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?

Timetoask - my home life wasn't unhappy, just....meh.

My point is that boarding suits some children very well. And nobody sent me there.

I'm sure this has been said before (not read whole thread) but

The justification for sending a child to a boarding school is (often) that that is the school that suits them best.

For example I went to day school and my sister to boarding school. The day school I went to would not have suited my sister. Other local day schools also would not have suited her. My parents looked at a number of schools - boarding and non boarding - and it happened to be a boarding school which provided the best fit for her particular needs.

By the time she went to school mobile phones were pretty common so she was in touch all the time and there were plenty of holidays/exeats/parent visits etc. I don't think she missed out on family life - boring or not. School holidays + exeats = pretty much half the year, if not more.

Yes, I think I can see how a particular school might be a perfect fit for a teenager. However, I cannot understand how a small child could be sent to sleep at school full-time.

...Although for some boarding from a young age is essential for parents who have a busy work life

In this case a boarding school is chosen, not because it is the perfect fit for the child, but to fit in with the hectic life of the parents. There is absolutely no justification for this. Your child comes first, your busy work life comes second.

DS1 didn't want to board at his school so when he is in year 7, he is hopefully going to the grammar school if he passes the 11+ test next September.

DD1 really wants to board at her school and we are happy to let her board as my hours can be unpredictable and I am sometimes called into work at 3am. DH's job is just as demanding, he can be away in New York, Orlando or Brussels for weeks on end. It's really useful for us but if DS doesn't want to, we won't force him.

But that's the point timetoask and others no one is asking you to send your small child to boarding school. A number of posters have explained why they have sent their child to boarding school. Some of them have sent them to prep school whilst others have waited till they are older. Each family has their reasons, some of which are similiar, others are very different but connecting all of them is the fact that they believe they are doing the best for their DC.

I agree totally with HG and my DCs went to board at 8 too. I have previously given reasons for our decision ( so will not repeat them) and that our DCs enjoyed the experience. I am not suggesting that the OP set out to offend anyone but when I see a question that asks how we justified sending our DCs to boarding school, my automatic answer I don't need to justify our decision to anyone. We decided after careful consideration and our DCs benefited!

Hakluyt

It depends on how you want to look at it. Some people use childcare before school/after school. Some people send their dc to school during the day.They do this because it is right for their family.

Some people don't use nurseries, childcare or schools let alone before and after school care. They may see these children as missing out on a homelife. As I am in this camp although I don't agree can see why some peope may think like this.
There are threads on here where parents complain about schools needing them to take time off work for things, some people see school as childcare. Do we accuse these people of not wanting to spend time with their dc. What about those in wraparound aren't theymissing out on a homelife.
The friend I mention above who attends boarding school sees her dd far more than another couple I know who hardly see their dd due to work. Then at weekends are too busy to spend time with her as they have housework to do, or their own hobbies

dreamgirls I actually do know a few parents of DC who are pretty tough on their DCs with reards to boarding.

They don't consider a bit of unhappiness sufficent to pull them out.

These are the miniorty though, and tend to be parents who chose either a specific school because they are utterly wedded to the idea of it (and will never admit it aint worked out) or those who wanted termly boarding as an essential part of their DC's education, not just due to distance IYSWIM.

The ones I know who chose boarding for pragmatic travel reasons, or who chose a school that happened to be boarding all tend to be more flexible and open minded. If their DC don't like it, no harm done.

As for university, well I work in one, and there really is not problem for the vast majority of students who don't board prior! Honestly, they don't need to practice .

DH boarded from 8.

I boarded from 11.

DH, oddly, loved boarding as a young child - he saw his parents only for the long holiday, as he was sent 'home' from abroad to board - but didn't much like 13+ as a group of less-congenial boys arrived who he didn't get on with. I would not say he is 'damaged' by boarding. His relatioonship with his parents is / was not close, but the reason for this is much more that, when his parents returned from abroad to live in the UK, his sister was removed from her boarding school, lived at home and was found a day school, while he was left in his boarding school. The feeling that 'they want her company but not mine' - an entirely suitable day school for him was available, but ever offered to him - means that, to thios day, SiL's relationship with her parents is much closer and warmer than DH's is.

I boarded as it seemed at the time to be the only way to get a suitable education. I was a 100% scholarship / accelerated by a year / Oxbridge PhD type. The local rural secondary had just stopped being a secondary modern and its ability to teach highly able children was, at that point, unclear [my brothers went on from there to Oxbridge, but that wasn't forseeable at my point of entry IYSWIM]. No academic day school was within commuting distance.

It was always very clear to me why I was there - I knew and relied absolutely on my parents' love and family bonds, but knew that my 'task' was to be well-educated. yes, that sounds a bit bleak. it was, on occasion, a buit bleak. But it wasn't emoptionally damaging, and i did, educationally, get out exactly what Ineeded, for which I am very grateful.

Our children are state educated non-boarders - which perhaps tells you more about our 'gut feel' about boarding than any of the above!

I went in year 7, I'd say 80% of girls were homesick for a couple of years. It was a bit like the nursery model, dump leave and they'll be ok. Ok after a couple of years.

10% desperately unhappy, usually due to friendship troubles. They stayed for a few years too. The rest fine and happy from outset.

Then the bullied ones, they stayed for six years, so miserable. I shudder when I remember what it must have been like.

"for some children who need to learn to be more independent before university it is better for them"

Tbh, non-boarding comprehensive-attending DS has a lot more independence than many boarding contemporaries have. He is the last person to leave the house in the morning, so has to be responsible not only for sorting out all his own kit etc vbut also locking up and checking the house. On his return, he makes himself a snack, does homework independently and on occasions takes himself off again for e.g. sports training before i get home. - many things that would be supervised / organised within a boarding environment are things that he dos independently as a matter of course [still working on the laundry, though...]

MarshaBrady

Thak you for that info, I'll tak that s amunition if you don't mind.
I had considered home sickness but its good to hear of others experiences, and will tell dd. Something else to help me keep her here for 3 more years

I do wonder about one aspect of boarding-school; the all-in-one aspect. It's often presented as a very good thing. However, I think it's quite important for many young people to get to try out different selves and identities - not to speak of different interests. You are a different person at school/home/orchestra practice/parties and so on...at boarding-school, I am not sure how this can be made possible.

I should probably add that I have an absolutely appalling relationship with my parents and the phrase 'family life' still makes me feel slightly ill . DP, on the other hand, got on very well with his mum. Incarceration within the domestic unit was arguably really not very good for my sister or for me.

No, full boarders don't get it. Holidays are different. I'm talking about the texture of ordinary life if you're at a day school.

I can assure you my kids aren't cotton-wooled.

Some of the posts have been quite venomous.

Ds1 is 8. He will board from September. I would have been happy for him to stay at the village primary and then go to a local secondary in a nearby town. Ds1 asked if he could be a chorister. He has always been very musical so we took him for an informal voice trial locally and he got very good feedback. So we looked carefully at the options. There are two day schools about half an hour drive from us where ds could be a chorister. Both are nice schools although one doesn't have a great academic reputation.

At the first school I would have spent 8 hours a week driving him to and from school/cathedral. This would have had a massive impact on the family and ds would have had very long days. It would have taken time from other activities including instrumental music and Sundays would have been a write off.

At the second school there was no specialist music teacher in ds1' s instrument. It would have been hard to afford and the academic side didn't look as good as his state school. He would have had 11.5 hour days at school without counting music practice or homework.

So we chose a boarding school. Very carefully to meet our son's needs. I don't want to palm my child off to an institution. I'm not too busy to care for him. I love him enough to put my own feelings aside to choose what is best for him. He is thrilled to be going to a school where there is so much music and where there are other children like him. I will see him every weekend. I'd rather have him at home with me but he can phone me every night before bed so I'm not too worried about him feeling isolated.

There are advantages and disadvantages with boarding. For us the advantages won out.

By 'texture of ordinary life' - and I should have said 'day-to-day' life, as 'ordinary' sounds a bit perjorative in this context; I meant, as I said upthread, the mix of stuff and indeed your own personality, that goes on if you're at a day school. Because you come home from school, and then you go out and you do other non-school stuff, and you loaf around pointlessly with your mates who are quite possibly at other schools, and in all of those places and contexts you are a slightly different person and have slightly different needs met.

At boarding-school I tend to think that it's more of an all-in one. Especially if you're more rural, you are there, with the same people, all the time. But if as you say, Maryz, that's not the case for your kids' friends then I'm wrong and that all-in-one aspect isn't the case. It was a genuine question.

It wasn't about different aspects of life so much as the different selves that one spends so much of one's adolescence trying out.