Diagrama de flujo del proceso llevado a cabo para la elaboración de pan

Adjusting to life without their children was difficult for every parent interviewed or who participated in focus groups. Parents retold, many in tears while they did so, of the sadness they experienced driving or flying back home without their child. Many parents spoke of supporting their child through their homesickness while suffering themselves with their inability to adjust to the change of not having their child with them. Marcia (2002) defined adolescence as a period of time when adults experience major changes in their lives; the language parents used to describe their experiences of sending their children to boarding school was consistent with Marcia’s findings.

“I think more than anything, that my role had disappeared because I didn’t work for anyone else when they were at home, so once they had

125 gone I thought, ‘Oh great, what do I do now?’…I thought I was doing very well but I would find myself in the (local town) sitting at a coffee shop for a long time, not doing much, I think I was a bit depressed.” (3P54F) [Node: Separation anxiety]

Distance proved to be a significant contributing factor to a parent’s ability to feel comfortable when leaving their children at boarding school. Parents whose children had to fly home or whose home was a long drive away all spoke of the difficulty of leaving their children at boarding school, knowing if something went wrong it would be some time before they could physically get to them. Many of these families did not have the capacity to visit the school a number of times before starting at boarding school, heightening their concern.

“So it was huge because it’s a flight down, you’ve seen the school probably once, and then you go back again.” (3P250FGF) [Node: Separation anxiety]

While parents understood that it was likely they would experience feelings of distress when adjusting to not having their children with them, this understanding did little to ease their concerns regarding leaving their children.

“It’s all normal and we’ve all been there before, so don’t feel bad and like you’re falling to pieces, it’s just natural and you have to go through that.” (1P43FGF) [Node: Separation anxiety]

6.1.2 Shock

Despite parents preparing themselves and their children for the move into boarding, this did not mitigate against the shock some parents experienced when it was time to leave their children.

“As the parents you are trying to adjust to, ‘Oh my gosh, this is actually happening, this is real now.’” (1P176F) [Node: Separation anxiety]

One of the many difficulties parents spoke of was overcoming the feeling of abandoning their children, when as a parent they felt they should be caring for them. Parents were reluctant to relinquish the responsibility of being the primary carer for their children.

126 “So for us it’s a shock, we are letting our first born go off, and we are no longer the primary care giver, and that is a really hard thing to deal with.” (5P263F) [Node: Separation anxiety]

6.1.3 Letting go

One of the greatest struggles for many parents was coming to terms with parting from their children when they were aged twelve; this felt unnatural for parents, who worried they had underprepared their children. Despite in many cases parents knowing their children would transition into boarding school at this age, many expressed their inability to let go, which may have inhibited their capacity to prepare both themselves and their children to the best of their ability.

“For my husband and I anyway, that point of view…our first child is leaving home. And if your child is leaving home, you would think ‘Well, I’ve equipped them with some skills…I have coached them for x number of years.’ Before you become a parent and have a baby, you’re thinking; I have 18 years with this child, and then you send them off to boarding school when they’re 12. You’re sitting there thinking – we lost five years, and you don’t acknowledge that.” (5P263F) [Node: Understanding parent perspective]

6.1.4 Grief

Overcoming grief was described by parents in a way that was aligned with the Kubler-Ross (1969) five stages of grief and supported the findings of grey literature in the field (Dalton, 23 March 2013; McNeilage, 2013b). Parents described feeling ill equipped to overcome their emotional response at being parted from their children.

“Just at the most fundamental level of all you just cry and cry and cry when they first go away. It’s awful, it’s just like abandoning your child, even though intellectually you know they’re in a safe place, it’s a wonderful school, they have all these people looking after them. You know that in your brain but emotionally it’s just vile.” (3P192FGF) [Node: Separation anxiety]

127 Most parents described watching their children suffer from homesickness and feeling equally distressed. Despite their own emotional turmoil the majority of parents spoke of the importance of remaining positive when speaking with their children.

“It was very emotionally draining and we resolved that even though we had an emotional moment ourselves, we never did it in front of the kids, we were very careful.” (2P299F) [Node: Separation anxiety]

Siblings of young people who went to boarding school showed signs of suffering from the grief of no longer having their sibling with them. This was made even more challenging when the siblings were young and found it difficult to understand where their sibling had gone and why.

“She was missing them, they were missing her…her (brother) was crying after getting off the phone with her. We were grieving, not just (brother) and I, but the younger siblings (too). I was trying to explain to our six year old where his sister had gone and why.” (5P263F) [Node: Separation anxiety]

6.1.5 Worry

Parents worried about many things when their children went to boarding school including worrying about their children finding friends, settling in well, getting on with the staff, coping with the academic requirements and how they would manage to remember everything. For some parents, who were boarders themselves, their own experiences of boarding fed their concern.

“I was worried for (name) as to how he was going to fit in at boarding school and even now (I worry). I get a hollow feeling in my stomach on Sunday afternoons, so I was worried for (name) because it was bringing back feelings from when I was at school.” (3P247FGM) [Node: Separation anxiety]

Overwhelmingly, parents described the daily thoughts they had of their children, constantly wondering and worrying about their wellbeing.

“It felt like we had lost our arm, because we were constantly thinking ‘What is she doing tonight? Did it go all right today? What subjects did she have?” (5P263F) [Node: Not knowing what is going on]

128

6.2 International perspective

Parents from remote and regional Australia often spoke of the expectation that their children would attend boarding school. For many of these families they understood this was a likely outcome of living where they did. Conversely, parents of international students had a significantly different experience. These parents spoke of the difficulty of making the decision to send their children abroad to be educated. Parents of Asian heritage who were interviewed, discussed how hard it was for them to explain to family members the benefits of their decision. Family members worried the children would become disconnected from their heritage and were concerned that sending children to boarding school from the age of twelve was too young to safeguard against this. “Convincing the relatives around you, because I think that was a very hard one for us because a lot of our relatives would just come out and say being Asian parents a lot of them would come up to you and tell you, “The kids are best with you, why are you sending them off to a Western society at such a young age? They will lose all their cultural influence.’ I think that was a hard challenge.” (1P167F) [Node: Understanding parent perspective]