Did you go to boarding school? Come and talk to me

[OhGood]

I went to boarding school from 7, as did my brother from 5.

My DD and DS are now at these exact ages and I am suddenly being sideswiped by my feelings about this. I keep remembering how unhappy I was, and how hard I had to try to suppress my feelings when I was little, and I have a dawning awareness of how this unhappiness has probably impacted me for all of my life.

I can see how much my DCs need me and DH still, and I can't square this with being sent off to a very strict, old-fashioned school - no contact with parents except weekly letters, and only allowed out 1 weekend a month, etc. Slightly embarrassed about the strength of my emotions.

If you had a similar experience, I would love to know what you think, and how you're feeling about it now.

If you've had these feelings and resolved them, how did you do it? I don't want to wallow in this, but I feel I must do something to work through it.

tbf I wouldnt go on an education thread and say what I've said here because I do appreciate it is each to their own - but OP asked and I have been completely honest about my opinion, it being a chat forum 'n all that...

Battleaxe11 you ask
First period, first boyfriend, smoking, drinking, parties, exams - everything that's normal teen stuff happened out of their sight

Haff - I find this a bit strange. I do have a ds at boarding school. What was the structure of your boarding school like? did you never get time to go home at all?

My school was only ten miles from home which was in a tiny hamlet and I went on all visits allowed (2 weekends a term plus 2 day visits) but of course all my social life good, bad and ugly happened at school and my friends, being boarders, didn't live anywhere local to me. I didn't know the local village kids to go and do village teen stuff with in the holidays and the socialising I did involved staying with friends. My mum never smelled the cigarette smoke on me after my first fag. She never have picked me up after a party and learnt that I'd had too much to drink. She never knew I spent the night of a party with my first boyfriend. Of course I would never have told her that.

Having teenagers of my own I've found that I learn a lot more about the things that matter to them through incidental chat and maternal instinct around the time of events than would happen in a fortnightly catch up. (e.g. DS1 is in a foul mood after he tells me he's not going to X's party any more. Gentle probing and I learn there's been a big friendship blow up and ds is gutted. Or DS2 is even more glued to his phone than usual and after several intense phone calls goes out in his best clothes, reeking of aftershave and hair gel to meet ' a friend'). It's the sort of stuff a teenager wouldn't necessarily want to spill to their mum but if you see it happening in front of you, you can have the open conversations or blazing rows about what they're up to.

Somebody earlier said it must have been my parents' personalities that caused this distance. Who knows? But I still love them very much and they me. They have looked after me when my dcs were born and helped out in a million ways. The distance between us is in what we don't say. Just like when I was a teen I have never told them when things were shit or I was struggling or when dh and I nearly broke up. It's all smiley smiley nicey nicey and keep the bad stuff completely private.

Or DS2 is even more glued to his phone than usual and after several intense phone calls goes out in his best clothes, reeking of aftershave and hair gel to meet ' a friend').

brilliant

Also: It's all smiley smiley nicey nicey and keep the bad stuff completely private. - that's my family.

Bionic, I'm sorry to hear it.

oh yes not having local friends too... tell me about that one! Get back from boarding to parents' latest posting: you'll love x she's just your age. did we love each other? did we fuck. and then when I did make friends with fellow expat kids who were boarding near me I wasnt allowed to go out with them at w/e from school even when I was in 6th form...

I’ve really got a lot from this thread, thank you so much OP & contributors

I’m not in contact with anyone from boarding school & no one in my life now really knows much about it or has similar experience.

So I never discuss it. So thank you.

So - if you're ferociously independent, good at putting on a public face, sturggle to admit weakness or ask for help, struggle with trust, apparently extrovert but actually intensely insular/private, only able to relax when you're completely alone and accepting of the strange fact that while your parents might have loved you, you grew up in a hard and loveless place - you're my tribe of boarding school survivors.

Me. This is me.

I'm apprehensive about the teen years with my kids (they're still very young). Fortunately my husband had a fantastic mum and lived at home so has a good model of parenting adolescents.

Just reading through the thread again

I have a very good relationship with my parents

My mother would be utterly devastated if she knew I cried myself silently to sleep

I’ve never told her, and never will

Which I thought was worth saying here, for those that have DC at boarding school now

The environment teaches you to say nothing

Taffeta how true - I have a close and loving relationship with my parents now and they too would be absolutely devastated if they knew how I used to cry in bed so silently - I didn't want the others in the dormitory to hear me either. And that's still how I cry now, on my own, silently.

They would also be devastated if I told them about the low level abuse I suffered for 3 terms with one particular teacher - I could never tell them and I will never tell them. There was one teacher I remember well, a really kind man who worked part-time and on match days sometimes he'd bring his wife and children to watch - I used to wish that they'd take me home with them!

You are right, the environment teaches you to say nothing, stay silent.

But oddly enough, being able to say all of this anonymously here and now on this thread bring me a huge feeling of relief, so thank you to anyone who is reading/listening and understands.

I went from 9 and hated it. Once it was lights out it was total silence and pitch black. There was no good reason to be out of bed, so many nights i was terrified, homesick, felt sick but had to just wait for sleep to eventually take over. Ive never slept well.

Mucking around or talking after lights out was punished severely. We were all marched out to the play room and made to face the wall in the dark. Am hour later we were marched back to bed. I was 9.

One phonecall a week, the housemistress stood next to us during the call and if we got upset she'd take the phone off us. Letters were read and if it contained any unhappiness then we were made to rewrite them.

My parents lived 20 mins away. I hated going, that Sunday night anxiety haunts me now. I can still feel it now! Eating is an issue, being forced to eat what was there whether you liked it or not has turned me off enjoying food at all. Its a massive source of stress even now.

I had no friends in my home town, forced friends in school. Doing my best to fit in when i clearly didn't. Hiding my emotions, putting on a game face. I learnt too early that the is no point telling grown ups how upset you are, how sad you feel, how scared you are. They dont listen. Nobody really gave a shit.

So many things I too identify with. Crying on my own, hiding emotion as no point showing it; brave face.

And the facing the wall punishment at night, for talking.

I also remember being in the school medical bit for about a week with a nasty chest infection. I was made to sit a scholarship exam during that time; and my parents came to visit one afternoon... they brought me ice cream... I cannot even begin to imagine why they wouldn’t have taken me home, having cared for my own children through childhood illnesses.

We had to strip our beds and then make them again if caught talking. I had that punishment a lot

I'm very private. Very independent. Very resilient. Great game face. Tough as old boots. Feel like I'm great at getting on with people but not very good at anything deeper. Love my parents but have a very stilted relationship. Detest phone calls - never ring people. Too much pressure. Keep people at arms length.

I think this all stems directly from having been at a boarding school. 10 - 18. I adapted to my environment.

I also had a lot of fun and good times. There are good memories. It is not a doom fest. Just different to most people. But I think there a big gaps in my emotional learning.

Having children myself I also feel terribly sorry for my own mother whose children went off at that young age. She is a loving person and she missed out on so much of us. Where my parents lived there really wasn't much in the way of schools after primary. It was abroad.

My adolescence was kept very private from my mother. As distance dictated. Only told her 'good' stuff as PP has discribed. So not close and quite artificial. I do not have the relationship with my siblings that I would like. There is a lot of sadness really. But also being from boarding school stock we crack on.

Taffeta, I'd like to echo your thanks to everyone - I've also got so much out of this

Boarded from 12, and I hated it with a passion. Parents worked abroad and it was the done thing, but our school was so emotionally cold and austere. I didnt even reaslise Boarding School Syndrome was a thing until I found this thread. Having read the symptoms I can say i ahve almost all of them age 43 and reading all of this has made me want to cry.

The teachers in the boarding house were nothing short of evil. Punished for getting up even if you had your period, banning you from leaving the boarding house (gating) for weeks on end, making you remake your beds with hospital corners at 2 am and meansuing them with protractors (Im not even kidding). As far as I could tell they were evil old spinsters who got a kick out of making our loves miserable.

Only allowed a bath once a week, painting nail bite on your fingers each night..... One girl who was 11 was so deperatly unhappy she refused to eat. She was so thin and weak and I remeber them holding her down to force feed her. Later that week she tried to kill herself- her parents didnt know anything was wrong until they had that call. Boys reguarly getting into the house, older girls having sex with boys in their rooms, head of boarding so drunks she didnt even get up during fire alarms.

Being forced to clean the outside phone boxes with your toothbrush if you were naughty. Constantly being criticised and punished and watched. The drinking, drugs, people being taken in secret to have their stomachs pumped..... it was just a place of such sadness and desperation I honestly cant imagine anyone who went their being happy - I saw so many girls so sad - but I do think a lot has changed over the last 25 years

This was at the time when Ofsted didnt cover private schools - their first inspection happened in my last year (I was 18) and I told them every single thing that had ever happened and who had failed us all. Lots of them lost their jobs after that inspection - and I still feel glad about it to this day.

It damaged my relationship with my family without a doubt - why would you let your kids stay somewhere like this ? And then was I was 16 my mum said she would come home..... I didnt want to be with her - my friends were my family - some damage cant be undone.

Did other people really not have ways to phone home any day the year needed to?

It wasn't until the children's act in 1989 that schools had to provide phones for pupils' use. The only time I called home in 3 years of prep school was when the headmaster allowed me to use the office phone to let my parents know I had passed my common entrance.

The post was laid on table to be collected after breakfast and I remember the anticipation waiting in line to see if there was a letter for me. My mum wrote almost daily so I usually had something, although she was abroad and the service could be erratic. Sone children never had any post 😢

We were told it wasn't good for us to phone home because it was unsettling but they couldn't stop us using the public payphone on the high street when we were allowed into town in fours wearing our uniform for one hour on Saturdays. A 10p call with a queue of irritated girls waiting their turn was never enough to say what needed saying.

We couldn't receive calls though. All personal and family news from parents was relayed through the nasty old House Mistress. So I learnt my beloved dog had been hit by a car and that my aunt had had her baby when Miss House Mistress deemed it was time to pass on the news to me.

I'd forgotten about being gated.
I remember hospital corners though, and bed stripping which had to be remade and checked as a punishment.
We were also slippered, hit with hairbrushes and a leather sandal (bare bums) by our housemistress.
Physical detention involved changing into PE kit, running around the field as many times as teacher deemed fit. Showering, putting on uniform, inspection. and repeat.

I was groomed by a male teacher whilst I was there, which got as far as myself and a friend going to his rooms. I remember getting in there and feeling instantly that something was very wrong when he asked us to come closer to him, to where he was sitting. We made our excuses and left.

He was only there for a year so school cant have been that bad. I guess they sussed him out, but he somehow managed to get my home address and continued to write to me for a while. Very creepy.

Did my gap yah working in a boarding prep (2000s). One parent asked school to stop their 10yo from phoning home every day as it was getting expensive.

It was much talked about internally as it was so rare an attitude. Some children called home every day; some never bothered and had to be nagged to write more than two lines in their weekly letter (we didn't check content of letters but when they're all at the table writing together you can see who's written a sentence and who's written a page).

Mine wasn't actively cruel I don't think - although I remember one nun telling me that I was an only child and when I said I wasnt, my big brother was 6 years older than me, she said I might as well be an only as DB didnt count. I was 10 at the time so possibly that was cruel.

I just remember, like many of you: crying myself to sleep; the brave face on everything; never telling my parents I wanted to come home - because I couldnt, they were moving house every 2 years and stability of education was so important. When I was about 11 I had glandular fever - 3 weeks in the san and they took me home 3 days before end of term. Another time I had flu but they were abroad then so couldnt take me home at all.

The importance of letters, the advent calendar I was sent every year, the monthly subscription to Pony mag - demonstrations of care and love but not the same thing at all.

The pervy tennis coach; the flasher in the park next door to the school grounds - no one knew, and it didnt occur to us to tell anyone.

I would be absolutely horrified if some of the shit that happened to me happened to my kids.

I went at 11 to boarding school. Hated every second. I was bullied, and have been left with a real hatred of large groups of people - especially women.
Also hate hate Sunday evenings.

So glad I'm not alone, although I know I have just blocked out so much of the trauma I experienced.

DS went to a boarding school as a weekly. He absolutely loved it, has made great friends and is v happy at uni. Horses for courses....

I went to boarding school at 11 not in the UK and I hated it at first but once I settled in and made friends, I loved it and didn't even want to go home for holidays at times . It taught me to be independent and responsible. Even though none of my siblings did , I am grateful for the experience it's made me part of what I am today and I made friends for life . So overall I would say it was a positive experience for me

DD2 is at uni. this w/e all her flatmates and her friends happen to be away. I've just transferred her the train fare so she can home - the thought of her being lonely and bored for 48 hours is too much for me. She's nearly 19... I do think weekly boarding might be different tho, I can understand how that could work.

Not me but my late DF boarded from the age of 8. These were the war years and he was a refugee from an occupied country, so very different circumstances and times. My GM was a courageous woman in many ways, but found it incredibly difficult to show affection and had a really old-fashioned attitude to children. It could have been this, or the boarding school upbringing, but my DF, though a kind and gentle man, nevertheless had real difficulties when it came to spontaneity and doing anything off-plan. It was as if he needed the scaffolding of externally imposed routines before he could achieve anything. And he did succeed in the kind of profession where achievement is concrete (no possibly outing pun intended). His sister, who also boarded in a different school, fared less well and battled depression and anxiety for most of her life.