Are boarding schools more harmful than beneficial?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Not many distractions in a well-proctored study hall. |
Anonymous
|
DD is at boarding school. For her, it’s a great experience. I can’t comment on harmful vs beneficial. I think it’s just different. We have all the resources of a typical DCUM family.
She has become more independent since going to BS. She does her own laundry and when she forgets she wears dirty clothes. Her dorm mom doesn’t make sure she’s in class on time; if she oversleeps, she gets detention. If she gets detention, she misses sports practice. If she misses practice, she can’t play in the weekly games. Guess who quickly learned to get to class on time. M-H there is a 90 min mandatory study hall in the library. No phones permitted. As you go up in grades, study hall can move to the common rooms and then as a Sr with a specific gpa, you’re allowed to study in your room. My kid thrives in communal living. She loves the built in social life and access to after school activities. I talk to my DD more now than when she lived at home. She calls every morning before school and every evening to tell me about her day. I know what her friends are doing, what drama is happening on the floor, the horrible dinner that was served. It’s a much nicer conversation than talking with the sullen teenager that would occasionally materialize from her room to find food. As with everything, BS works for some kids and doesn’t work for others. DS will not be going to BS as it’s not the right environment for him. |
Anonymous
Except other students (breathing, walking around, etc.) |
Anonymous
| My father went to Exeter as no school in the city (Philadelphia) could keep up with him and he had no cohorts at that level. It was an eye-opening experience as he was on a full scholarship, African-American and middle class. He says that this experience changed the whole course of his life and made him who he is today. |
Anonymous
| Some kids don't have a good home life so it could be more beneficial. |
Anonymous
+1 Very similar story. I’m also somewhat confused by the post. OP is questioning whether boarding school is a bad idea because there are too many supports in place? That is a unique perspective. And not accurate in my experience. I learned to fly alone domestically and internationally at 14. Get myself from Logan airport to school (as someone who had never seen a taxi). Select courses, manage a schedule, devote 4 hours a day to independent study, think on my feet and engage in discussion with very smart people, interact with students from wildly different places all over the globe, different religions and customs, on and on. Not to mention being a poor kid who learned to eat properly at a formal dinner and those sorts of silly but important things. Yes, they did our laundry. It wasn’t as luxurious as it sounds. There are supports, but you’re forced to be far more independent as a teen than someone living at home. And that’s frankly an ancillary benefit. The school as a school was the most important thing that ever happened to me. |
Anonymous
|
My parents sent me to boarding school. They tried initially at 13 but I didn't get in (I screwed up the interview intentionally as I didn't want to leave home). They tried again at 16 for the final couple of years of school and I went for a year. I hated it. I totally flunked everything and had to redo.
For some people it's the best experience ever, for others it's hell. It just depends on temperament and preferences. |
Anonymous
|
OP seems to want people to support their mistaken assumption that boarding schools coddle students and all their peers are wealthy and privileged. I went to boarding school, and as a PP said, it was MORE racially and socioeconomically diverse than the wealthy suburban public school I might otherwise have attended. Boarding school forces kids to learn to be independent. My senior year of HS, when I traveled alone to admitted students' days at various colleges, everyone seemed surprised that I didn't need Mommy holding my hand. Why on earth would I need my parents to take time off from work to travel with me to a college that was 50 miles from my boarding school, but 1,000 miles from my parents' house? I took a Greyhound bus there (yes, as a teenage girl traveling alone, and yes, there were some creepy weirdos at the bus station, but I survived). It wasn't hard.
When I went to college, I was able to hit the ground running, while some of the other kids were crying about being homesick, and also realizing that their public high school didn't prepare them to compete with kids who went to Deerfield or whatever. -also a former latchkey kid, it's not a mark of distinction |
Anonymous
because my kid visited and loved it. |
Anonymous
| i went to college with alot of boarding school kids and I will always associate the boarding schools (those mentioned here) as drug havens. |
Anonymous
|
I went to boarding school at 14. I sure hope there are more supports now, because when I was there it was pretty Lord of the Flies - not because of bullying or anything, but just that the adults (to me) were sort of like the adults in Charlie Brown. They were there, but kids were the real voices in my head.
They did our laundry, but I had to carry it in a bag half a mile from my dorm to the laundry facility (in the winter in subzero temps). So most people did as much laundry as they could in the sink. The laundry also turned everyone's whites pink, since our school color was maroon and the school issued atheletic warm up pants bled in the wash. No one checked if you went to meals, went to bed, got up for class, did your homework. I was too shy to go to meals alone and so my freshman year I subsisted on Snickers bars from the basement vending machine. My kid is now the age I was when I left for boarding school. I am not sending him, because he doesn't want to go and he is in a fine school where he is. But I would send a kid who wanted to go and who would thrive with that level of independence. Some do. I eventually did. Took me a little floundering, but by the time I was a junior I was pretty much a grown up, and handled my life capably. |
Anonymous
This is just not true. In DC boarding is not popular, but in New England and New York it is very, very common. Like, of my private K-8 class in Boston of 30 kids, only 4 didn't attend a boarding school. And this is still the case today. Your understanding of the boarding school world is limited. Additionally, I would say most of the day student (public or private) kids with whom I attended college struggled far more with independence than the boarding school kids did freshman year. You make your own choices at boarding school in a wide variety of areas because you don't have parents on top of you in so many ways. Boarding schools give kids a lot of structure, but then withing that structure, kids make their choices. So you have classes, then dinner, then study hall then lights out (for younger students) at X time- but beyond that, kids have total freedom to do actual homework or screw around, actually go to sleep or stay up, eat crap food or healthy food, etc. No parent actually checking to see if homework is complete or that they ate 5 bags of chips for dinner. That said, its not for everyone or every kid. And its very expensive. I likely won't send my kids to boarding school because in DC its not common and its really far coming from down here to get to the good schools. But its still a wonderful experience and option worth looking at for many families. |
Anonymous
| I am sorry, but I don't need my 14 year old to be independent, and I don't care if they go to HPY when they are older, that is not the goal for having kids. I want my kids at home with me. My DD is a Freshman this year and it was like my 18 years were up and he is gone, the time flew by. I am sure it works for some people, but I do not see the purpose of shipping my kids off and seeing them at holiday's. That is not why I became a parent. P.S. I never did a load of laundry until I went to college...not hard, I figured it all out! |
Anonymous
Huh? I went to boarding school and nobody held my hand at all! Yes there was laundry service, but lots of parents do their kids laundry. I learned time management skills -- no one there to remind me to do homework, or stop watching TV, or hang out with my friends. I learned to live with people who were very different from me, including one year an AA girl from Florida, and another year a very wealthy daughter of a federal judge. I learned I had to eat at mealtimes, no in between snacks. I learned to find interesting things to do on the weekends since there was no mall, like what my friends did back home. I learned to solve problems vis-a-vis my peers b/c that is where most of the "support" comes in at boarding school -- from student leaders. In fact, I would argue that boarding school teaches you independence the way the first year of college does. Now am I sending my kid? No. But I don't think you understand the culture of boarding school at all. |
Anonymous
BS is definitely not about getting into HYP anymore. I would guess it is probably harder to get into these schools from BS nowadays. And parenting is not about you -- it is about what is best for your child. It's great if your child thrives in a local public or private school, but some kids need and want the BS experience for a variety of reasons. Try to be less judgmental. |