Comments on: Bullying, girls and the darker side of boarding school

By: BPB Member Highlights — British Parent Bloggers

BPB Member Highlights — British Parent Bloggers — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:55:21 +0000

[...] | Least has written a very strong post about her experiences of boarding school, I found it a real [...]

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:57:55 +0000

I think private schools turn out a certain kind of person and you also have to be a certain kind of person to survive school unscathed. I would have reservations about sendind any child of mine to a boarding school and I can totally understand why you are hesitatnt too.

By: Ella

Ella — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:02:38 +0000

Kristen – what happened to your husband was terrible and, sadly, I’m sure that kind of thing is not unusual.

TUA – I haven’t posted about how I taught him to deal with bullies. We read a couple of good books and I will try to find them and post about what I thought were the most effective strategies.

By: TUA

TUA — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:38:58 +0000

“When I took Harry out of school last year the first thing I did was start teaching him how to deal with bullies because we thought he’d be going straight back to another school somewhere. ”

My heart really goes out to you for what you have experienced.

I’d be very interested to know if you have already posted, or if you would post, about how you taught your son to deal with bullies.

Thanks for your blog.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:33:26 +0000

Your private school experience sounds pretty horrific, worse even than my public school one. Actually, I didn’t find my school to be all that awful, though the girls were terrible to one another. It seems that’s the way it is every where.

I agree with Frally in that school is not at all a natural environment for children. It’s a bizarre little world in which you are surrounded by peers just your age and a few select adults. I’m not certain how anyone can really thrive (or mature well) in that setting.

Little children should not be made to “toughen up” because they are forced to deal with other children who have been taught that bullying is acceptable. My husband was beaten several times a week on the school bus to and from school because of his “big mouth”. He was a smart kid and knew a lot of “big” words and it got him into trouble. Then his teachers would yell at him for arriving at school with his shirts all torn and dirty and blood on his face. Nice. Needless to say, my husband is very supportive of homeschooling.

By: Sophie

Sophie — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:06:14 +0000

Georgina sounds like a psycho.

I would never send my children to boarding school because you don’t have that interaction at the end of the day to find out if something is going on and stop it. Your story just confirms that and I think you are right not to send Harry to private school.

By: ella

ella — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 17:08:02 +0000

I agree, Frally, and which is why I think there is no excuse for schools not to have to zero-tolerance policy towards bullying. And which is why I took my son out of school when his headteacher implied that the form of bullying he was on the receiving end of was ‘normal playground rough and tumble’. It’s not that I want to over-protect my son because I know that won’t do him any favors in the long run but learning about ‘life’ the hard way in school or in the school playground is not what I have in mind for any of my children.

But, the attitude of toughening up in preparation for real life is the normal attitude at school (even though, as you say, we would file assault charges as adults) and if a school thinks that that is okay I don’t know how we as parents challenge it, except for not allowing our children to attend there.

By: Frally

Frally — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:44:32 +0000

‘toughen up because real life is hard’ – can I just stress the fact that a schoolyard is nowhere close to what “real life” is like? The attitude of “toughening up” towards bullying is something that is unique to schools. As adults, if we experience half of what children experience daily at school, we don’t “toughen up”, we file assault charges. Now, I’m a big advocate of kids “toughening up” to life, but I prefer they do it in the real world rather than the artificial microcosm that is school.
Anyway, I know you’re having a tough time with everything at the moment, but don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re achieveing more than you know. Harry’s happiness and confidence is evidence of that.