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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:
OriginalJamie · 21/12/2011 12:00

OP if this is real, you've denied your DD the opportunity to cope with a difficult situation without you, and gain the confidence from having done so.

I speak from experience

callmemrs · 21/12/2011 12:11

LeQueens post reminds me of when my eldest started primary school and one mother used to turn up 45 minutes before school ended, parked right outside the school gates. It was as if picking the kids up was the high point of her day and everything else revolved around it.

Seriously, this sort of helicopter parenting will turn your kids away. Once they're adults they'll probably never want to see you again !

ScottOfTheArseAntics · 21/12/2011 12:14

On my wedding day my father's speech recalled the time when, at 11 years old, I phoned home from a school skiing trip in the Alps and begged him to come and fetch me because I was homesick. He was in the UK. I was totally homesick and whilst he wasn't unsympathetic his response was more or less, 'tough shit, buck up and get on with it'. He would have said this even if he had been within walking distance of where I staying. I do think a healthy dose of hard reality is good for kids as is letting go as they grow older.

LeQueen · 21/12/2011 12:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WilsonFrickett · 21/12/2011 12:26

OK, I'm assuming this is a wind-up but do schools really go on trips to hotels in this country? I mean, fair enough if they're going abroad for languages or something, but I thought UK trips were outward bound-y staying in hostel type things?

I have a lot to learn, clearly.

DoesntChristmasDragOn · 21/12/2011 12:28

Th Op probably hasn't been back because she's tailing her DD somewhere.

DoesntChristmasDragOn · 21/12/2011 12:29

Our school Y6 trips to a hotel on the Isle of Wight.However it is a small hotel and they book the entire place so no scope for mad parents to book in.

aldiwhore · 21/12/2011 12:34

I think the OP's intentions were good, but totally misplaced and her visit did more harm than good. Even if the teacher was OTT and could have been more acomodating, the child is NOT the teacher's child after all and the teacher should not have banned contact, as it exaserbated an already tense situation, the child suffered three times.

One because she was lonely and struggling to enjoy herself. I know THAT feeling, I spent a week in Austria, ski-ing with the school, didn't have a friend in the world and hated every second. I got over it... and it was wonderful to see my parents AT THE END of my hellish week, back in the busom of my family.

Two because her parents turned up, not to save her but to float around somewhere nearby - torturous! Her parents only managed to show their child that she doesn't have to deal with anything because ma and pa will always be there to remind her how little she can cope.

Three because her teacher 'banned' her from seeing her own parents.

Poor kid.

All the adults in this scenario have fair and valid, if misguided, points but they're all responsible for doing a disservice to the child.

manicinsomniac · 21/12/2011 13:13

We occasionally use hotels for school trips where I work but usually only for trips abroad.
We do use hostels that members of the public can use aswell though, especially when it's a smaller trip of only 30 or so children - the hostel won't let you book the whole thing in those circs or they'd lose money.

We also allow mobile phones in some circumstances - usually if the children are going to be going off in little groups without an adult. They are kept in a teacher's room and only given out when the children are about to go off. They're only supposed to have them to call the teacher's number which we sellotape on the back of their phones (PFB teachers?! shock) butI guess we don't know who they call when they're out of sight.

We've had bedwetters on residentials and it's never been a problem, we just deal it discreetly and quietly. We've also had a wide range of medical, physical and mental special needs. I can think of very few conditions which should prevent a child staying overnight with their friends, providing reasonable adjustments are put in place.

manicinsomniac · 21/12/2011 13:13

We occasionally use hotels for school trips where I work but usually only for trips abroad.
We do use hostels that members of the public can use aswell though, especially when it's a smaller trip of only 30 or so children - the hostel won't let you book the whole thing in those circs or they'd lose money.

We also allow mobile phones in some circumstances - usually if the children are going to be going off in little groups without an adult. They are kept in a teacher's room and only given out when the children are about to go off. They're only supposed to have them to call the teacher's number which we sellotape on the back of their phones (PFB teachers?! shock) butI guess we don't know who they call when they're out of sight.

We've had bedwetters on residentials and it's never been a problem, we just deal it discreetly and quietly. We've also had a wide range of medical, physical and mental special needs. I can think of very few conditions which should prevent a child staying overnight with their friends, providing reasonable adjustments are put in place.

controlpantsandgladrags · 21/12/2011 14:42

If this is true (surely not??) then you were being utterly ridiculous to turn up OP and the teacher was absolutely right to be annoyed with you.

VikingWenceslas · 21/12/2011 14:56
Xmas Biscuit
nkf · 21/12/2011 15:02

You should have gone out to dinner with your DH.

pantomimecow · 21/12/2011 17:15

You do realise that if you hadn't given her the phone, she would have been over the homesickness by day 2

valiumredhead · 21/12/2011 17:42

You do realise that if you hadn't given her the phone, she would have been over the homesickness by day 2

Not necessarily, the OP just wouldn't have known about it. The kids might still have been miserable. I went on some horrible residential trips as a child in the 70's -one of them was camping in the freezing cold, then when everyone got D and V the parents weren't called. Sharing a one man tent with 3 girls while they puked all night for 4 days - oh yeah, that was great, really made me into the independent woman I am today Grin I would've given anything for my mum to come and get me!!

There are tough cookies in yr 5 and then there are babies - some are still very very immature. It all evens out pretty much by about 12 but year 5 is a big mix.

And no excuse for a teacher to speak to a parent in that manner what so ever - if this IS real Wink

DartsAgain · 21/12/2011 17:45

I think that, if this is true, this is the worst parenting I've ever come across.

DD had 3 nights away in yr 4 and loved it (not Kingswood, but the school has now switched to that one). No mobiles allowed.

She had 5 nights away last year at the beginning of Yr 6, literally the first full week in September (school's reasoning was that it would be less crowded at that time as most schools schedule for later in the school year, and it was a good way to get the kids relaxed and settled into the new school year). Again, she loved it and no mobiles allowed.

This summer, she went on a 7 night camping trip (Charnwood 2011 - guides, scouts, etc). No mobiles, but a pay phone available, and some computers for emailing if she wanted. She phoned me once, and wasn't at all homesick, plus we exchanged a couple of emails. She is gaining her independance, and that is very important.

I can't see that this "parenting" is going to help the OP's DD at all, and I feel it may even lead to bullying if the older kids take the piss.

pantomimecow · 21/12/2011 18:12

valium- The teachers would certainly have called the parents quicksmart if the kids were ill.They wouldn't be able to get shut of them quick enough!!
But it is well known that kids work through homesickness and as soon as they are on the phone to the parents it sets them off again.

exoticfruits · 21/12/2011 19:10

Hopefully after all this OP will go into school and apologise for her behaviour.

exoticfruits · 21/12/2011 19:11

Or is this a thread where everyone tells her that she is being unreasonable and she still thinks she is right?

AnyoneforTurps · 21/12/2011 19:34

If this is not a wind-up, I strongly suspect the teacher was furious because you have form, OP. If you're daft enough to do this, I bet you've done other daft things that have wound the school up.

Hulababy · 21/12/2011 20:07

valium - ime the teachers would have called the parents if the child was so distressed or it was prolonged. So, the parents should have known if this was the case. And for the vast majority of children homesickness is reduced by no contact, or rather increased when there is contact.

valiumredhead · 21/12/2011 20:15

valium- The teachers would certainly have called the parents quicksmart if the kids were ill They might do now but they didn't then, my mum still fumes about it now 30 years on!

scotagm · 21/12/2011 20:46

I am a teacher and once a year I have to run a residential for anywhere between 130 - 150 15 yr olds.

Imagine what would happen if all the parents wanted to "pop in?"

Already have to field a huge number of phone calls in the run-up to the trip. Everyone wants me to keep a special eye on their child. Always joke that this is the week of the year I need 150 "special eyes".

This must be a wind up?

I have never heard of anything so ridiculous.

Very unreasonable.

MidniteScribbler · 21/12/2011 22:01

Don't they usually cut the umbilical cord after birth???

exoticfruits · 22/12/2011 09:33

They exchange it for the apron strings and some DCs have to drastically cut them at 18yrs and some get stuck for life! The sensible parent lets them out slowly-residential visits being one occasion where they wave them off cheerful and leave it to the school.

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