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.

You seem all worked up, did I hit a raw nerve or something? You may want to keep your kids near you and never board them but don’t expect everyone to be like you. I, for one, don’t think like you. Whether to board a kid at 8 years old or not is a family’s private decision. Is 8 years old too young to board is again, subjective. And I am deaf to listening to “friend’s children boarding” stories without your own personal experience.

I don't seem worked up at all. Why are you resorting to those kinds of passive aggressive tactics? You know, where you tell someone they're doing something they're not in an attempt to force them to defend themselves. Is it an attempt to take the focus of your very weak argument?

What kind of personal experience? Going to boarding school age 9 isn't personal enough for you?

Middlesbrough isn't in Yorkshire...

Evening all

A reminder that while this like many other topics on MN is massively divisive the OP was not asking AIBU about anything but just (as we all do from time to time) seeking peer advice and support.

Peace and love please

Peteneras I hope your children's geography is better than yours.

OP so sorry this isn't helpful but please bring your little boy home. He's so little and you're thousands of miles away my heart would be breaking if this was my DC.

Passive aggressive tactics to take the focus of weak arguments away?

Here’s an excellent example:

”To clarify, as your purposeful misunderstanding is really starting to grate and you obviously need a very simple explanation. . .”

That's not passive aggressive . do you actually know what passive aggressive means? It's the truth of how I am reading your posts. You arguments throughout have claimed that anyone who disagrees with this situation is just against boarding schools with the implication that boarding can never get a fair hearing. I and others have explained to you a few times now that people are against this child boarding because of the combination of factors involved but you just keep ignoring it.

And are you going to answer my question about what personal experience you need because I am positive that I have more personal experience of boarding school that you do?

”Middlesbrough isn't in Yorkshire... ”

LittleBear, you probably don’t believe it, my child’s Geography is so superb that he’s got a piece of work actually consigned to posterity in a great College Library!

That's a really wonderful achievement. And he managed it without having to go away to boarding school on another continent when he was 8. Fancy that.

He did geography? Bit of a doss subject.

Don’t patronise me, like you were trying to do hoping to irritate me enough to cause me lose focus on the real discussion.

On the contrary, you cannot accept the fact that there may just be people who don’t think boarding at 8 years old is not such a big deal, overseas or not. In your Victorian days, these kids were already out in the mills or in the mines earning a living. I don’t suppose you know even in the present day, 7 and 8-year-olds are also out there in the streets or some rundown factories of some poorer countries making a living making clothes, for example, so that you can buy them cheap here. For an 8-year-old child going to boarding school here in the UK is pure Heaven by contrast!

Yes, Geography and almost a dozen other similarly doss subjects. What interesting subjects do your kids do?

Ok. So an 8 year old at boarding school is having a better time than an 8 year old in a sweatshop. It's not a compelling argument that boarding is the right thing for an 8 year old

Well one can glue and paint stuff and the other has just mastered walking.

What a bizarre argument. I'd like to think small children should neither go down the mines, nor be working making clothes, nor be separated from their parents for long periods. It's not a race to the bottom... And by the by, in most of the world, family separation is an agonising necessity borne out of dire poverty. The idea of families rich beyond their wildest imaginings doing it by active choice would be given short thrift by most such families I guarantee.

When is boarding school a good idea then peteneras? For what reasons?

The bitching on this thread is quite epic. I feel like a new thread should be started so you lot can bitch away from the poor OP!

I don't think I understand the reasoning behind sending this particular eight year old across the Atlantic to go to school. There must be plenty of excellent American schools.

If any public school is so amazing it is worth the parental sacrifice of sending your child away from home to grow up, I don't think a prep school where the housemaster has bugger all understanding of compassion, sensitivity and tact is the place to prepare your child for it. I'm sure there must be more caring prep schools out there.

More like utter in-comprehension of each other's view points than bitching in my opinion.

At least for once I can agree with you, Nicki. Makes no sense to me why people bother reading all this bitching if they're not enjoying it. . .

I don't see any real bitching. I don't agree with what peteneras is saying but she is showing me a point of view which I would never otherwise encounter which can only be good.

There have some spectacularly reasonable and measured responses as well as some more ... engaged responses.

Why are we discussing Victorian times?

They were fucking dreadful.