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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I am aren't I? Don't want DS to go on school trip he is too small!

184 replies

BupcakesandCunting · 31/01/2012 12:32

DS is in reception class (4 years old) and we got a letter home last week to say they are going on a school trip to Twycross Zoo. I offered my services as a parent helper as I do help out sometimes at the forest school/trips etc and his teacher said "No but thanks, we'll be taking members of staff for school so we're all covered!"

Errrr, you what?! How many staff are they taking to cover 60 4/5 year olds?! There's only ten teachers at the school anyway and I don't think they'll be taking all of the teachers out.

Oh help me and tell me I'm being a nob. I have visions of DS or one of his classmates inadvertently getting separated and lost from their class or whatever. In my defence, I'm not the only one I earwigged on some other mums this morning in the playground and they're a bit Hmm about it too.

OP posts:
Perriwinkle · 02/02/2012 16:46

Parents sending children to school with food they can't eat because they can't open the packaging is just bad parenting. It's hardly within the school's remit to ensure that children have the ability to open everything they'e been provided with! In my experience lunch time supervisors are usually happy to help with this sort of thing but at the end of the day, it's not really their responsibility.

Perhaps some of these kids have been so molleycoddled by the sort of over- protective mothers who think they're too little to go on school trips that they've not been able to develop any fine motor skills!

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 16:56

PMSL @ "competitive benign neglect". it's a school trip not an unsupervised wander round the local crack den.

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 16:57

I would agree that chldren are being raised in far too much cotton wool these days (and I hold my hand up to it too). Not allowed to play out/walk home/go to the local rec alone.

exoticfruits · 02/02/2012 17:20

If the staff were in any way worried about taking a DC they would discuss it with you, maybe ask you to go or get a one to to one helper, if they haven't done that they must feel confident to manage.

Original poster
BupcakesandCunting · 02/02/2012 17:22

"And to even consider stalking them round the zoo? Ridiculous."

That was a joke. (must lobby MNHQ harder for those "That was a joke, btw" html tags...)

"Ok I just told DS that you're not letting your child go on the school trip because you can't go. "

Where did I say I wasn't letting him go? There is a difference between not wanting to do something and actually not doing it. If you care to read so far as page 2, you will quite clearly see that I have said that I wouldn't stop him from going. Not sure what you're trying to gain by garnering opinions with your son, apart from prove that you're a couple of smartarses!

OP posts:
Smugfearnleyshittingstool · 02/02/2012 17:30

My ds was supposed to be going on a trip to the London museum in reception class, on a coach. Er no. At 4 the only museum he wants to go in it the national history, and we go as a family all the time any way, so I declined and kept him at home.

The trip was 2:45 hours to get there and nearly four hours to get home due to traffic, parents were sat in cars for over an hour and this was a school night too. Huge waste of time IMO, but my ds was not traffic conscious at fore, especially when excited, so the walk by the side of a main road to the museum was never going to fly by me.

Go with your gut, if the bus crashes on the motorway you'll wish you had!

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 17:32

"if the bus crashes on the motorway you'll wish you had!"

Oh for the love of god...

helpyourself · 02/02/2012 17:35

Buppy is this you?

Original poster
BupcakesandCunting · 02/02/2012 17:38

"Go with your gut, if the bus crashes on the motorway you'll wish you had!"

What. The. Fuck?

What kind of fucking thing is that to come out with?! Hmm

Nothing that subtle, helpyourself. More like this.

OP posts:
ClumsyClogs · 02/02/2012 17:42

ROFL @ Help

....

PSML @ Showy's DS trip to the post box Grin Grin

Sorry Bups not helping much am I

I am quite PFB and my DS is same age as yours. Thing is, I really really trust the pre-school, so if they told me they're taking them to the zoo, I'd be quite excited for DS and happy to let him go. But then again, he's very obedient and safety-conscious and would never wonder off.

ClumsyClogs · 02/02/2012 17:44

PS ignore Smug that's got to be one of the worst pieces of crap posts I've seen here

exoticfruits · 02/02/2012 17:46

Go with your gut, if the bus crashes on the motorway you'll wish you had!

Good God-you think you have heard the worst and then you get this! Keep them at home in a padded room.

exoticfruits · 02/02/2012 17:49

I despair for our DCs. I bet Smug takes her DC out in the car. She might be the safest driver out but it doesn't stop some idiot crashing into you.

You are doing your DC no favours if you say words to the effect of 'the world is a terrible place-you are only safe with mummy'!

LovesBeingWearingSkinnyJeans · 02/02/2012 17:50

He will have a wicked time, I still remember going there at about his age Grin

NorthernWreck · 02/02/2012 17:56

I would be anxious too-it's normal when they are tiny.

Especially since my friend, who works in a public library, found a little boy on his own in the library who had been left there by accident by his nursery group.
Wheh she rang the nursery they hadn't even realised that they had left him!

This one incident has made me a wreck (see the name) about trips out.

But, no, you have to do what I do and push the fear down until it forms a hard knot of angst inside you which can be periodically aleviated with alcohol.
HTH.

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 18:01

"This one incident has made me a wreck (see the name) about trips out."

You do realise the other 9,999,999 trips go without a hitch don't you?

I keep thinking of the Ronnie Corbett character Timothy from Sorry!

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 18:03

(the last bit wasn't directed at you, NortherWreck)

exoticfruits · 02/02/2012 18:04

He is what you get SoupDragon if mothers don't keep their anxieties hidden and let the DC experience life-which is for living!

Perriwinkle · 02/02/2012 18:06

"You are doing your DC no favours if you say words to the effect of 'the world is a terrible place-you are only safe with mummy"!

You're spot on exoticfruits.

In my expereince these mothers are also often heard to be saying things to their children like "oh I wouldn't try that so and so, you might not like it".

Can you imagine what sort of risk averse, lilly livered, socially maladjusted, scared of their own shadow Timothy Lumsden type adults these children will develop into?

NorthernWreck · 02/02/2012 18:07

Thats what I'm saying. You have to hide it. Say "ooh fab!" to them, while sobbing quietly inside.
Probably it gets easier, until they turn 13.

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 18:07

I don't know what it is like at other schools, but at ours the children spend the say after a trip going through the photos that were taken and writing/talking about them. Any child kept away from a trip because of parental anxieties is going to end themselves excluded from that part of the trip too.

Original poster
BupcakesandCunting · 02/02/2012 18:15

FFS I'm NOT keeping him away from the trip.

OP posts:
thirdfromleft · 02/02/2012 18:21

How much do the teachers like him? I mean, is there any risk that he's the one they might cover in BBQ sauce and push into the tiger pit?

Hulababy · 02/02/2012 18:23

I am amazed that schools could manage to miss and lose a child, or leave one behind. We head count so often, and take a register before going and before leaving to come home.

SoupDragon · 02/02/2012 18:30

Bupcakes other people are saying they would.

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