The mental trauma caused by boarding

Oh these threads are fascinating: to see such a range of perspectives and lived experiences.

I boarded from 8 and loved it, decided I couldn’t imagine ever having my children away from me but one ended up boarding also from 8 at a specialist school. I couldn’t imagine it until we did it, then it was fine. My other dc went to day schools. I am as close to all my dc. The one at a specialist school has thrived as a result. I can see that others have had miserable experiences and it must have been horrible to be unhappy and away from your family.

Presumably you are seeking to weaponise the stigma that is attached to having your child permanently removed against these parents of whom you disapprove. Which is about as low as you can go, really. Appalled.

I do send mine to boarding school and still fail to see what I need to be held to account over.

It isn’t perfectly fine. Permanent removal of a child has nothing in common with sending a child to boarding school. It is a profoundly traumatic experience. It is sadly sometimes the right course but it is a rare parent whose life isn’t utterly destroyed by it.
weaponising this in a stupid attempt to score points is a really awful thing to do.

I think it’s a mixed bag.

My DC went to a private prep and some DC left at 7 to board in feeder schools to Eton. I’ve heard their parents coldly, and callously talk about “packing them off to boarding school”. Most of these were vile snobs, funnily enough, not trying to climb the ladder, but desperately trying to keep their status, in a world where merit is becoming more the norm.

Then I know DC who are boarding for other reasons, whose parents broken heartedly sent them for their own benefit; a couple of DC on sports scholarships, a great drama student, DC who didn’t get offered places in a day school and a friend who lives overseas, where the schools are shoddy. I also know a girl who was a day student, who told her parents she wanted to board as she was having such a good time.

I’d like to ask parents who board their DC a question. I know a few families that board their boys, but when it comes to their girls it’s “oh, no. It’s not for them”.

I’ve come across this a lot. Why is it not for both?’

FGS what sort of idiot thinks there is any correlation between sending a child to boarding school and having them removed by the state for their own safety?

I bet there are loads of kids who have had dreadful home lives, experienced neglect and abuse who would jump at going to boarding school rather than putting up with the damage their parents inflict in them.

Can't comment on the boy girl thing. Both sexes go in our family.

I don't know any families where boys board and girls don't.

I adored my boarding school and asked to go. To me it was a safe haven and I enjoyed every minute.

But for some children boarding school is a hugely traumatizing (and I mean that in the clinical sense) too. Boarding school syndrome is a thing. Not all children are harmed by it, by some are. Many, in fact.

This is a v old story OP..

But anyway, the photo looks like a shot of a senior school. I agree sending primary school aged kids away should be a last resort - but for teens it can work really well.

DD is working her way through the Mallory Towers series and announced she wants to attend boarding school. I told her if I win the lottery we’ll consider it!

But seriously, my DC are 8 and 10 and I cannot fathom sending them away to school at this age. I agree it produces many damaged children (case in point, the Royal Family) and I think you have to be somewhat detached from your children to do this.

Obviously this does not include children who board due to needing specialised support.

All of my family boarded and it destroyed my father and my brother who are creatures utterly devoid of feeling. I’m sure these places are better now but I despise parents particularly mothers, who didn’t even work back then, for going along with this barbaric system. Shame on them.

It’s an old fashioned view - sometimes it was about wanting to give girls a gentler education - but also sometimes thinking their education didn’t matter as much (or both).

When I was little most families either boarded or didn’t, but I can think of a few where the boys boarded and the girls were at (good) day schools.

It was more common in my mums’ day - the boys were sent off to good/expensive boarding schools and the girls send to cheap private local girls’ day schools (tiny places, terrible academically, all closed now).

In my Granny’s generation it was also common in very well off families for girls to stay at home with a (cheap, barely educated) governess.

It was only a decade or two ago that their were as many girls as boys in the private sector. People spent more on boys education till very very recently.

It's very revealing indeed that you have leapt to the conclusion that the comparison was all about the parents. What is stupid and offensive is your failure to think about this on the basis of the experience of the children concerned. For many children taken into care, it is a massive relief after a lifetime of being neglected and abused. For children put into boarding school, what has happened is that their parents have chosen to send them off into the charge of strangers, not all of whom have good intentions, and to places where they can't escape from bullies at the end of the school day. Why would you do that to your child if you didn't have to?

…. Also I guess the old boys network is still much stronger than old girls. So fathers thinking it’s important their sons attend the family school, is more likely than for daughters - girls schools don’t tend to run in families so much - because they’ve changed so much in recent years, along with the importance of girls’ education.

@DrinksAnxiety - cont from above

I went to boarding school, and when I went to university there were about 20% of my year group in my subject and in my hall of residence who had done likewise. I can honestly say that people who had never been to boarding school settled in at least as well as us ex-boarders, probably better.

The PP has read the thread, this is what it consists of. Boarding school threads are always the same, as PP says.

Why do you keep going on about permanent removal of a child? Plenty of children in care are there temporarily.

As a matter of interest OP, why are you so obsessed with this? Because your response here is not a rational one.

MN move posts into boards all the time. I’m guessing they moved this one because it’s a retread of all the boarding schools are awful / oh no they aren’t threads that have been on here over the years. It’s a niche topic that gets bumped because a few people really care, but most don’t, so it clutters up the general board.

I went to boarding school and while it took time to adjust , it never affected my relationship with my parents or siblings. It was the making of me.

I was sent to boarding school because my stepfather hated me. My half siblings stayed at home. I was made to stay with relatives in the holidays who I wasn't close to. I just felt my mother had abandoned me so she could have a nice life. I never speak to her now. I hate her.