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I know 3 people who attended 3 different boarding schools in my area. They all happen to be successful business owners. However, each of them has expressed resentment that they were "shipped away by their parents." My friends seem to have a lot of negativity about it though they are doing very well professionally.
I would think that is about the worst thing somebody could do their child. Talk about making them feel unwanted. I don't know why a parent would do such a thing.
It depends on the situation- I have a friend and her child asked to go off to school- he wasn't fitting in and kids were drinking- She loves her children dearly- I understand what people mean -I can't imagine sending mine off but if it was better for the child I would do it- It is so expensive though-worse than state colleges.
I agree with hless. It varies. It depends on the individual, on the schools being compared, and the overall situation and the reasons behind the decision. I have a friend who attended boarding school (by choice) and loved it. I have another friend who attended a boarding school as a day student; I think that was difficult for her.
For some kids, they're probably better off in boarding school. In families where the parents are working really, really long hours (which does happen) and wouldn't see their child all that much anyway, then maybe the kid would be better off in a more supportive boarding school environment coupled with intensive family time during the summer and vacations.
I'm only talking about high school, though. I don't know anyone with any experience at boarding school for younger kids, although I have toured several boarding schools that had middle schools. They seemed warm and friendly and nurturing. I wouldn't do it myself, but the schools really did try to create a sense of family away from family.
I used to teach at a boarding school. Admission to this school was highly selective so it is really not a representative sample. Most of the kids that graduated from that school went to places like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc. They would have most likely gone to those schools regardless though.
Now there were a lot of kids there from all over the world. They rarely saw their families and many of them were resentful of that but they did like the school and their classmates.
I went to a college program in the summer before 11th grade at Boston University. One of the boys that was in my program was telling us that he was home for a week from his boarding school before he was shipped off to BU. He resented his parents and questioned why they had kids if they didn't want to raise them. He was very independent, but I would think that it would really suck to feel that way about your parents.
Boarding schools are, and have always been, temporary storage for the spawn of the rich.
Actually, that's quite untrue. I used to work at a boarding school, and the majority of our students were from middle-class families. Only a small handful came from wealthy families; a greater number came from lower-income families, assisted by scholarship funds. This was true for all the schools in our area (there are a number of boarding schools in my state); perhaps you're thinking of the stereotypical "Swiss boarding school."
Some students attend boarding school because they need smaller classes and a structured environment that public schools can't provide. Others might have parents temporarily stationed overseas (one year, we had a pair of sisters whose parents had been assigned to the Middle East) or, as someone else mentioned, have parents who are frequently on the road.
I agree that the outcome depends to a great degree on the child, the family dynamic, and the reason behind the decision to attend boarding school. In general, most kids adapt and do just fine.
I know several people who went to boarding schools, mostly in the Northeast and they really run gambit of outcomes...Most of them came from the upper and upper middle class though. Some of them ended up as college dropouts and some ended up as professors.
Overall at the college I attended, compared to people I know who went to public schools, people who went to boarding school did not perform as well, but it seems to me the reason for that was simply, because most people who go to preparatory boarding schools do go onto college even if they are not prepared for it while most public school students who are not prepared to go to college simply don't go.
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