To not tell DD of grandparents death until after exams

I’m going to add to the ‘it’s a terrible idea’ posts. I was very close to my grandmother and wouldn’t have forgiven my parents if they’d kept it from me. I got a lot of closure from seeing her in the chapel of rest and saying my goodbyes in hospital. You’ll not be able to hide it and it wouldn’t be good for your own mental health to try.

I know you are trying to protect her but I fear you’ll do the opposite. You normally have a degree of notice and choice funeral so you would have a chance to plan around exams

As a 34 year old adult, I think I’d struggle looking back at my mum if she took away me attending my nans funeral in replacement of exams.

My Dad died on the wednesday of week 2 of sons GCSes. We told him on the Friday after exams on Thu and Friday. He then had half term then 2 more weeks of exams. Didn't feel right to delay any longer than that as he knew Grandad was ill and kept asking about him. Delayed funeral til after exams

I work invigilating exams and the best thing you can do is contact the schools exams officer and explain the situation. They will be able to give you clearer answers

I would never forgive you, or trust you again if you did that to me.

You say she wouldn't notice as you're not a big crier but the atmosphere in the home will be different, she'll at least sense something is wrong and will probably be thinking worst case scenario anyway!

And I'm going through similar with my son and my ex's mum, she's not got very long left to live either and he's about to start his GCSEs too.

But you're going to potentially deny her the chance to say goodbye to her grandparent, and you get exam timetables months in advance we already have ours - surely you'd arrange the funeral around that if necessary?

But surely you just arrange the funeral for a day/time DD can attend?
My beloved grandad died during my o levels - my parents wouldn't let me visit him in his final days because exams and it's one of the big regrets of my life.

@Lucielue79

Is there a tutor at her school who has a pastoral care remit for her year to whom you could speak confidentially in the next few weeks? They may be able to advise on how to broach the situation with the teachers for the subjects she will be taking.

Even if young, when it comes to death you don't necessarily need to protect them. Just address in an age appropriate way. Kids are resilient and accept things.

No, I'd never withhold something like that. A similar thing was done to me by my well-meaning parent, and it really shook my trust. It's important to me to be able to assume that everything is OK because id be told if it wasn't. To know that someone would take it upon themselves to hide something important made me feel less secure and more anxious.

Children don't need to be protected from unpleasant realities, unless they are very young. If you keep your daughter in the dark, the message you are sending her is 'I don't think you can cope'.

I dont think you should hide this. I've had quite a lot of deaths in my family and the children and young adults have always coped really well because there is open discussions around what is happening and what to expect. Its hard but you can't push away the difficult parts of life. I'm sorry you're going through this and you only want to protect her but you can't unfortunately.

I’m sorry I didn’t see your earlier post that you had gone through something similar (as did I), sorry you all had to go through that.
My daughter did Art and a language so her exams started in April, last one was in the third week of June. I think this is the problem with this idea though, she could literally pass away on the first day of exams because who knows? Even delaying telling her daughter by a week I think is such a hurtful idea.

You really cannot do this. Start preparing daughters now about how unwell Grandma is .
Sadly my Mm died very suddenly and my daughter was ar Uni mid exams,,,absolutely no way would she not have been told!
She took her exams a couple of months later.

Do NOT do this. I had the same thing happen to me at 18/19 (now almost 35) and I was kept in the dark with NO chance to say goodbye. It is the WORST thing ever. I have never processed her death and never forgiven my family for doing this. She will never forgive you. She’s old enough to deal with it so don’t ruin your relationship with her and let her say goodbye in her own way. It’s bad enough loosing a relative without having to deal with a fall out too.

No 100% don't lie to her. I think she might be very angry about that down the line. She is too old for you to lie to her about something this big.

My husband's grandmother died 3 weeks before my son's GCSEs and her funeral was on the day of his first GCSE exam. He had to miss the funeral for the exam, then deal with 20 more exams. We really worried about the impact but he coped ok, and his highest grade was in the subject he sat on the day of the funeral.

I know a grandmother is not the same as a great grandmother, but they were still close. I wanted to reassure you that it was less awful in reality than we had anticipated. DC coped really well. I was extremely cross that the organiser hadn't taken his exams into consideration but in hindsight I don't think it would have been any better if the funeral had been scheduled to slot in amongst the exams. Emotionally lurching from exam, to funeral, to exam again would have been tough too.

You could apply for special consideration though the % adjustments through that are very small.

No, do not do this. It will irreparably harm your relationship with your DD. My niece and nephew’s father died suddenly two weeks before GCSE and A level exams started, and they still sat them all and did well. Got 5% leeway in marking.

First off, no one has died yet so don’t jump the gun.

Part of being a parent, is teaching your children how to deal with life. When she is an adult, she will have to manage working with everyday life events - some upsetting. As a teen she will have the support of family to help her through, which is great because when you’re an adult, you don’t always have that. That gives her space to learn.

Additionally, you would be sending out a message that’s it’s ok to cover up and hide things from people- Which it’s not the message you want to send to a teen. You are also giving a strange message about the value of her relationship with her grandmother and feelings around death.

Dont do it. Dying is a natural thing to happen and it’s important that she sees her family deal with that in a HEALTHY way. She will also be learning how to regulate her emotions under stressful circumstances, which is a really important life lesson.

I’m an exam invigilator. Please tell the school now, things will be put in place in case this arises. I had a pupil who lost a close relative the day before an exam. The school let me know that morning. The pupil was adamant they wanted to sit, so information was passed to the exam board. I sat the pupil at the back in case they wanted to leave and let them know I would help in any way I could. I’m sure every invigilator would do the same. Sorry you are in this position.

@Lucielue79 I’d tell her, if she knows your mum is sick then she might want to spend time with her/say her goodbyes etc

I’m so sorry you are going through this, losing a parent is so hard xx

Predicting a death is a very inexact science - they said 6mths for my mother, she lived 6 weeks.
My grandmothers nursing home said come now she’ll not last the night, still going, although very sick 3 months later…

At 15/16 I think you should make your DD aware that your DM isnt well.
If she dies the day of an exam keep quiet till its done, but otherwise tell her - long term a death of a close family member will be more important than an exam you can resit if necessary.

Not necessarily. My grandparents lived 250 miles from me. I attended their funerals but it involved travelling up a long journey the night before. Family in and out so lots of noise and disruption- not conducive to revision. Lots of waiting around. Then there is the service. Then food after. Then The long journey home. Potentially there are exams the day before and the day after the funeral. Funerals are draining. It isn’t just the day itself just popping in. No idea of the OP’s situation but sometimes practicalities dictate what is and is not the right thing to do and how the child feels.

Please tell her - my mum has withheld information from me in the past, with good intention, but it has damaged me. I can’t trust her, and live in constant anxiety that any one of my family could be ill or dying and I wouldn’t know. Please tell her and prove to her that you think she is strong enough to cope.

No it isn't.

You ask the school to put in special consideration. They MIGHT be able to submit work and the child gets a grade based on that. But the likely thing to happen is they will have to do the exams during the resits in November.

They do not "reschedule" exams for the candidate. It's not like they will say oh, okay, go to the funeral on Monday, you can just sit it on wednesday ". They would maybe do it with an exam clash, but the child would have to be in isolation/supervision all the time.

Otherwise,if it was easy to reschedule, THOUSANDS of candidates would do this to get an advantage.

It's completely fine not to tell her if she dies on a morning and DD has an exam that afternoon. Any more than that you need to tell her. Not telling her would be a huge breach of trust. Also at GCSE age she likely has family members on social media so you don't want her finding out from someone else!

Tell her now she's unwell and may not have long left. Let her spend time with her, let her come to terms with it. An unexpected death is different to one that you know is coming but not exactly when. Let your mum tell her how proud she is of her studying, and wants her to do well.

Organise the funeral for a day she doesn't have exams. You can pick dates.

OP, my father in law died suddenly last year, albeit he had been ill for some time, 2 days before the exams started. DD was extremely close to him and we couldn't not tell her, that would have been all kinds of wrong for our family. And, there would be no way to hide it. She was understandably devastated but we told the school immediately who informed the exam boards as there is protocol for such things. They do take into account the familial relationship, the proximity to exams etc and they also look at mocks etc to judge the impact the bereavement has had on the student's exam performance and can make adjustments when marking. In the end she nailed her exams and we always say he was there with her, but in our experience the school was brilliant and handled it sensitively and appropriately. Only you can judge how your child will react to the news if your mum does pass. We also managed to arrange the funeral for a non-exam day.
I wish you all well, it must be awful for you all.