are all so damn rich we can (at long last!) pay to get them off our hands. It’s just damn annoying we have to even go and get them at all and bring them home for holidays and exeats. The horror!
because you do know of course that us girls who live and walk among you, are actually frozen hearted monsters in disguise who despite carrying our babies and nurturing them for years , actually
want nothing more than to be shot of the little blighters. Thank god we can pay institutions to imprison our children and give them fifty lashes every time they step out of line. Saves me having to beat them - I find it hard work doing it myself.

The ignorance displayed by rubber neckers venturing onto a specialised forum like “boarding” serves only to highlight how redundant they are here. Your baseless views are unhelpful at best and bullying at worst. You seem to get unnaturally excited at ramping up the unkindness when you spot a fellow mother clearly reaching out for help.

toddle off back to the small little worlds you inhabit and take your wilful cruelty with you. I can only hope my children grow up to be more emotionally developed than you with the ability to empathise and be kind. Ironically something you learn when boarding, living within a community where you cannot be selfish and self absorbed at all times but must flex with around you, enjoying the highs and lows together.

I would worry he is being bullied or sexually abused or both. I would let him come home but make him aware he wil have to work express hard to catch up with gsces. Just make sure you have him in a school for the start of year 10.

@leftandaright Wow looks like I struck a nerve! You have misunderstood my post entirely. I went to boarding school myself, as did many of my friends and family. I am not anti-boarding. One of the big selling points of boarding school is that they encourage this emotional independence from their parents and children become less reliant on their parents from a young age. You can call it independence or resilience or a weakening of the parent-child bond. It's all the same thing.
If you read my post back, I actually encouraged the OP to stick with sending her child to boarding school and am not especially sympathetic to his plight. He's in year 9, plenty old enough to be living away from family during term time. Many of us started much younger.

Now take a deep breath and calm down. I believe I am far better equipped to discuss the realities of boarding than someone who is simply related to children who boarded, having been an actual boarder myself. So no need to be so condescending.

Ahh the old “calm down” line. Didn’t work out so well for David Cameron, did it 😂
I’ve been in this game so long I am certainly not het up. You see the same nastiness year in year out on internet boarding school forums. Sanctimonious women love to judge and for some, enjoy directing (not even very) passive aggressive comments into parlous situations where emotionally vulnerable mums are crying out for advice.

like you i boarded , weekly till 13 and then switched to a bonafide full boarding school. As did my family , my husbands family , my children et al. I consider us all deeply fortunate to have had these choices in life. (And they were choices for us all.) Some friends use boarding schools some don’t. Different strokes for different folks and not one of us would say our children are more or less emotionally detached than the next. We would never be so bitchy (or stupid) - so why do it online? The plural of anecdote is not data … so I try not to trade on my own boarding experiences because my journey is not a match for anyone else’s.
your reply however was most certainly barbed and implying that to get over home sickness you must be emotionally detached from your parents is a deeply unkind thing to say but to a mother living in a different continent from her young son, troubling in its cruelty.
and I will call you out on that.
saying calm down does not burst the vindictive bubble you exist in (here).

@leftandaright I wrote calm down because you are massively overreacting to someone with a different opinion to you. Each of your posts are jammed packed full of personal insults aimed at me so perhaps you've not got the moral high ground you think you have? I have insulted nobody.

"not one of us would say our children are more or less emotionally detached than the next. We would never be so bitchy (or stupid) - so why do it online?”

I mean, you actually said you believed your kids BS experience will make them more emotionally developed than me when you thought i hadn’t gone to BS myself?! See enraged comment here: "toddle off back to the small little worlds you inhabit and take your wilful cruelty with you. I can only hope my children grow up to be more emotionally developed than you with the ability to empathise and be kind. Ironically something you learn when boarding, living within a community where you cannot be selfish and self absorbed”. You very very well be nice in real life but you certainly aren’t online!

And yes you did use your experience of putting your children in BS to score points, so it’s too late to claim “the plural of anecdote is not data”… my mention of my BS experience was made directly because you (incorrectly) implied that I had not gone to BS and tried to use this to undermine my viewpoint.

I’m not against BS - there is no point as there’s always going to be parents who are not equipped to have their children at home for a variety of reasons - but I am against telling the OP that the housemaster will help with homesickness or that the parent-child relationship stays as close after boarding. Her DS is no different to all the other children with homesickness. He doesn’t need, nor does he deserve, special treatment for it. What he needs is to find his own coping mechanism and that coping mechanism is to realise that at 13 (hardly a toddler!) he doesn’t need his mama around to support him emotionally. Currently, his emotional dependency on his past life is making him unhappy and he will deal with this by either relying more heavily on himself or if he isn’t ready for that he will rely on close friendships instead (hence why BS friendships have a reputation for being intense). It’s a developmental milestone we all go through but obviously it’s more gradual and at a later age for those who don’t go away for their teenage years. Her son will ride it out and actually it will happen faster if she stops speaking to him on the phone and ceases all contact with him in the meantime. For years, that was how it was done before we started pandering to parents who wanted the best of both worlds by sending their kids to BS while pretending they were still keeping them close so as to avoid social stigma or feelings of guilt.

I don’t think I said you had (or hadn’t ) gone to a BS. Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t. . That was a general comment on the others who pile into these threads with their baseless opinions that seek to judge and throw shade/hurt on other mums.
I can’t decide if you’re playing the fool or being subversive about how you think 13 year old children with homesickness should be handled by both parents and teachers except to say I whole heartedly disagree with your comment that the child is not deserving of special treatment and that parental contact should be cut. Sounds Dickensian.
Urgh

but then in an earlier thread you likened being independent at school as being “the same thing” as being emotionally detached from parents. Again I whole heartedly disagree. It’s perfectly possible and infact to be encouraged to be both independent and foster a flourishing emotional dependancy with parents. Long may it continue into adulthood too. I love close links with my own parents and they are often the first people I turn to when I’m in a muddle.

I think you’re playing a part though with a deep seated loathing of BS or people who choose to use them. Every now and again you drop these epic one liners that give your true self away. Your opening gambit was not being against BS because there are “always going to be people who can’t have their children at home”. By inference you are against BS in all cases where parents ‘could’ have their children at home but choose not to.
and take your last line :

. “For years, that was how it was done before we started pandering to parents who wanted the best of both worlds by sending their kids to BS while pretending they were still keeping them close so as to avoid social stigma or feelings of guilt.“

thats written by someone who has never chosen a BS for their own children. That’s someone carrying some BIG emotional baggage of their own regarding BS …..

so you’re not hear to support the OP. You’re here with an axe to grind and I see through you 👀.

The absolute key question here is to understand why he is "...finding boarding school too stressful".

If it's something fundamentally related to the particular school (for example he's out of his depth academically, or he is being bullied) then it's worth you pulling him out, as disruptive as that may sound.

If it's more general reasons (for example having to culturally adapt to being back in the UK after an expat upbringing, or the very understandable missing-family-at-bedtime feeling) then it's best for both you and for him to stick with it for the year until you move back to the UK. It's incredibly disruptive having to move schools twice within a year, both from an educational as well as a personal development perspective.

One other comment: there's lots of useful practical 'anti-homesickness' advice from many posters above who have had direct experience of boarding themselves, or at least from a parental point of view. An important consideration though is that every child (and family) is different: an approach that works wonderfully for one child may be useless for another, so you'll just need to experiment around based on your own knowledge of your son's unique character and personality.

I'm speaking from the dual experience of having started as an overseas boarder at the age of 9, as well as now being the parent of an overseas boarder of around that same age.

Sorry, I agree with this.

I think this is spot on, please don't be talked into staying by the HM. My DS only opened up about the alcohol and drug problems at his school after he left. Your son wants to leave and he obviously has very good reasons for this. He won't tell all now in case you tell the HM..He wants to come home and you should listen. I imagine like my son he a strong minded boy who is unwilling to go along with whatever is considered 'normal" at school..

It's very early days. I'd say to him you will discuss at Christmas and take a view then.

@Peggycat - I do not have children at boarding school, but I am guardian to children in the family whose parents are in diplomatic/military/working abroad.

Firstly, if it is a top boarding school it is an incredibly busy place with so so much going on and the sheer organisational side of things can be very overwhelming at first. Some kids take on far too much extracurricular others don’t do enough and getting the balance right is absolutely key and obviously the balance will differ from child to child. In addition, how dorms are set up vs single room etc and how much downtime a child needs also has to be worked out. The constant “on” of dorm/house life is not great for every child so again, they would need to find quiet spaces/quiet time to read/do extra curricular that constitutes down time for them (whatever that may be).

Secondly, the matron/dame whatever they are called, in-house nurse is absolutely vital in supporting wellbeing, minor illnesses and they always tend to have an open door policy for all children and you should work very closely with that person to support your DC, if you have any concerns. They would absolutely want to know about your DC’s struggles and how to support them best.

It can take time to adjust. Think of it like when they first started school. There are the little ones who skipped in the first week but then started crying once they realised this is now it. There are those who cried the whole first half term/some until year 1. There are those who never cried going in etc. Long term it does not mean anything, but they need to be able to talk about it and find coping strategies.

Have you got any local family who could go see a match/concert etc and take out for lunch on a weekend etc. This is what I did regularly in my role as guardian. In addition, I recommend daily evening zooms to chat about the day and go through what was on or just an email telling them what you have been up to so they still feel included. With one nephew there were loads of tests in the first term and he was quite worried about performance and had signed up to everything going on extracurricularly and was slightly behind his full potential because of the international school and his parents were engaged on some important stuff so he just needed a lot of reassurance. He completely flew after that.

@Peggycat - we were in similar situation as you when my elder son started boarding in Year 5. Our family then moved to the UK when he was in Year 6/7, and he continued with full boarding as he really enjoyed it. He switched to another school for Year 9 this year, and has decided to stay home as a day student.

I would say one of the key points is to figure out what is the source causing his concerns/ anxiety - is it too much going on in the school and he doesn’t get used to because he is new, or not able to make friend, not getting supports that he needs, etc.

Talking to the houseparents and matron would definitely help to find out more about how’s your son doing in the school, especially if he manages to make friends and builds the support network - Peer support is indeed quite influential at their age. If it’s about homesick, it’ll take some time to get over for some kids and the support from the school would be really crucial in that case.

Is there a chance that you can come over during the Oct half term? Having a chat with him in person may work better than talking over phone. You may also have chance to check out in person on what he describes, so that you can see what further support you can provide if needed.

Thank you for the helpful responses 😊

Just an update for those that are interested, and maybe it will help other families in the future. He likes the school and the boarding house, and he is beginning to make friends. It turns out the problem isn't homesickness. it's that he is struggling to organise his time to fit everything in and is getting stressed out. The pace of boarding school life is taking a little time to adjust to. So, we're looking at ways to support him and balance everything out so he doesn't get like this.

That's really good to know, @Peggycat because this is something he can learn. My DS have just transitioned to 6th form, and report that their new classmates are all struggling to be where they should be on time and properly prepped. That's exactly what they were like when they arrived there in Y9, despite 5 prior years of boarding experience. It will fall into place. Best of luck to your son, and all the others making these big life changes.

Good to know @Peggycat
Have you / he spoken to his tutor, house parent or matron?
If he is struggling to organise himself then he might find some coaching helpful.
Some schools offer 1:1 and small group coaching on executive function skills - like organising oneself, planning ahead to be in the right place at the right time with the right equipment.....

Worth asking if they have this. Informallly or formally.

(Full disclosure our child's school does offer this and I think it is a game changer as the person doing the coaching is not their parent nor someone involved in their day to day school work so it's a real safe space)

Good luck to him. These skills can be learnt! 💪

Ah! That should be solvable! As @mummybearsurrey says, there is probably someone in the school who can offer some coaching on these skills and, even if there isn't house staff or prefects will be able to help. He won't be the first or the last to have these struggles. It is such a different way of life and they're at the stage of term when staff will be forgetting how new they are and will expect them to have the right kit etc and to just know certain stuff even if they really haven't had it explained to them