Boarding Schools - Discipline or Depression?
Sending your children to boarding schools is seen as a mark of class and privilege in many families. Children from the age of 8 or less are shipped off to boarding schools that will guarantee them better discipline, social connections and opportunities. People who grew up in boarding schools instead of their homes are considered to be brilliant, smart and competent by the outside world. But are boarding schools all good and a secret to success?Â
Boarding Schools – Discipline or Depression?
First of all, children are not only sent to boarding schools for better education, but also because of an unstable home environment. When both parents are fighting or have no time for the child, they come to a conclusion that it is better to send their children off to a place where they will be well taken care of. But the child who leaves their home leaves with the belief that they are not worthy enough to stay home or that their parents do not care about them. These children have to live in a usually sterile place with strangers without a warning. If the child was told about it before, they would have an easier time adjusting to the new environment. But in most cases, the parents pull the rug right from underneath the kids. They cannot help but feel abandoned
While for a portion of children, their boarding school experience is marked by self-development, there is another portion of kids who become withdrawn and emotionally stunted due to the lack of warmth and love in their childhood. The strict rules of their boarding schools would not provide them with the care and affection they required to grow up to be emotionally well developed human beings. Instead, they might experience something known as a boarding school syndrome which is characterized by inability to express and experience intense emotions. These individuals are uncomfortable with emotions since their emotional needs have never been met before. Since they have never received the love they craved as a child, their mind begins to expect that lack of love and attachment later in life. They would have trouble asking for help and connecting with another person on a deeper level.
Their future partners would feel left out since these individuals fear intimacy and shy away from situations where they have to be emotionally vulnerable. From the outside, they might look put together and happy. But on the inside, quite a lot of individuals who grew up in this system feel unable to receive or reciprocate emotional support. This is very likely to drive deeper wedges between them and their parents, friends, spouses and even children. It is not uncommon to see a lot of people who grew up in boarding schools to struggle with maintaining relationships since they put up an emotional wall that no one can climb over.
Boarding schools are not inherently evil. Your child’s experience at boarding schools depends on your child’s personality and wishes. The decision to move your child to such an establishment has to be a joint discussion where the child has a say in it. Ripping your children away from home when they crave familial support and love is one of the worst things you can do to a child. It will be much better for your family and your child if you send them to boarding schools after they have spent most of their childhood at home. When children are emotionally more independent from you and ready to explore, that is a better time for boarding schools. If you are a parent that cannot be swayed at all about the importance boarding school education, make sure that you still spend time and effort on building a secure relationship with your child.
