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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To visit my daughter while she is on a school trip

203 replies

Rudolphina · 20/12/2011 22:09

My DD went on a school trip for a week, with the DD staying overnight with school for the first time ever. She was very keen on the trip. I sent her with a mobile phone and she called me every night and most mornings. She loved the trip activities but was feeling very lonely, homesick and isolated as it turned out none of her class went on the trip and it was all children from older years (she is in year 5).

She cried most nights saying she wanted to see me, so DH and myself went to see her. Our plan was to pop in and stay overnight for one evening (not with her but in the same hotel) so she could chat to us if she was sad. We had no plans to get involved with the trip or accompany her anywhere, our plan was just to spend a day visiting the local sights, but my DD would know I was there, be less stressed and be able to enjoy the rest of the trip. I only planned to stay one night and leave the next day with her hopefully feeling less lonely and reassured that if she needed us we would be there.

When I arrived at the hotel the teacher in charge met us in an absolute rage (we were stunned). We were told (repeatedly) if we had any contact with our DD, then that would break the 'loco parentis' agreement and we would have to take her home. The teacher was so angry it was beyond belief, saying I should have consulted her if I wished to come and visit.

My DD (who knew we were in the hotel, as we had told her we were going to 'pop in') was told by the same teacher that she was not allowed any contact with us. I spent the night with her on the phone from another room asking why we could not come down to see her.

We actually bumped into each other at one point and she ran away from me saying 'I have been told I am not allowed to see you'. I was quite devastated at this.

I returned home disgusted at the way the situation was handled by the teacher and would like to know if there is any justification for their position?

I have 'popped in' to see her on other school activities, for example there are netball weekends where I pop in to see how their team are doing, buy her lunch and just hang around watching the matches, cheering etc. No one has ever told me before that if I spoke to her then she would have to go home.

I appreciate any advice. My DH is arranging a meeting with the school head about it.

OP posts:
EdithWeston · 21/12/2011 08:38

I think most of what I would have said has been pre-empted by others.

I nearly laughed out loud, though, at the bit in OP which equated butting in unannounced on a residential trip with attending a sports fixture!

KittyFane · 21/12/2011 08:40

finally yes, true. My daughter is a sleepwalker :( but I gritted my teeth, made sure the people in charge knew about it (they arranged for her to be in the room adjoining theirs) and I let them get on with it. A residential is a residential. They stay over.
DD did go wandering in the night and they looked after her.
If you send your DC on a residential you have to trust that they will be looked after properly. If you don't feel happy, don't let them go.
If they are unhappy whilst away, when they get back they will tell you and next time, you think twice about the trip.

Shutupanddrive · 21/12/2011 08:40
Biscuit
KittyFane · 21/12/2011 08:43

Another option, if DC is calling every night upset - phone teacher, go and collect them and call it a day.
Booking yourself into the same hotel is a bit Hmm IMO.

VivaLeBeaver · 21/12/2011 08:45

If the op had seen her dd it would have unsettled the other kids as well. They'd all have been asking to see their parents, well some of them.

carabos · 21/12/2011 08:45

stranded you suggest that the apron strings are still tied at 9 not 19, but if you don't make serious efforts to cut them you end up with a clingy 19 year old and that's a much worse problem than a homesick 9 yr old.

DS2 (19) went travelling in Europe this summer after A levels with a few friends. One of the other boys in the group phoned his mother every night and spent the day of her birthday in tears because he couldn't be with her. Both the boy and the mother burst into tears and clung to each other when reunited at the airport at the end of the trip. That alone was mortifying to watch and DS 2 said that managing his friend's insecurities while they were away was a nightmare. The boy has no SN, he's just over-protected.
Needless to say, now that he's at uni, he comes home every weekend and is finding the experience very challenging.
It's never too soon to push their independence IMO.

blaaahh · 21/12/2011 08:48

My friends do was on a school trip to India and they decided to scedu,e a holiday to visit him... He was 17 ffs Xmas Hmm

blaaahh · 21/12/2011 08:48

*ds

tabulahrasa · 21/12/2011 08:53

Kittyfane

I've done the drop off in the morning, pick up at night thing as well :( different trip, but again because of his SN

KittyFane · 21/12/2011 08:58

tabulah so we don't know if OP has a DC with SN or not, she doesn't mention it so we assume not. My DD doesn't have SN and neither dies the girl in my post. Therefore I am talking about DC who do not have SN. If they do, different story, different response.

KittyFane · 21/12/2011 08:59

Does not dies

tabulahrasa · 21/12/2011 09:05

Well I assumed the OP's daughter didn't, or she'd have mentioned it....

I was more saying because it genuinely did make me :( to have to do it, rather than be able to leave him there, much like going with him - I'm finding it hard to believe that anyone would do that for no reason, when I struggled doing it for good reason if that makes sense.

upahill · 21/12/2011 09:13

When did this happen?
It is unlikey to be recently I would have thought, so close to Christmas.
Schools usually have other things going on at this time.

KittyFane · 21/12/2011 09:13

tabula people do have good reason to do this - as in your case or if a child has epilepsy, diabetes etc etc but when there is no reason given by OP it's all a bit Hmm.
I am wondering why too. OP hasn't been back to fill anyone in.

troisgarcons · 21/12/2011 09:43

oooooh! We had one of those mothers at primary school I knew what she was like as No2 was in the same class sa her son but No3 was in the same year as the daughter. She actually hijacked a random granny at the school gate (poor woman) and tailed the coach, then tailed the school trip round the zoo.

What a royal PIA she was.

Very little the school could do about it, public place, she bought her own ticket etc etc.

MamaMaiasaura · 21/12/2011 09:52

3garscons - really! On never 3 too so not a case of pfb? How very odd.

MamaMaiasaura · 21/12/2011 09:52

Number not never Smile I'm crap on my phone

callmemrs · 21/12/2011 10:00

You sound like the worst kind of nightmare parent! Still, you'll at least provide staff room entertainment for the teachers. I can just imagine the conversations!

redskyatnight · 21/12/2011 10:06

I've taken brownies away on residentials. We always say no phones and no visits (because they are very unsettling for the girls). If a child was really homesick (as in more than the odd bad 5 minutes when getting ready for bed when it seems to hit a lot of them) we would let them talk to mum on the (adult) phone if we thought it would help. In one case the girl was so distraught we did suggest she was taken home overnight and brought back the next day.

If your DD is as bad as you describe, it's going to be pretty obvious to the staff and they will be trying to do something to help. I actually think it's more likely that the act of ringing home has brought on the homesickness and made her much worse than she'd otherwise be!

worley · 21/12/2011 10:29

oh god you sound like my parents. they would turn up at brownie camp. and post me letterers on school residential trips. would meet me literally at the school door, not the gate as the other parents would. I got no end of stick from the other children. my dad even used to follow me in the car when i wad sllowed out on my b

worley · 21/12/2011 10:32

oops pressed send by accident.
dad would follow me on my bike to make sure I was ok.
I rebelled big time in my late teens in the end!!

anyway, our schools and cubs/ scout camps dont allow contact while away. did the school know she had a phone?

therantingBOM · 21/12/2011 11:17

So, OP never came back?

LeQueen · 21/12/2011 11:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LeQueen · 21/12/2011 11:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MulleredWine · 21/12/2011 11:56

O-kaaaaay, like others, I am really hoping this is a wind up.

If not, perhaps it is worth spelling out why the OP is BVU, and not just because she may not be helping her DD to deal with being away from home.

From a teacher's viewpoint, having parents turn up and stay in the same place as a school residential trip would be a logistical AND safeguarding nightmare!

Imagine your child came home and told you that some parents you hadn't known were going to be there turned up and stayed over - bet you wouldn't be too happy!

For any number of reasons this has the potential to be very dangerous as well as unsettling. Taking school children away on a residential is a HUGE responsibility and everything has to be risk assessed and checked and protocol checked again blah blah blah I doubt the fictional teacher Wink was actually as 'raging' as the OP may have thought, but if she was, it was probably because she was papping herself about how the hell to deal with this or explain it to every other parent on her return...

YANBU to worry about your child and respond to her homesickness.

YWBVVVU to totally bypass all the practical and safeguarding procedures you agreed to for your child's safety when you sent her on the trip in the first plce.

HTH.