Boarding school - will I regret it?

[BuffysMum]

dd1 wants to go to boarding school (will cost us around £3k per year max), of course is is competitive entry so she may not get in.

BUT if she does I send her what are the down sides that I haven't thought of. BTW she is very academically able and the school she will attend other wise has been bottom/near bottom of the league tables for years despite huge amount of investment after it failed.

satine, i don't know where you've been if you think that WOHMs don't regularly get nasty comments about leaving their children in - especially - nurseries. "why bother to have children if you're just going to dump them with strangers and not raise them yourself" is a frequent comment. nice.

re boarding school. i don't like the idea at all, but in buffysmum's situation i think i might possibly consider it. sigh.

oh blimey - like you say Greeny - we've had this one before (discussion that is). I don't think it's 'right' - but then I also don't think it's 'wrong'.......very complicated to explain really. Especially as all this discussion about Zim, combined with my pg hormones is getting me all teary - I so miss the country so much and can't believe how cr*p Mugabe has made it

So I think I'm going to leave it too - especially given that we've hijacked BuffyMums thread .

Yes, well, no doubt Ph is also one of the worst. What I recall from my first (mixed) school is that canings took place (for boys - it wasn't allowed for girls) at a set time during the day. While it was going on neither staff nor pupils were allowed in the area. It's going a bit far to call that a "decency", but it did show a bit of regard for a boy's feelings. But that was thirty years ago. I find it astonishing that thirty years later it could happen so publicly. It's almost surreal.

I'm off to bed now, but I'll be fascinated to know what my db thinks about this.

I don't and won't understand boarding school.

FA - I had a couple of glasses of red last night, and probably over-reacted. I shouldn't have called beatings at PE a "spectator sport". But for some reason the idea of it taking place so publicly upsets me as much as the idea (at PH) of beating the innocent along with guilty.

Buffysmum - sorry your thread got side-tracked. I think that the experience of boarding-school can be a very positive one. I can testify from my own experience that there's a kind cameraderie(sp?) amongst boarders that can make it a life-changing thing, and can teach your child independence. But then there's a downside, which is that it can be a bad experience if you get on the wrong end of some bullying. Because you can't get away from it.

I didn't spot anywhere that you gave your dd's age, but I would say definitely that it would be unwise (risky) to send someone to b/s before the age of 12. I myself went earlier (age 10) and it didn't do me any harm, but if your child is unhappy there she could be really unhappy, if you know what I mean. If you've never been away from your parents except for short periods it can be a frightening experience to turn up on your first day when everything looks so huge and threatening, and then watch your parents' car disappearing down the drive. I never sent my own kids to b/s, simply because we had good schools close enough for them to live at home, but even if we hadn't I wouldn't have dreamt of inflicting that on them until they were at least 12.

But putting age to one side, the important thing is your dd's temperament and how well she gets on with other kids. If there's any chance she could be singled out by bullies - avoid!

Going back to the caning in the schools you were talking about yesteraday, isn't it a little 'safer' that it happens with the office door open and in view of 1 or 2 people ? I don't approve of this kind of punishment at all, but would be even more concerned if it was happening behind closed doors...?

Message withdrawn

"Going back to the caning in the schools you were talking about yesteraday, isn't it a little 'safer' that it happens with the office door open and in view of 1 or 2 people?"

Well, that's one way of looking at it, Theodoresmummy. But I don't think that was the idea, do you?

It might be different if they'd been official (male) witnesses. Because in Zim corporal punishment is an exclusively male thing (blatant gender discrimination, in fact). So to have two females in the area listening to the beatings and watching boys going in and out is degrading in the extreme, IMO, especially when the boys know those females were always exempt themselves. You can imagine their resentment. FA talks about their humiliation in front of their classmates, but I'd say that's minor. Between themselves they'd have a jokey "me today, you tomorrow" attitude. But having to walk past two young women gazing at them in the outer office is humiliation on another level.

Also those boys are caned on the bum, which is sexually very suggestive. To slap someone on the buttocks is classed as sexual harassment in the adult world, because the buttocks are seen as a sexual area. When I arrived in the UK in the 1980s there was debate raging about caning in schools, and people were calling it "a pervert's charter". After all, when grown men pay prostitutes to dress up as schoolmistresses they're not paying for detention or "lines", are they?

So try it the other way round. Imagine a world where only girls get caned, and there are two young blokes drinking coffee in the outer office listening to the canings and then eyeing them as they walk past... Get the picture? The fact that this deputy headmaster didn't even have the decency to close the door to his office gives me a very bad feeling.

Roxy, can you email me at [email protected]. I have info for you.

Yes you will regret it. It has had a hugely detrimental effect on our relationship with our paretns . We all boarded and we all wish we had not. If you dont have to dont do it.

My mother had always said 'no child of mine will go to boarding school unless they turn round and ask'; I did and she agreed and I went at 15. I was very bright; miserable, lonely and friendless at my (perfectly OK) day school until then. I was definitely not the obvious candidate to board, if being already socially happy and mixing well is a criterion. It was a very academic school indeed, and I won a scholarship (which was the deal with my parents). I really, really loved it; and actually quite missed it for a while after I left (very sad admission!). For me at least, and I think this is true for some though not all bright children, I am not capable of being socially happy - or even probably very nice - if I am not academically happy and the change of academic gear absolutely transformed my life. However, just 15 is quite different from (I assume?) 11; for an 11- year old I would be happier about proper weekly-boarding. And despite my very good experience, I would say that: a) yes, it changes the relationship with your parents for ever; maybe in a good way, maybe not, and of course ultimately that relationship changes anyway, but you shouldn't try and pretend to yourself that your child is not, to all intents and purposes, leaving home, because she is; b) part of what is so difficult about boarding is that if it is good it can be unforgettably and life-changingly good and influential; but if is bad it can be irrecoverably so - I'm sure we all know people in the latter category. So your daughter must be really clear that she can without the slightest hint of recrimination, disappointment or shame say that she would rather leave. Finally, my feeling is that no child is really very happy away at school - although plenty might be fine - unless something is wrong at home; but that something is not necessarily your fault or something you can do anything about - and it could, for instance, be an intolerable educational situation for an academic child. For me there was also some history of illness and worry at home and as an adult it is now clear to me that a big part of enjoying boarding so much was feeling, ironically, 'protected' from that, though even now I would find it hard to tell my mother so. Hope some of that is helpful.

Hmm: you might want to take a look at some of the comments here

Have to say that all the people I know who went to a public school (not me - I'm a grammar school girl) hated it, whether they boarded or not.

I went at 13 and loved it so not everybody hates it.

Buffysmum - what choice did you make in the end? Sheer nosiness I know but would be interested to know. I kept meaning to post - have 2 olders sisters who went to BS and wanted to point out that has an impact on the whole family not just the child going away. My sisters loved it though - but our Mum says (with 25 years hindsight) that all it apparently taught them to smoke, wear makeup and chase boys!!

Oh dear - just joined mumsnet after my son started (weekly) boarding last week. Perhaps this isn't the place for me?

Boarding school veteran here.

Gave me exposure to lots of sex, massively heavy drinking, drugs, self-harming, eating disorders and paedophiles. There were lots of fun bits too.

The problem is that the unreal (hothouse, artificial etc) atmosphere of a boarding school becomes reality for a child. But it's too distant from reality.

Don't know whether that is a good or a bad thing of course, but would prefer not to expose my DCs to the same.

Only read the OP.

I boarded, was very successful by most people's standards (and reasonably happy) - and would never let a child of mine board. Ever. It sucks.

kirstylee there are quite a few ion here with boarders ,look on the general education threads i think.My ds2 also started weekly boarding last week,how are you getting on?