Simran Basnet, 16, a student at a boarding school in Kathmandu, comes home once every month. But when she does, she mostly stays locked up in her room, coming out only for meals. She chatters away incessantly on the phone but answers to her parents in monosyllables. For her mother, Mira Basnet, it’s like her daughter is physically there but mentally out of reach.
“It’s almost like she isn’t there at all,” says the worried mother who has no idea how to get her daughter to communicate.[break]
And Mira isn’t alone to be facing such a dilemma. Many parents who have sent their children off to boarding schools find that their children are less interactive at home.
Samman Bikram Thapa, 19, who was in boarding school since grade four, was considered one of the most outgoing students at his school. On the contrary, he rarely, if ever, spoke at home. Instead, he would watch TV or play computer games. Thapa claims that such behavior is the trademark of many hostel kids as they spend most of their time among friends.
“They find it difficult to connect with their parents and feel their parents cannot relate to them and their life at hostel,” says Thapa.
A hosteller gets two days a month and a month’s autumn break during Dashain and Tihar to spend with his/her family. This indeed is remarkably short when compared to the rest of the year they get to spend with their friends as boarders. Thapa claims that due to this fact, friends garner more affection from each other than as children to their families.
Dr. Nandita Sharma, Associate Professor at the Central Department of Psychology, TU, who has handled such cases of isolation of hostel students, says that because of the fact that hostel children grow up away from their families, they miss the chance of decent socialization.
“Parents need to spend a good amount of time with their young kids in order to give them proper upbringing,” she says.
According to her, these kids feel that their parents don’t care about them. That is why, they believe, they were sent to hostels. And thus they don’t socialize with their parents and relatives. She agrees that for most hostel kids, their friends are a greater priority than their parents.
Bibek Karki, 37, a teacher, parent and coincidentally once a hostel child himself, also agrees that hostels in a way make kids socially awkward. He says that students at hostels are exposed to others of their own age group where they fit perfectly, which could be a reason why they feel ill at ease elsewhere.
But Priti Kharel, 18, begs to differ. Having stayed at a boarding school for nine years, she agrees that hostel children miss family functions and feel awkward when they sometimes attend them. However,, according to her, at hostel, kids meet a lot of people from different social, ethnic and psychological backgrounds. This way they get to learn very important life skills of dealing with people. In fact, as hostel students are acquainted with different kinds of people, meeting new people and talking to them is not much of an issue.
“The only awkwardness is until they go to talk to someone. But I don’t think hostel students are, by default, socially passive,” she says.
“I attended a boarding school myself and I can honestly say that it has taught me a lot. I’m a better person today because of my hostel life experience,” she adds.
Karki, on the other hand, also thinks that most children who have been living in hostels don’t consider themselves to be responsible to their families.
“But it’s undisputedly true that most children take their families quite lightly. They feel that everything works out in a family. So they don’t have to worry much as they believe their parents are the ones responsible for their family, not them,” says Karki.
Many parents blame the school for their children’s social ineptness.
“Boarding schools do not allow parents to meet their children even on Saturdays. They believe it will make children independent and prepare them for the time when they will perhaps go abroad to study,” says Hari Ram Bhattarai, 42, a businessman by profession. “What they don’t realize is that such a rule is creating a barrier between us and our children. Nowadays, our children don’t miss us at all,” he adds.
Bhattarai chose to bring his son back from hostel for he feared that the gap between his son and him would further widen. He complains, boarding schools make it difficult for children when they enter the real world. According to him, boarding schools keep students in a bubble and thus they do not get exposed to the same troubles and life experiences as students who attend schools as day students.
At most boarding schools, students don’t have to worry about things such as laundry and cooking. The hostel does everything for them. All they have to do is study. Many students never actually learn to wash their clothes or cook. Some parents say that when their child comes home from school, they expect her to be helpful and assist them in some household chores. Most conflicts arise when the child is reluctant to help for he doesn’t know how to wash or cook or do cleaning. And the conflict reaches a new level when he/she is reluctant to learn, either.
Bhattrai also adds that these children lose their affection for their parents when they are too strict.
“They love their parents only when they are soft or when they comply with all their requests.” He also says that hostel children, having stayed away from their parents for a long time, fail to think of them as their parents. Instead, they instinctively treat them as their friends, showing little respect and not complying with their advice.
Sajal Dhital, 18, himself once a hostel student, says that kids who have lived in hostels and their parents generally develop conflicting thoughts, given that they haven’t been home during most of their childhood. According to Dhital, hostel children fear that their parents may not understand them completely as their world is different from their parents.
“They fear that their parents won’t let them choose what’s best for them because they have not been with their kids for a long time and they do not know their kids’ preferences,” he says.
On the contrary, some children actually miss their home while at hostel. And yet these children go along pretty well with their friends.
Dhruba Poudel, 19, another once-a-hostel-student, says that some children who stay in hostels during their teens or later are more likely to have better relationships with their parents than those who have stayed in hostel from a very young age. He argues that compared to early childhood, people are not as susceptible to ‘replace their parents with their friends’ in their teens. “So, some hostel kids may not be as socially insolent and impetuous as many others,” Poudel says. “Every individual has a different perception.”
It is disputable if boarding schools produce socially inept children, or not. History records many famous personalities who went to boarding schools, such as JF
Kennedy and Mark Zuckerberg. Nonetheless, one thing that is evident is that decent socialization is an integral part of human life. Efforts have to be made from all sides to overcome this issue; parents have to spend quality time with their children; children should, in turn, try to communicate more; and at the same time, schools, too, should talk about this issue with the students and make them aware of the consequences. All in all, everyone should try to bridge the gap.
ashis.d.upadhyay@gmail.com
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