New. At boarding prep school

[Willsoonbesummer]

My 8 year old has just started full boarding at prep school.The feed back has been so negative so far from the school.He is not organised enough etc.Now we feel we have made a mistake and not sure what to do.Any advise from mums who have been through this type of school would be very much appreaciated.

Posie - I really think you need to give it a rest. You really seem to have a chip on your shoulder about boarding in general as though the alternative is Mum baking cakes at home and Dad coming home to kick around a football with his son with not a care in the world.

I had a particularly rubbish education. My parents split up when I was an early teen. We didn't have huge amounts of money but both parents did work.

I did not want this sort of upbringing for my children. I didn't pass the 11+ but the grammar's are still in my borough (very popular they are too).

What I see of the state education system is in many cases worse than when I went to school. Disipline is awful and kids 'know their rights'. They can wear what they like, parents can come to school dressed in pyjamas and claim they can do what they want with their cringing child wishing they made some sort of effort.

Boarding isn't for everyone but I have extensive experience of it with my two children. My mother was a teacher and still works 1 day a week.

Do I think it has given them opportunities I never have - ABSOLUTELY!

Gruach is spot on with her description of boarding schools today. Both my DS went/go to a weekly boarding school. it has been the making of them.

Hillingdon

This thread is not about weekly boarding with local-ish parents.
This thread is about full boarding - for a child of 8 - with parents in another continent.

This thread is not about boarding school as an alternative to a poor local state provision.
It is about boarding school on another continent as an alternative to a first class private school in NYC.

This thread is about an eight year old boy "sobbing uncontrollably" down the phone to his parents. Boarding house staff looking after a newly started 8 year old should have been right on top of that - and dealing with it together with the parents. In this case, they seem to have been unaware/indifferent - which should be ringing all kinds of alarm bells.

Irrespective of the sobbing, house parents should have been in daily-ish contact with the child's parents during his first few weeks at the school.

Drink - I do take your point of course. Personally I think 8 is too young to board and this is an unusual situation. I do see parents at my DS's schools both pre and boarding who can barely speak English sending their children to the school. They have a great reputation and of course we always want the best for our kids.

There is a rumour that at my DS's school a Russian man turned up demanding to see the Head with a briefcase stuffed full of £50 notes asking what was needed to get his son into the school. Whether it is 100% true or not I suspect it had actually happened in some of our more well known privates

Think of it this way op if you are still reading. Do you genuinely imagine a 30yo saying fondly 'oh yes, my parents sent me across the Atlantic to boarding school age 8. I didn't see them for months at a time but oh no I didn't miss them really, the other children were splendid.'

Bear in mind that not one person on this thread, even the most rabidly pro boarding ones, have actually sent their own 8yos to board halfway round the world. That should speak volumes.

rabidly?

Yes, rabidly. In particular the ones who seem to think think boarding is the only option to avoid the state school oils who are only really marking time until it's time for an adult life spent in jail or high on drugs or whatever crazed snobbery it was, can't be bothered to scroll back to reread the specifics.

Oiks, I meant!

Hi Willsoonbesummer

I’ve joined Mumsnet to add a comment here as I feel and empathise with your struggle. I don't know if this helps but this is my perspective. I am a 45 year old dad, with an 8 year old son. I have been a stay at home dad for many years. When I was 9 years old I was sent away to board overseas. I was a boarder for 9 years. It has taken me till recently to understand and begin to unpick the long term damage this did to me. In looking into this I realise I am not alone. I have heard a lot of men (and women)’s stories, many who were much older than me before they really have begun to tackle their ‘boarding school survivor syndrome’. And this is the recognised clinical, psycholigcal term. See Joy Schaverien PhD writings on it or read the more accessible “The Making of Them” by Nick Duffell. I strongly urge you to trust your instincts as a parent - if it feels wrong to send them away this young, that’s because it is. There’s still time. I wish you and your family all the best whatever you decide to do.

Hi Willsoonbesummer.... this must be so hard for you as you are so far away , but I feel so much for your son because he is so faraway from you . He is only eight and and he is in an institution because that's what boarding schools are ... they are not 'home from home' and there is no one there who loves him and to whom he can turn for real understanding and love . All children, have to change to 'fit in' at boarding school and part of that change is having to become quite inappropriately independent.. I love to hear he is not organized enough for that is his real self surviving and exactly how little boys of 8 should be ...Small children need to be dependent and slowly learn to reach independence as they grow into adults ... and they need to learn this with love at home and from their parents . At present he is having to live with, and learn from, strangers, who will not be right for him ... They are negative and that feels really awful for a child.. and can have very long lasting effects which often go on into adulthood...
It is incredibly hard for a child to tell his parents he does not like school . The build- up to going away is always huge ... The uniform, the enforced positivety, the money, the travel, the friends and family all knowing of the big step taken .... It like a massive mountain for the little child to even think of complaining or to say he is unhappy ... He will feel it is better just to say he likes it rather than face the questions , his sense of failure ,and personal "defeat" ..
But ... he is a very little boy ... who is desperately unhappy . My advise (with a whole load of experience behind it....) is, to listen to him and get him out of there fast with the only goal being to have him well, happy, loved and with you .. Forget about all others goals for now ... a good day school will feel great to him and maybe when he is older, say at 16, if it really is a route you feel you want to go down ... ask him .. Now at 8, no child can possibly be asked to make that choice ...he is little and hurting and will be trying to look after you all at the same time ... Just get him home! x

I only have experience of weekly boarding nursery and pre-school (3 to 7 years old), and though my memory is I did beg my parents every single Sunday evening to not send me back to 'jail' - but I was a very stubborn and not eager to please child - they still managed to convince themselves that things weren't that bad. I 'looked happy' getting off the bus at drop off home. 'I talked about that boy I liked' etc. And obviously if you were spying on me from the outside, I wasn't sitting crying my eyes out all day every day, it's impossible. I must have looked fine most of the time, a normal child getting on with life.

I actually knew as a child that I was extremely miserable there and hated every minute of it and couldn't wait to grow up so that I didn't have to be there any more, but my sister genuinely thought that she sort of enjoyed it.

She is far more sociable and flexible than me, also lived in several different households full-time before nursery, parents, one set of GPs, then another set of GPs, didn't think of anything as home, and she says she didn't miss home or family and didn't mind being part of a commune, she was also far more thick skinned about all the horrible routines and total lack of privacy. However, once she had her own kids, it hit her. My parents sent me away at three?? Somewhere where nobody LOVED me?(actually, there was low level constant child abuse(not sexual) but it's a different story)

You can get education, discipline, social skills, etc outside the family, but you cannot get unconditional love and acceptance elsewhere, and that's a single most important thing for a child growing up, everything else can be caught up on later, but not the love and nurture in early childhood, and 8 is still very very young.

Those who now say - oh, I've sent my kids at 8, they ASKED for it and they grew to love it. Maybe. But wait till they have their own babies, and look at them aged 8, whether they would think - oh, seems like the right time to swap family environment for an institution. It will be a better life for them. See if they think it or if they wonder a bit about their relationship with their Mum and Dad.

OP, it's not an attack on you, you've obviously been somehow brainwashed into thinking that was the best thing for your child. Just listen to your instincts.

Nodowntime - please tell me that's not a real thing

I keep coming back to this thread

Iggi - it was, but it wasn't in England, and the set-up was for the Forces children (and we weren't, we were grandchildren but managed to get placements through granddad's connections :( )

OP, there is a book written as if just for you, by Paul Watkins "Stand Before Your God: An American Schoolboy in England", he was sent as an American boy to Dragon school at Oxford at 8, if not 7 (his parents were originally British). It's not a one-dimensional view at all, whether you take your son out or not, it's worth a read! Also maybe read some interviews with the author if you can find them, about how after finishing that school (then Eton) he never felt truly at home neither in England, nor in USA (he did settle in USA eventually) though outwardly he seemed like a native in both countries.

www.amazon.com/Stand-Before-Your-God-Schoolboy/dp/0679759417

Thanks nodowntime for replying, I'm upset and angry on your behalf that seems unconscionable. Hope things have kept getting better for you.

he never felt truly at home neither in England, nor in USA

You would meet teenagers like this in Ireland when I was growing up. they were sent off to boarding schools in UK where they were regarded as irish (although that word wasn't usually used) and then spent holidays at home in Ireland where they were regarded as british. Neither fish nor fowl. A connection to place is important too.

In the case of this boy, what is more worrying is that no one in his home would think 8 year old boarding is normal - while rare in UK, it is heard of and there is a history. There is none of that in the US so an 8 year old in boarding school a continent away in the USA/upper echelons of NYC would be regarded as culturally bizarre as an 8 year old with a gun would be in the UK.

It would literally be a conversation stopper among the people among whom the OP lives, I think.

""So Gabe is in Friends School and we just love it, where is William?" "Oh he is in school in UK" "Oh does he live with your husband's parents then (even this is giving the person pause" "no he is in boarding school". Then will follow a lot of interested questions while the person is thinking what on earth are these people on.

Nodowntime I just want to go and hug the small you.

Nodowntime, so do I...

David Blunkett tells of being sent off at 4 to a special school for the blind. That poor little boy...

Iggi, PrimaLass,Themodernuriahheep

Thanks, I'm nearly teary-eyed because of your sympathy! To be honest, I try to never go back to that time in my head, and in this respect it's like being robbed of years of childhood(there were not many holidays either, except a week in the winter and 4 weeks in the summer, which is the time I do remember as good). What allowed me to survive was coming home for the weekend, actually in the first two years it was coming home late Friday afternoon, getting back on the bus at 7am Monday morning (and I got carsick on the bus nearly every time! It was a long journey and smelled of petrol fumes), but in the second two years the stay was extended to Saturday lunchtime, so time at home shortened.

But at least knowing that the weekend at home was coming allowed me not to break down when things got too miserable, and gave me a breather from the communal living and sometimes brutal routines(it was run a lot like the Army, but for children).

If that boy is not going to spend every weekend with his grandparents (and how close is he to them? can he relax and be allowed to be himself at their home?) I imagine it would be different, tougher in some ways. It would be - this is your new life, your main life, adapt at whatever cost to your mental well-being or be broken.

I've written and researched extensively on these issues, and I would be interested to hear from anyone with views and experiences on boarding school, good or bad, pro or anti.
Here's a page of articles and links to psychological studies (if I'm allowed to post it...?)
alexrenton.com/boarding-schools-abuse-and-redress/

My son was miserable for the first term and a half

You seriously left your 8 year old child miserable for over 5 months from September to February, Vixsatis?

The difficult first term has to be gone through at some point

Why?

”I've written and researched extensively on these issues . . .”

Oh! Have you really?

^“alexrenton.com/boarding-schools-abuse-and-redress/”^

With a title like that you profess to do a “fair” research on the subject?

C-mon, give me a break.

And why was your earlier post deleted by the mods? I didn’t have a chance to read that - care to PM me what you wrote?

What I see of the state education system is in many cases worse than when I went to school. Disipline is awful and kids 'know their rights'. They can wear what they like, parents can come to school dressed in pyjamas and claim they can do what they want with their cringing child wishing they made some sort of effort.

Nonsense. There are some schools like this, but you can't generalise in this way any more than you can generalise that all children at boarding schools are future Bullingdon club candidates.

Both my DS went/go to a weekly boarding school. it has been the making of them.

This is what I find really rather sad. There are people who seriously believe that their own ability to bring up their children is such that they are incapable of being "the making of" their children and have to send them away for most of the year to be brought up by others.

I've known a number of people who went to boarding school at 8 and whose experience is very similar to nick8051's. They say that they were regularly utterly miserable, but in essence they got on with it because, well, that was the way it was and they didn't believe they had any choice. They would accept that there were certainly many times when they enjoyed themselves because of the company of other children and the activities on offer, but point out that they would have got just the same in a decent day school near to their homes.

And their respective parents regularly told their friends and relatives that "X absolutely loves school, he can't wait to go back each term", and they would listen to their parents wondering what on earth they were talking about.

My DM was like that Veritat and her parents would have sworn blind that she loved boarding school. They also sent her off by herself to the mountains for months at a time aged 4, 'for her chest':( She swore to herself aged about 13 that she'd never send a child of hers away. It's amazing how deluded parents can be about the emotional wellbeing or otherwise of their children, especially when they aren't actually there.