Not only were Native students separated from their family members and communities living on the reservations, but also from those relatives or friends who attended the boarding schools along with them. Both in the American and Canadian institutions, children were divided into different groups based on their age and sex (Haig-Brown 73). The schools did not allow much social interaction between the different groups, therefore, siblings, cousins and friends rarely met each other. The separation of family members and friends inside the school made children feel even more lonely, powerless and vulnerable (71).
In the U.S., it became a policy that boarding schools limited both the frequency and duration of students’ visits home, claiming that they would
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Mental and Physical Health of Boarding School Students and Their Parents
The boarding school experience in the U.S. and in Canada affected both Native students and their families in destructive ways and had terrible impacts on their mental and physical health. The practice of removing children from their parents led to numerous problems in families, while children in boarding schools suffered from the loss of their identities, as well as from different forms of abuse (Barton et al. 296). Moreover, students both in American and Canadian boarding schools often became sick during the school year and carried various diseases home to the reservations (Barton et al. 296; Child 79).
Separating children from their parents had detrimental effects on their families. Parents, heartbroken because of the loss of their children often felt guilty for not being able to save them from the abuses they had to endure in boarding schools (Haig-Brown 171; Sellars 52). Moreover, the agony of being separated from their children, the sense of guilt and the continual anxiety concerning their children’s health in boarding schools often caused parents so much distress that they tried to ease the pain with alcohol or drugs (Sellars 52; Child