Did boarding school change your DCs?

[Hattieeagle]

I’d really appreciate hearing from parents whose children attend boarding school, as I’m feeling a mixture of excitement and nerves about our eldest starting in September.

DS is starting at Radley College and he is absolutely delighted. He cannot wait. He’s a very social, confident boy, loves sport, is intelligent and I think he will genuinely thrive in the environment.

My worries are probably more about me than him.

DS is just a really kind, loving boy. He’s affectionate, thoughtful, gets on well with people and has a lovely nature. He’s not a “tough” boy or someone who is constantly trying to prove himself, he’s very confident but also gentle, and that’s something I really love about him.

I think my fear is that boarding school, especially an all-boys environment, might change him in ways I don’t want. I don’t mean becoming more independent or resilient ,obviously those are positive things. I mean I worry about the culture of teenage boys living together and whether there is pressure to become harder, more competitive or less open emotionally.

I know this might sound silly because boarding schools have many wonderful, kind boys and I’m sure the school does a lot to support character development. I also know children naturally change as they grow up.
But I suppose I’m worried about him losing some of the qualities that make him who he is.

I think you know deep down what is likely to happen and fear it. Unfortunately there is no way to get away from it except for letting your son go through it and then pulling him out (which will be a big disruption however you do it)

Personally I would never send my children to boarding school. At the very least it creates a distance between the parents and the child, in the crucial formative years.

Teenage years change kids. I know far more state school kids with major mental health difficulties than ex boarders. I think those who ended up with 'boarding school syndrome ' probably were susceptible to MH issues, it manifests in that way.
One example is a middle aged dad who has BSS, diagnosed bipolar, teen son is state educated and is severely mentally struggling, EBSA etc. Common denominator, teenage hormones and genetics and probably undiagnosed ND.

Never heard one child say they liked boarding school they were all bullied and felt abandoned by their parents.

Kindly, that was 100 years ago. Children then in general didn't get a great deal. School leaving age was 14, having only recently gone up from 12. That was when the overwhelming majority of people would have started working. Only 50 years before that little boys were sent up chimneys to sweep them. Corporal punishment was routine in state schools. It's ridiculous to pretend that the treatment of children in general has improved almost immeasurably, but that boarding schools have remained Dickensian instutions.

Really? What was the context for all these discussions you had? I loved it and know lots of people who did too. Those who didn’t, who I know well, didn’t like it because of a wider social context - usually family problems or because they struggled at previous schools too. I think the OP sounds attentive and will remove their son if he’s miserable, but it also sounds like he’ll find his own place there and enjoy it.

Honestly, the people who 'loved it' are generally the ones who developed the strongest defence mechanisms earliest on, and are least conscious of their own emotional stunting in adulthood, for obvious reasons. It's like asking a deaf person to describe Beethoven's Fifth.

It is an unusual analogy you have made with the work of a musician who was rapidly losing his hearing when he composed Symphony No 5, unless you were being ironic? If not, then I don’t agree and also don’t think that I can see so clearly into the inner lives of strangers. May I ask why you feel so strongly? Or why you think you know me (a stranger) better than I know myself? Did you have an especially good or bad time at school or know those who did? I admire your strength of conviction on this.

FWIW I remain very close to my parents and siblings, and they are close to my children too. We love and support each other, but I appreciate that might be unusual. I feel very sad for those who don’t have that, whatever their background.

DD1 loved it! She said, after going to a specialist residential school at ten, her life in a mainstream school was torture and she wanted to sue the head and her teacher for neglect.

It was the first time in her life, she was in a school environment, where the staff understood her and she could cope - because for instance, they used signing and symbols to support visually, the comprehension of language. A class of ten had a full time teacher, two TAs and a full time speech and language therapist. She had friends and a typical childhood, with a normal social life with after school activities.

She didn’t feel a constant failure in comparison to mainstream children, because she couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying and didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing. She was with children like herself.

The head told us, every child there had been bullied in mainstream.

PS, we used to ring her up every night - often we found ourselves talking to one of her friends, because she’d gone off to play. In the school holidays, we’d hear her on the phone to her friends

”I’m stuck with this lot!”

And your sample size is how big? Two comments above this have given examples of liking it, my siblings and I also liked it and my daughters now like it. So guess you now know some who did like it.

From my own experience, I'd be prepared to bet that DD2 held the crying in till she was in school and possibly till she was alone in bed. Although I didn't hate boarding school, I still remember desperately trying to keep back the tears on the first evenings of going back after holidays and visits home. When I got holder it used to come out in awful migraines on the first day.

Radley is a fabulous school and I can’t speak highly enough of the many boys I have known that have gone there. My dc have friends who are there and have recently left. I’ve never heard a bad word about the school and the boys are charming, engaging and a whole host of other things we’d all love our children to be as they grow up!
my dc are at and have been at Oundle which is a mixed sex version of Radley. The school enhanced their natural characteristics and didn’t change their dna whatsoever. I don’t have particularly alpha children and they have thrived in the boarding environment as they have each found their tribe within the school and across the year groups. Your dc sounds like he will absolutely thrive at Radley and you should look forward to seeing him flourish.
just ignore the chippy and embittered folk who pop up on these threads to push their own, usually uninformed/out of date, agenda. These schools are tough to get into with waitlists for years. Crap schools don’t have this problem. Only great schools do!

My son goes there, he loves it and it is a fantastic school. And he is gentle too! The housemasters and matrons are very experienced and they respond quickly and appropriately to any concerns raised.

I absolutely loved boarding school, and it fucked me up.

Made my parents virtual strangers who didn't deal with any of my life events (puberty, periods, first boyfriend) - I did it all by myself, with my friends.

It made me very very self reliant and rather closed off. I don't show emotions much, especially negative ones. I cry very very rarely, like 16 years since last time I remember sobbing. There was never any point being emotional; it didn't solve anything and no one really cared. So now I just can't.

Almost like ... parents?

Grand daughter is a weekly boarder, joined last year age 11. She’s had a very good year. Some big changes on the “responsibility” front with bed making, laundry, etc. (things she didn’t do at home).
The days spent at school fly by and before you know it, it’s the weekend. She moaned about the food during the second month and came up with excuses to miss a few classes BUT her parents were able to pop by, as did I, certainly not locked in and although cell phone “hour” is strict there’s no lack of contact.
The school has a psychiatrist on staff, a counselor, and Chaplin and the kids are allowed to pop in to see them whenever.
Granddaughter home life is complicated and boarding was her choice but if she said she wanted it to stop it probably would. It’s a great school.

Your DS sounds absolutely wonderful and exactly the sort of boy who should thrive at Radley. Our DS is due to start there in September 2027.
Radley is a wonderful school and, of all the all-boys full boarding schools, it is probably the one that should concern you least pastorally. We know a number of current boys and Old Radleians and, if any changes in personality do occur, they are far more likely to be wholly positive: greater independence, resilience, cooperation and that lovely understated confidence Radley seems particularly good at developing.
It also feels as though the school is currently riding the crest of a wave. There is a quiet thread of winning running through it, boys who want to do well and usually do, but without needing or wanting to shout about it.

Trust the decision you have already made. You have no doubt thought about it for a long time, researched it thoroughly and debated it from every angle. The wobble is completely understandable, but try not to let it undermine all of that.
We are all shaped in some way by life experiences; a new career, a different group of personalities, bereavement, friendships and, yes, schools. But this is an incredible school and an incredible opportunity for him, surrounded by far more like-minded boys than he would probably find in most other places. Try not to doubt yourselves.

Boarding has forms and againsts, weekly boarding mitigates some of these because you have more contact but whilst they get an excellent rounded education your relationship will not be the same as if they live at home. My dc boarded only from 16 and very much their choice (I didn’t want them to) and they did grow up too fast in some ways and they are struggling now with some things which do relate to this early leaving home, especially expressing feelings. I saw them most weeks too because whilst it wasn’t officially weekly boarding we lived close enough for them to come home after sport on Saturdays until Sunday night

Hopefully things have changed but Jeremy Clsrkson described his experience at Repton as “I was thrown on an hourly basis into the icy plunge pool, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and beaten, made to lick the lavatories clean and all the usual humiliations that public school used back then to turn a small boy into a gibbering, sobbing, suicidal wreck,” as noted by The Independent.
My brother went to an all boy grammar and I think that it was difficult. He was a high achieving all rounder. I weekly boarded at a mixed school and didn't like it. It helped prepare me for uni in how to look after myself and how to cope with being on your own and away from home. I have my own dc now and personally wouldn't send them away and wouldn't have him in a single sex school. Hopefully it's great and your son loves it but, it's not going to be hogwarts...

I would say boarding school toughens people up.

No, he is a child and you are the parent. You use your adult experience and knowledge to decide what school is best for him. That is what being a parent is about. Stop abdicating your responsibility for your choices to a child.

DH boarded by choice and enjoyed it. Like your son he was very much the right type - bright, sporty, confident without being arrogant. He didn’t experience any of the awful stories.

As an adult he has a strong personality trait of never doing or saying anything that could be controversial or potentially embarrassing. Keeping his head down and his neck in. Abiding by the rules even if they are stupid. Working with the system rather than asking if the system needs to change. Fitting in at all costs, basically.

He has a very polite, dutiful sort of relationship with his parents. He has no close friends from school. He is very emotionally closed and controlled and his default is to withdraw and go silent. He is highly successful in work and much less so in personal relationships. You get the picture.

I attribute a lot of this to boarding school. But maybe it’s the way he is and would have been like this whatever school he attended? We’ll never know.

DC2 wanted to board (she would be well suited to it on paper) and I said no.

As a pp said : I absolutely loved boarding school, and it fucked me up

1. Uncle - very talented pianist. Boarded, sent away at 8 as father died!, had absolutely no idea what a family was, marriage failed, had no contact with children.
2. Uncle, lovely man but traumatised by boarding from 8. Luckily had a lovely wife who gave him stability. He had no idea what a family was or what to do with children.
3. Cousin boarded from 11. Ran away several times until parents got the message and he left the school.
4. Cousin sent to boarding school at 9. His father, lovely man, but had no idea what he was supposed to do as a parent. (Forces family and father also had gone to boarding school young). Fortunately cousin's grandmother used to have him occasionally at weekends as parents were in Germany. She was traumatised by his trauma. He was told by his house master not to. mention he was upset when he wrote to his parents. NB because the father didn't think education was as important for a girl his sister was kept with the parents and went to a forces' school.

All boys btw. Were they all unlucky?

1. Female friend sent to nuns at 3! (Following the steps of her mother whose father was widowed and sent his 2 daughters ditto.) Fortunately her aunt ( nanny) came back from Europe and took her out at 6. Friend said nuns were lovely. She didn't send her 3 daughters away.

Would you take him out if he's miserable ? I hate the idea of packing you're children off but if you say he's excited then maybe he will be OK. He'll would freeze over before I could have sent mine away.

I boarded and really enjoyed it. Ups and downs of course, but no more than when I was day school and I much preferred the boarding life, with the daily access to facilities and friends etc. Have a very good relationship with my parents now and happy memories all round. My boys both weekly board now and it’s so much more flexible than when I boarded in the 80s/90s. I’m at school all the time (most days for something or other) and they know they could switch to day of they decided it wasn’t for them any more. I’m always reassessing but it’s working very well for us at the moment. They haven’t changed yet!