DD school attendance. Am I a bad parent?

[Confuzzleduzzled]

I’m a single parent with 2 lovely DDs, aged 13 & 15.

15yo is never ill and has almost perfect school attendance. She will go in with a cold or period pain and never ask to stay home.

13yo has frequent minor illnesses and somehow always manages to persuade me that she can’t go to school. She also has some bad phobias and anxiety and missed a few days of year 7 due to that but she’s having therapy which is helping and school have been very understanding. She is allowed to sit out of a lesson if it is causing anxiety and do the work in another class which is obviously better than just coming home.

She has now had 2.5 days off just this month. I don’t know how to be stricter with her. She cries if I say she has to go in despite a sore throat and cold or a stomach ache. She had similar issues with a sports team that she is in but they threatened to remove her from the team if she couldn’t make it to 80% of the sessions which seemed to work.

It doesn’t help that her older sister really resents her having time off and says that I would never do the same for her. She had some mental health issues in year 7 but I never let her take any time off.

I think the issue is more that I feel like a bad parent as I am unable to make her go to school. I’m much too soft in lots of ways and am just lucky that my kids are mostly good and fairly well behaved despite my crap parenting.

I wouldn't say your parenting skills are crap.
It's difficult when we're faced with a crying/upset child and we do tend to give in.
A child with anxiety is very difficult for us as a parent to navigate and it does sound to me that you're trying your best.
Minor illnesses come hand in hand with anxiety disorders, it's about us learning when that illness is real or if it's a ploy to get out of going to school.
You sound as if you're doing what you can to help/support your DD

It’s hard to say how much your daughter is affected by anxiety from just this post. I think for some going out of the house and dealing with everyday stuff can be debilitating, in which case there needs to intervention. Therapy, medicine, whatever the case may be. BUT I also think there is a real problem in schools these days with children having a real lack of resilience. We all have to do things in life that are slightly uncomfortable at the end of the day we can’t just sit at home and hope life will just accommodate us instead. It’s hard to suggest pushing her a bit more to do things that make her anxious because it might not be a good idea, but for some people this approach basically works. You have to gauge it as a parent and work with school on it, which it sounds like you’re already doing. Being soft is good, but it can also hold a child back in life too depending on how you go about it.

I think it's harder as they get older as well to actually force them to go to school and it's hard to assess someone else's pain. I actively discourage them staying at home (similar age DDs) but also let them make the ultimate decision if they feel too unwell to go in. However they rarely ask to stay home so I'm quite lucky in that regard.

I think your biggest issue is your older DD saying it is unfair and you do say you made her go in when you let your younger DD stay at home with anxiety. Do you think you have been unfair? Not sure you can do much about it now but it may be worth having a chat with your older DD to explain your reasoning and also how it's hard being a parent and knowing what to do in every situation.

Are you working outside of the home? It's far easier to let them stay off if you are at home too. Obviously at that age they can stay home alone anyway but I'd try and think next time " if I had to take the day off would I let her be off with this ailment?"

@egginthebun nailed it. Reread it again and pretend I wrote her as well.

It is hard when you have children with very different natures and Needs to treat them the same

In your situation, I would speak to the elder one and explain that the younger one is just very different to her and you are parenting them as the individuals they are. Tried to explain that you are encouraging the younger one to be a bit more robust but that she has anxiety issues that aren't helped by being. Too hard on her when she feels unable to cope.

Tell her that you are sorry you didn't give her more time often in year seven when maybe now she feels she would have liked it but that when she was in year seven, she seemed to be coping okay and you felt like sticking to the school routine was better for her parented her as you thought was best for her at the time

I think you did the right thing by her, and I think you are doing the right thing by DD2 they are individuals and they need to be fairly fairly isn't the same as exactly the same

Keep doing what you feel instinctively is right for each of them and it will all work out in the end

Don't beat yourself up you're being a great mum!!

What is she doing when she's home sick?

Spot on. A trick my mum used was you had to stay in bed if you were too ill to go to school - no phone, tablet, tv, nothing at all. We had to be really ill to be off. No lead swinging in our house.

To answer a few questions.

I do feel I was unfair on Dd1 but I didn’t realise it at the time. I have apologised to her since and we’ve talked about it.

They are very different from each other and that makes it had to be fair. DD1 is much more bothered about doing the right thing, being good and following the rules. She is not so sympathetic towards her sisters anxiety as this has sometimes meant we couldn’t do certain things or have to be careful what we say around her.

I wfh which makes it a lot easier though she would be happy to be left.

Today she slept for 2 hours and then did crochet and watched tv in bed.

DD2 really does need to work on her resiliance but I don’t know how to do this. And it’s impossible to judge someone else’s pain/illness level.

My mum was the same. If your sick you need to rest in bed. No TV or electronics. My mum would have made it SO boring. If felt well enough to get out of bed she would have made me do housework.