Boarding schools

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Have any of you had children that went to a boarding school? I can't imagine any parent sending their 14 year old daughter or son to a boarding school to be away from their parents, but parents do this. I think its hard no matter if the child has autism or not. To be so far away at such a young age from your family.

I visited boarding school with 15. I dont think that its that terrible for children, because with 15 your already in puberty and most teenager wants too loosen their ties anyway a bit at this age.

Things that had been positive. There are clear written rules, and clear written punishments. No "Because today i had stress in my work so this time i found it terrible what you did and last time not etc..." So I know now (i got diagnosed as grown up) that the problem came as part from my asperger, but i was almost unable to predict how my father would act. So sometimes things i did were well, sometimes they made him scream, and then my sister came ranting me, why i did that right now, when it should have been obvious for me, that my father is in a bad mood. -.- Because of that i was really afraid of my father, because for me he was completely unpredictable. In boarding schools the rools are always the same and the punishment is always the same. You dont had to be afraid and to get screamed because you did something, that you already did another time when nobody bothered it. And no unwritten rules, where you are blamed that you should have known them, because everybody else knows them, so you have to know them also via mind reading. -.-.

And no daily surprises. Everything that is not routine is mentioned written (!) 2 weeks befor. No, "Hooray weve got surprise visitors.", no "Hooray, i forgot to tell you, but today a worker will come because of the yearly gas oven check..."

And no forced smalltalk interruptions. No one forces you to greet, no one forces you not to read during meals, noone forces you to "Hooray...s**thead xyz is here. You must come and enjoy him, everything else would be soooo unpolite." (Unpolite like surprising visitors?)

I also appreciated, that an educator feels himself responsible for your school sucess, that you follow the written rools and so on, but instead of parents they do not take failures of kids against their own self esteem. They dont run around like crazy, just because you didnt recognize your fathers football friend and didnt greet him or other s**t. There is no "Oh my God, what will the neighbors be thinking!" And they dont force their own values upon you, they do not rant because you are doing this sh***y (noone harming) hobby of yours all day and so on. If it isnt against the rules of the boarding schools and your school notes are well and it is harmless, you can do what you want and do not have to justify for doing useless s**t that your parents dont appreciate instead of the useless s**t your parents do on your own but appreciate. So building houses and surfaces for your home model train is so great, but building star ships model of star wars or surface for table top game is useless expensive s**t.

Upshot: I loved the boarding school and it gave me a lot of self esteem i wasnt able to build until than. For the first time i felt myself accepted the way i am, because the educators did not have the idea that i had to fit in every value of them. Just take care of the rules, do sufficient notes in school and they are satisfied.

I wouldn't because I would miss my son and because I would be afraid of my son being unable to self-advocate if there was any mental (or other types of) abuse. I would hope I would have a better chance of knowing what is going on at school with him home. I doubt that at 14 or 15 my son would be able to handle this. I will be happy if he'll be ready to be away when it is time for college.

I can also see where for some, like Schneekugel. it could be a positive thing, but I think it depends on the kid and the boarding school being a good match. Luckily, we are able to keep things pretty stable and predictable, and we never have anything like surprise guests because I am too rigid to deal with that, too.

With regards to going into a boarding school, the students then have at most 4 years of experience of dealing with living far away from their parents. I know that some boarding schools start out at the 8th grade. My cousin is currently in the 7th grade and is going to a Catholic school. She has to take these SSAT and TOEFL to get into boarding schools. Some accept SATs. I thought SAT is to get into college. She has to take TOEFL since she is not a US citizen. Anyone knows about these schools?

GLADCHEMMS

They represent the top 10 schools.

Groton
Lawrenceville
Andover (Phillips)-Presidents Bush went there.
Deerfield
Choate-JFK went here
Hotchkiss
Exeter (Phillips)
Middlesex
Milton
St Pauls

She definitely wants to apply to the top schools, but also has few more that is close by us. Mercersburg and Episcopal. Senator McCain went to Episcopal. The thing is with these boarding schools, the admin people do travel overseas for open house. But here is the downside. My cousin's dad did attend one of the open houses in Seoul but the entire thing was in English! It was awful! I would think that the school would provide translators. I guess most of these open houses that are down overseas, the prospective student and his or her parents are there. So the stupid can possibly translate the conversation to their parents. My cousin's dad knows very little English.

I have a lot of Aspergers traits.

I was sent to boarding school as a child.

It took 10 years for the nightmares to stop, and 20 to even begin to figure out what that place did to me.

We all know the social and sensory chaos of the playground, and associated bullying. Imagine confining your child to that 24/7. No advocation, no protection, no escape.

FORGET any garbage assurances by smiling teachers. FORGET glossy brochures or scholastic stats. FORGET all the "it was great for me" stories (that just means they were the perpetrators). It all means CRAP at 2am when they come for you.

NEVER NEVER send a CHILD to a boarding school, let alone an Aspie.

My husband went to boarding school when he was around 15. His family moved around every few years due to work and rather than disrupt him and have him go some pretty bad schools, they put him a boarding school for the last few years. He is NT and he hated it, he said it was the worst few years of his life BUT, he wouldn't change it and it taught him some valuable life lessons, independence and he got a good education. Sometimes it's the best option of the family at that time.
I also have a friend who chose to go to boarding school because all her friends went and she had a blast...

That said, It's highly unlikely I would send my Aspie son unless he wanted to go...

I can't imagine how hard it must be for some people to be in boarding school. If you're bullied and you go to an ordinary school, at least you get to go home each night and cry into your pillow, in the privacy of your own bedroom. For me, it would have been hell. I went on a school trip, for a week, and that was more than enough.

As a parent, there's absolutely no way I'd do this to my daughter. On a more selfish note, I enjoy her company, getting to say 'Night night', each night, and giving her a kiss and cuddle before she goes into class, each morning.

It WAS not great for me, it was marvelous and i was absolutely happy about it. And i didnt perpetrate anyone. ^^ I dont know, why at 2am when i was peacefully learning or sleeping, this should mean crap for you.

I accept, your experiences of a bad school. But i do not accept, that your school is the only existing boarder school in the world.

From my oppinion, if the kid wants to visit the school on his own and wants to try the border school on its own (as it was for me), let him try and decide on his own if he likes it or not.

In my border school you had much freedom as long as you did acceptable in school. So very much was offered, but few things were ordered. I was offered a breakfast in a great group room in the morning, but i was not forced to stay there, so i usually made myself some sandwiches and left again. I was offered a midday meal from 11:30 until 15:00 but not forced to go there with all my classmates, who went immidiately when our lunch break started, but waited around 30 Minutes so the diner room was almost empty.

There was always an educator on the floor level as an offer that i can go to him on my own, if it had troubles or just wanted to talk and so on. But as long as you did well, they never forced you to talk to them, and even when you did not well in a part, the talking was always about how to get it on, and how to get better in that part. No nagnagnag...

We were offered a standard room design, but as long as we matched the one bed, one desk, one cabinet/student rool, it was free to us to move the furniture around so i built myself my hidden corner.

You were offered to do whatever you wanted in your (spare) free time (as long it wasnt illegal) as long as you did well in school, when you had problems in school you got more afternoon/evening learning hours.

And in the learning hours they really watched that it was quiet. So if you had something to do with noise, like constructing plans, you had to go into another room then the students who were learning from books.

I accept that you made bad experiences, but i also want you to respect that i had good one and not to insult me of being a perpetrator/bully just out of fun. -.-

I always wanted to go to one and tried to find a way to swing it to send at least one of mine, but we couldn't afford it.