How do you justify seding your child to boarding school?

[sunshine75]

I've read some pretty horrific things lately about boarding schools and the damage they can cause. See this article from the Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/20/damage-boarding-school-sexual-abuse-children

However, I have no personal experience of one and have no close friends who went to one. Therefore, I don't want to be hasty in forming a negative opinion about them.

So, if you chose to send your child to a boarding school then I'm curious as to why you chose to? For example, why did you chose boarding over a really good day school? Is there anyone who chose a boarding school for a much younger child and was this a really hard thing to do?

Halkuyt I've never said problems don't exist Ive repeatedly said it doesn't. work for all children. But as the mother of my DS, who knows him exceedingly well, I can categorically state that I am not burying my head in the sand when I say that my relationship with him has not been negatively affected by him going to boarding school and he doesn't suffer from family attachment issues. You on the other hand as you don't know him are unable to make pass comment in any shape or form. From my experience of our relationship and from observing the relationships of numerous other other parents and their children who board I am also able to say with a dam site more certainly than you are that there are plenty of other children at boarding school whose relationships with their parents have also not been negatively affected. This is not a gut reaction/opinion but based on real life experiences.
Of course some are miserable, have family separation issues, unhappy relationships with their families, are home sick, develop anxiety disorders, feel uncared by school staff, but so do many children in day schools, my DS1 would cheerfully testify to the latter a point you repeatedly ignore.
You cannot tar every boarding school child/boarding school with the same brush anymore than I can extrapolate from my DS1 miserable experience at his state day school state categorically that this will happen to all who attend a day school or even narrow it down attend his so called high achieving outstanding academy.
One of the things I believe boarding school children learn from an early age is that we are all different, we all have different ways of doing things, different ideas, different philosophies on life, and no one particular way is right, just because you may not do something in a certain way or believe something to be good this doesn't mean you have to turn it into a negative, see it as only bad, firmly believe it to be wrong, they learn to live and let live. Most boarders have enough common sense to look at the bigger picture to see the whole person. What strikes me Halkuyt from you many posts on this subject in particular your recent ridiculous comments about fagging and boys doing chores around boarding houses and others comments you've made that this is a life lesson that you have failed to learn.

My ex husband boarded from 6 years of age during the late 1960s and 1970s , he was from a military family. It has scarred him, deeply. That is not to say that his experience of 40 years ago is comparable to now.

Another point I have considered is the idea of independence, I was an independent child have raised my children to be independent, my 12 year old dd in particular is incredibly independent, but should we encourage this trait without thought .

Always been independent has actually lead me to become isolated on occasion, I struggle to ask for help and do think my need for total independence has some part to play in my earlier life struggles with depression. My ex husband is utterly independent , sadly cant and wont let anyone support him or will never show his emotions. This has had a disastrous effect on 2 marriages and 6 grandchildren.

I was just thinking about the whole laundry thing... I'm not sure I'd like my clothes and underwear being collected up to be washed with hundreds of other peoples' things. Another thing to get used to if you go to boarding school, I guess!

highlandflingabout - that's sad. I think it is hard when parents have careers that involve having to make sacrifices that are not just sacrifices of the parents, but also of the children.

rabbit I hope you don't end up in a nursing home!

I suspect boarders don't even think about it. I personally wouldn't want to work in a laundry of a big all boys boarding school imagine the smell off all those sweaty socks.

happy - I hope I don't end up in a nursing home, either!

Happy rabbit should live in Hong Kong when she retires so that she can employ a maid to wash her clothes for her....

BTW my daughter still does not know how to use the washing machine. Despite her 1 year at boarding school. She prefers to open her suitcase and dump it into her laundry basket for Grace to wash. So I do agree that before she goes to Uni I think Grace may need to teach her.

We had to do our own washing at school.

I didn't mind that at all. And actually I just realised how much I prefer to put the wash on.

I left a load ready to go the other day and the nanny turned it on. Which cycle? Colour catcher? I was most unsettled.

The Eton laundry washes 17,000 socks a week. It must be fun pairing them up.

I am trying to find the first mention of boarders being more inclined to use nursing homes, but can't. So as it has been mentioned here's my tuppence worth.

If children are incarcerated all through their childhood, parents shuttling them away for holidays, like the typical famous five children then maybe more would be inclined to.
children coming from loving homes where parents have time to spend with their children, maybe less likely to.

Some children are put into full time childcare as babies, then school and wraparound care, some parents put their career first and hardly ever see their children although they live in the same house. children begin to see this as the norm, they don't know about families being close and spending time together as it is alien to them. These are the ones who are likely to use nursing homes for their parents as soon as they can.

Are people actually proud of their children not knowing how to use a washing machine, or not thinking about how their clothes get mysteriously clean?

I think at the school we looked at the dc take washing home to parents every 3 weeks and during holidays. There are less than 300 students and they don't have a laundry as I'm aware.
It gets better though, this school doesn't have an expensive school uniform or blazer, just black trousers, white shirt/blouse and the odd black frock or long skirt.
It just shows how even within the same type of school there can be huge differences.

three weeks?????

My day school son gets through 4/5 games kits a week- I dread to think what a bag containing 3 weeks worth would smell like.....!!!!!

Fagging, Hakluyt? That's the least of it. Considering your expertise on the subject of boarding schools I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the induction process of new boys in which they are roasted on a spit then hung upside down out of a 10th floor window.

FYI fagging was abolished many years ago.

Sorry, I used the word fagging without thought. In my family of origin, it was used to mean doing tedious unpaid work for other people. I retract it unreservedly.

Hak

I don't think they do any PE more than the necessary at this school, its not really where you go if you like sport. Maybe the more sporty schools are the ones with the laundry.

My dd is busy mopping the floor at the moment, she has already done and pegged out 2 loads of washing as well, everybody helps round here, irrespective of talent

"My dd is busy mopping the floor at the moment, she has already done and pegged out 2 loads of washing as well, everybody helps round here, irrespective of talent "

And presumably regardless of age?

A bag of 21 shirts would be a bit grim too. Particularly shirts that somebody had done 5 hours piano practise in. Smellier than football kit!

hak

You maybe have a point there about the shirts

Oh definitely regardless of age, the dc have always had to help. Obviously age related stuff, not mowing lawns at 5 or anything, but always have a few jobs to do.
She is using it as a microphone now, singing voi che sepate. Don't ask me why, she's a bit daft.
I'm Mnetting before I tackle upstairs, when my lovely dh will take her out somewhere.

*Maryz8

Oh I love that story, but agree with your dd, how disgusting.
You would think they'd be the opposite
Its black socks in our house, me and dd have the same size and dh and the 2 ds do. I thought it would be easier when ds1 went, but it isn't.

Hakluyt has any one said they are proud their DS's can't use a washing machine? I don't think my DH (day school) could use one till we bought one when we first got married. It's not exactly a complicated thing to use. Im a complete technophobe and it took me only 10 mins to work out how to use my ridiculously over programmed Miele washing machine so a I personally don't think it's worth keeping your DC in an completely unsuitable day school so that he can learn how to use it.
I also don't think anyone said that they are proud that their DC's don't think about how their clothes get mysteriously clean or more to the point that their DC's don't know how their clothes get clean. My DS is full of praise for the laundry service, turn around time 24 hours, they iron shirts much better than I ever do, he's actually never met those who do it but then in a large campus with tight H and S regulations that's not exactly surprising.

I don't anyone should keep their child in an unsuitable school for any reason whatsoever.

happygardening- could you possibly stop getting so ariated and stop taking everything as a personal attack? Otherwise it's impossible to have any sort of discussion.

Maryz I'm surprised about communal underpants etc at most boarding schools I know children put their socks and underpants into these brilliant individually named net bags, these go the laundry and straight into the washing machine, are dried in the bags and then returned. I'm not an organised individual at home but so impressed am I by them that I "borrowed " some bags and now we all do it. I used to have a drawer full of odd socks now a I have none.

So, if you chose to send your child to a boarding school then I'm curious as to why you chose to?

My son has SEN. I got so tired of him being illegally excluded, being taught in corridors away from the 'normal' children, being excluded from invitation to parties, excluded from life, that I took him out of mainstream school and Home Schooled him for nearly 2 years, during which time he went from a child who was terrified of people to a really quite able student. I had constant abuse from the LA, but, as they refused to entertain the idea that he needed to be in a special school, they had no case.

We moved to a country where HS is illegal, so he was forced to attend school again. He was physically attacked, spat on, taught in the corridor, illegally excluded and we'd had enough. My DH's employer would pay for DS to go to a special BS in the UK, so we took the opportunity. He was taught in classes of 8 children, he was able to concentrate on subjects he was good at, so his self esteem was built up and he was then able to tackle things which had eluded him before. He started playing sports, because he didn't have teachers and other pupils taking the piss out of him all the time. He tried new sports because he had built the confidence to try things. He has friends. Lots of them. The friendships he has are a little kooky, but they are real.

We were told, categorically that he would never be able to take any 'real' exams, this summer he took 8 GCSEs he will get an A-A* in one of them.

It broke me, every time he had to go back, but, I knew I was doing the right thing by sending him. Even when we moved back to the UK, and I made inquiries about him attending a SN day school, we were told that he would have to go to a MS one, so we demurred. If we hadn't had a government who continually experimented with making children for whom MS was not suitable go to MS schools, then the argument would have been academic, but, as so many SEN placements and schools have disappeared, then some of us are left with little choice but to send our children to BS. With hindsight though, if I had to do it all again, I would have sent him anyway.

CaptChaos.

Poor ds to have gone through so much, my heart goes out to him.
Were you in Germany? I know H.ed is illegal there.
I hope he getting the education he deserves, it certainly sounds like it.
It must have been and continue to be difficult for you to wave him off, but as you say there was no choice.
Thank you for sharing your story and I sincerely hope your ds goes on to succeed with his exams, please let me know how he gets on.

Your story makes all the comments about parents being selfish, not loving their dc etc pale into insignificance