Sad about reaction to summer residential trip but is it a sign of the times?

Mine are older now but loved going away and we actively encouraged it for the break! They went camping for weekends with cubs from seven or eight and were in remote Scotland for several days with Scouts doing all sorts as young teens. They are the best memories of their childhood.

I think the start of ‘anxious parenting’ was when very sadly there was a spate of high profile child abductions in the early 2000s (Milly Dowler, Holly and Jessica, Sarah Payne). These poor children were all taken while playing or being outside without their parents. I feel like that was a bit of a turning point, and the internet (with the ability to track and google every news story and danger going) has massively ramped it up.

The opposite at my grandchildren’s school. They did a 3 night residential in year 4 and everyone in the class went and by all accounts had a great time. My grandchild is really looking forward to the next one.

It seems to be the English speaking places, the UK, Australia, NZ, Canada, and the US.

I guess some of it may be shared media, but I have wondered what it is in the culture of these places that leads to this anxiety about young people becoming independent. Or is it just chance that somehow this idea has become prevalent?

@Airwaterfire my experience too in the 70s -

I think it terribly sad when posters on this thread have said that “they’re young for a short time so I want them at home”. That is not being a good parent! You are supposed to be raising them, not preserving them in aspic. Do I miss small ds? Hell, yeah. But if I had never allowed him to have a sleepover or go on a trip (including French Exchange) I would have been a selfish mother just in it for myself and not caring about his chance to develop as a human being.

There is no way they are mandatory , it’s literally impossible to make them mandatory under law

I do think there is a lot more judgement of parents now. Whenever you see something horrible in the press a lot will respond with "who was watching them", "why were they walking alone", etc.

I've noticed an increased proportion of clingy, anxious parents with my youth groups. The children are fine! We've taken children with additional needs away and worked with their parents to meet their individual needs; it's not them doing it.

Even with regular meetings, they're fretting over trivia like rain during outside activities- yes, just bring a coat, it's just regular British rain!

It is worse since Covid. The hump as normality slowly crept back to normal was understandable. I was working with two groups of same age range. The larger unit that kept up as much contact as possible and had more continuity of children familiar with routines fared better than the one that was off for 13m and had a greater turnover of children. I am curious about why parents of children who were 2-3 years old at that time are so significantly affected so far down the line.

There have been other shifts too such as the scale of restrictive, picky, sensory eating. We've often had one at a time in this category, but now we've got 5 that will not eat fresh fruit, salad or vegetables of which one has got additional needs (which is understandable as a sensory processing issue) This indicates that there is a shift in parenting. From looking at the rate that the fruit bowl goes down on residentials where there's free access to fruit, grapes go first, then bananas, the occasional apple and the oranges are untouched. My theory is that they're used to easy pre-prepared/ soft fruits that are near instant to eat, and aren't used to having to unpeel a satsuma or chew around a whole apple.

After Stockport, we did have a parent fretting about our venue security. They were basically told that these are our ratios, this is the venue, if you are not satisfied with our risk assessments (HQ compliant) there is nothing practical that we have the ability to change, and this may not be the activity for you. This is in the context of a hired venue, surrounded by pitches filled with children playing football. For fire safety we can not obstruct fire exits, and we can't run a unit compliant with the programme with children permanently locked indoors and shuttered in to protect against (thankfully) incredibly rare crimes, and it would do child development no favours whatsoever.

The world is not perfect. It wasn't perfect when I was a child (or for decades before). It isn't perfect now. On balance, I feel that my children have better safeguarding mitigations now than previous generations. Realistically the most likely hazards can be accessed from home in the palms of their hands.

Children need to have appopriately managed space to develop and residentials are a great opportunity to expand their experiences and develop social connections. Having had a restrictive parent (as a response to her own traumas, plus general dislikes) the chance to do residentials, language trips and DoE because school was "safe" was invaluable. I also spent time with cousins that had more liberal parents that gave me a flavour of the more normal upbringing for my generation. Raising an autistic child myself, it's particularly important to gradually and carefully nudge and expand his comfort zones to help his development towards being a functional adult, and that's included camps and residential opportunities.

This doesn't match with my experience, I don't know anyone that hasn't let their dc on a school sleepover or residential.

The residential experience is about so much more than making memories, it is about introducing independence in a managed way and letting the child begin to untie those apron strings! Being unable to allow the child to experience this is really detrimental to the child’s development.

Of course they are optional... they can't physically take the child away without the parents/guardians permission.

I don’t think school residential trips were optional, they are not at my daughter’s school anyway. All the kids loved the residential trip last year, and are very much looking forward to this year - a full week away.

I do think times have changed, but that’s for the better. We are more aware of possible abuse these days.

I guess where you live also makes it easier to give children independence. I live in a big city stabbings and mugging are common place. There is no way on gods earth my 5 or 6 year old would be walking anywhere by themselves.

I was in a mixed year 5 and 6 class when I was in year 5, so when the year 6s went on their residential I was left behind with the handful of other year 5s and that was honestly a brilliant week too. Me and my best friend were sat in the back of another classroom, doing our own projects (he did one on space, I did one on aeroplanes), going to the Reception classroom to help out, going to the library by ourselves to do research, and generally just having a great time independently learning.

Indeed. But if the entire year is away and there are a couple of kids left behind, they seem to get parked in whichever classroom has enough scope under safeguarding ratios with TAs etc. That may an older or much younger class, where they are set a project to do. They get little teaching because the plan is for the kids to go away and do the structured school trip so there are no teachers allocated to the one or two kids left behind. It is brutal on those children, as far as i can see from all the schools I’ve had kids at unless the parents just keep them home (risking an unauthorised absence). However, at most of those schools the trips costs were within the budget of most families with a fund (raised by the PTA during the year) to subsidise struggling families.

Lucky you that could afford it. Children left behind absolutely shouldn’t be treated like flotsam.

Why do we need expensive residentials. I went to school in the 70s and 80s. We didn’t have residentials in primary school. We’ve managed to be fully functioning members of society.

I mean, we have a society where parents are panicking about leaving kids alone as teens/tweens..

My nephew in France just passed his driving test at 15yo, has finished school and working full time and driving their own (really weird) little car. Yet people in the UK won't allow a 15yo on a sleepover??

No wonder anxiety in young adults is so rife in this country!

I’m having trouble getting my head round the idea that parents book into hotels near The residential site. Both of mine were a bit nervous before going but had a great time. Tears in one case on one afternoon but the head dealt with it.

Aside from that, I hate all the 'back in my day' stuff. Just because parents didn't care about danger in the 70/80/90's doesn't mean it was better parenting.

I think this assumption is really unfair. Allowing your children appropriate independence and freedom does not mean you don’t ‘care’ about danger. Keeping your child tethered to you at all times so you can control your anxiety about anything ‘bad’ happening to them when they are away from you really is worse parenting.

Agree - I think that some children (SEN and not) need a lot of scaffolding but my experience to date has been that if parents of anxious children work with the staff/trip leaders it can usually be sorted. My kids are teens now but in all the trips I did as a leader and all the school trips my kids went on (one a year with school from Y3, where they started as 2 day trips and build up to a 10 day outward bounds trip in y9 for my eldest the year before lockdown), not a single child was every sent home. Went the trips restarted after lockdown, mine went skiing, to France on language trips and on the obligatory war memorial trips to France/Belgium (I booked them on everything to make sure any lock down loss of confidence was countered!).

I think that many parents missed a ‘window’ in their own experience-gaining and it’s undermined their confidence in the fact that they’ve parented well enough that their kids will be fine. Their kids may not love it, initially, but they do survive and it’s not a trauma unless parents make it one. From observing 100s of kids, what I see is kids being surprised at how well they are able to cope, kids then having fun, and parents realising that their kids will be okay (and that maybe they’ve done a good enough job after all, so they eventually feel validated and more confident).

I’d hope that schools would work with reticent parents and anxious kids to try and make this work. At my kids’ school the annual trips were not ‘optional’ (obviously the choir tours or language trips to Paris were, but not the annual year group event) and if you seriously did angle to miss out, the children left behind floated around the school, sitting in other year group classes like a bit of unwanted flotsam which soon made kids on future trips chose to be part of the dreaded school trip next time.

My memories are quite hazy, but I think I enjoyed doing the activities and had a good time overall. I don’t remember being especially homesick, but my children wouldn’t have been that keen to go away at such a young age. They didn’t do a residential until Year 5/6.

This!

And why should they?

Not much help to the many over the threshold and in need.