Can a boarding school tame a naughty child?

Whenever Shimila Nakitende, a mother of four, gets frustrated by her children’s behaviour, the first thing she thinks about is to take them to a boarding school as a measure of taming them.

According to Nakitende, a boarding school is the best way to discipline naughty children because it deprives them of some privileges such as nice meals at home, watching television, visiting relatives and friends and the shopping she normally does with the children.

Is it a myth or reality?

She is convinced that when she takes her child to boarding school, she will reform and become obedient. “Many of my friends’ children who were badly behaved changed after taking them to boarding schools. I do not know what happens but there is a way boarding schools instill values and manners,” she says.

“My aunt applied this measure on one of her sons who had become a menace; he hardly listened, was rude and whenever he was blamed for his mistakes, he would throw tantrums or even walk away. Whenever I tasked him to do house chores, he blatantly refused. 

When he was enrolled in a boarding school, he started missing home and he reformed completely,” Nakitende explains.  Aziz Mandela, a second year student in Bugema University, who is pursuing a bachelor of mechanical engineering, attests to this. He believes he would not be the person he is today had his parents not taken him to a boarding school.

“When I was still a day scholar, I was never at home. After classes, I would go to hang out with my friends or play football all day long, only to return at night to have supper,” he recalls. Mandela joined boarding school in Primary Seven until he completed A-Level. He believes this was a blessing in disguise because it not only improved his academic performance but also his behaviour. 

Hawa Mpanga, a counsellor for youth and women in Iburkan Islamic Centre in Ssumbwe Bulenga, says taking children to boarding school has merits and demerits.  According to her, boarding schools improve performance of academically weak children, because they have enough time to revise than day scholars.

Mpanga says there was a time she was tasked to counsel a child who was once well behaved as a day scholar, but when he joined boarding, peer influence got him adopting bad manners. 

She says boarding school can either tame a child or spoil him, just like day school can either spoil or tame a child, depending on the manners of the child and the group she associates with.

Peer pressure

 “He joined a gang of other students and they started doing all manner of evil things at school. On several occasions, his parents were asked to pay for the damages their son caused to the school. He was also suspended several times. But through various counselling sessions, the boy opened up to me and told me about his group,” Mpanga explains.

She emphasises that it is not a good idea to take stubborn children to boarding school as a measure to tame them. She also blames the bad character of children who are in day schools on parents who never make time for their children but leave them to househelps to mentor them.

She says most parents leave home very early in the morning for work and return late when children are sleeping. Taking them to boarding school helps to avert from bad behaviour because they are watched 24/7 by school authorities.

Spend time with children

“I wish parents, especially mothers, would get two days off from their busy schedules and spend time with their children to monitor their behaviour. Even those that get a day off, do not stay the whole day at home; that is the day they go visit friends and relatives, or visit saloons and they come back home late,” she explains.

Pastor Bruce Magala of Jesus Above Ministries in Gulu City, says parents choose boarding schools for different reasons. Magala says most parents take their children to boarding schools to relieve them from waking up very early in the morning to go to school because they want to avoid traffic jam on the roads, thereby making them not to have enough sleep and end up dosing in classrooms.

Independence

Children in boarding schools learn to become independent and more responsible.  They are taught to do most of the work without assistance and they become conscious that if work is not done, they will be subjected to punishment.

Magala says some parents do not wish to take children to boarding schools because they would miss to bond with them. They think it is a punishment that deprives children of parental love.

Currently, there are weekly boarding facilities, where a child stays at school during the week and goes home for weekends; full boarding, where a student stays at school until the end of term.  According to www.gettherightschool.co.uk, when a child goes to boarding school,  it may be difficult for them to adjust to being at home during holidays. With the extra academic and extracurricular opportunities, children are subjected to less free time and more rules.