The mental trauma caused by boarding

SEN issues aside, sending an 8 yr old to boarding school is child abuse and shouldn't be allowed.

Agree - I chose boarding at 12, and never regretted it.

Presumably the 8 year old went to a feeder boarding prep for Harrow and moved to Harrow at 13

True or maybe it didn't happen at all could also be true.

My ex went to Harrow. He was v damaged by being dropped off quite brutally at 8 are the exact words of @TarquinOliverNimrod . Always better to stick to the truth than embellish things for the sake of a sensational story.

The school my son attended is often mentioned on here and is said to pride itself on lack of pastoral care. That's not the official line of course but spot on.

The thing I found most disturbing is the lengths the school are willing to go to in order to cover up, along with willing parents.

They do not wish to learn the lessons of the past.... They talk about change but are completely unwilling to do the decent thing.

These institutions are no longer fit for purpose but then they never were.

I find it odd someone would not see their child day to day just so they could get to grade 8 on, say, the flute.
Don't be silly. We are not talking about averagely good kids. The type of children who go to specialist boarding schools are very talented individuals who are hoping for professional careers in their chosen field not to pass graded exams (they've probably done that before they even audition.) Teachers who can train to that level don't grow on trees and unless you are very lucky you're unlikely to find local training that's good enough, or enough similarly able children to work alongside.

Biggest mistake of my life was to send our oldest to a prestigious boarding school. What shocked me even more than the horrible bullying was how the other parents closed ranks and didn’t want to know, even when their own children were suffering.

Just read your post saboyn, the cover ups are the very worst part.

They are @Louloulouenna ,sending my son has destroyed me. They are full of the worst type of people.

I boarded from 9-18 years old and loved most of it. The excursions and day trips out with my close friends - I would've hated being a day pupil and missing out on everything, especially considering less than 5% of the school were day pupils.

As I said bellow most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by parents so you're more likely to be abused at home than boarding school.

There of course will be abuse perpetrated at scouts, children's homes, at music lessons, by private tutors and at boarding school but statistically you're more likely to be abused by those you live with in the home.

I worked in CAMHS and didn't see one incidence of a child admitted from boarding school, most went to state school and a disproportionate amount came from grammar schools.

It's not for everyone but lots and lots of children thrive at boarding school.

Of course we don't pay for our kids to go to boarding school to get a grade 8 in flute 🙄.

Have a baby, get as far away from it as possible. This is modern Western parenting and I think it's so weird. It's not just this either but this is a really weird thing to do.

But the wealthy live in a different world. Offspring are often about keeping wealth in the family so it makes sense to do this. I suppose only the wealthy do it though as it's very expensive.

My grandmother was an extraordinarily non-maternal woman, goodness only knows why she had children. She also had husbands both of whom worked in the then colonial service, so was travelling around quite a lot, with the result that my mother went to boarding school at the age of 4(!) and spent holidays with her bachelor uncle, who was lovely but obviously not the same as two loving parents. It certainly damaged her; although she was a better parent than her mother, she still seemed to lack basic empathy and could be really difficult to deal with.

I read something the other day when it was pointed out that most people are desperate not to have their children taken away and put into care, yet the rich actively seek it out and pay a fortune for it. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but even recognising that some parents have no choice for the reasons identified on this thread, it has the ring of truth for those who opt for boarding voluntarily.

I am sure you are right but I do think that most DC who needed MH support and who’s parents could afford Boarding school would be more likely to access it privately rather than use CAHMS

I am now in my mid 50s and went to boarding school from 11 to 18. I enjoyed it. I am independent, resilient, inquisitive, have a healthy sense of humour and am very caring. I am a forces child so future moves at inconvenient times in my education meant it was better for me to board. It was a good stepping stone for uni - I'd already lived away from home!

Well most politicians went to boarding school so that gives us an example of how they usually turn out.
My dad went to one from age 7 and he was a cold man. A lot of ex boarders are so far gone into the system that they don't realise they're any different. They don't actually know how to be like the rest of society.

I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and met an aunt I hadn't seen for years, I am not close to my cousins either as they, lets say, move in different circles.

Her and her dh were working class, but her dh did very well in a large engineering firm, director level, he worked abroad at times and she went with him. She was saying she regretted sending her ds and 2 dds to boarding school as she doesn't have the same relationship with them that she had with her own mum and blames her decision to send to boarding school on that.

They are very "detached" from her and said she is envious when she visits and sees how close her dds are with their own, now teen dc and she feels more like a distant aunt than a mum/gran.

They gave them everything financially - best school/education, house deposits, a network of successful friends and they are living their best lives. She only realises in hindsight she also paid for it with her relationship with them.

Yes one of the nuttiest things I came across was a couple who turned their home into a b&b to fund boarding school fees. So they took strangers in to their home in order to fund sending their dc’s away to live in an institution.

Both of my parents boarded - they were from farming families, and so had to, for high school.

My Mum loved it and remained friends with her school friends until she died.

My Dad - shy, not sporty, hated it. He never spoke about it, but I know he hated it. His younger brother (head prefect and captain of the first XV) loved it.

Based on my Mum’s stories of her time there, I desperately wanted to board.

It was a categoric ‘no’ from both of them. And looking back with adult understanding, I’m very grateful for that.

Abuse from other children in the form of bullying is one of the commonest forms though and it has a high risk for developing trauma related issues. But then again you will get it in any school.

Regarding sexual abuse, well many of us had encounters with flashers as children or teenagers, dirty old men who groped so I guess it is endemic everywhere.