To think headteacher was slightly insensitive?

[StephensDW]

I realise this situation is potentially my fault. I shouldn't have sent her in.

DD is a well behaved, polite student. She is in Yr 10. Has never had a detention, etc.

Our family dog wasn't very well. He had been here since DD was 4. He is very much loved. They were extremely close (she does agility competitions, etc. with him).

I said I'd text her to let her know how he got on at the vets (he had to stay in for testing, but I was collecting him).

She skipped the lesson which is the time I was collecting him (she has never done this before). Anyway, she was found and taken to Head of Years, but they were either teaching or in a meeting with the pastoral staff, so she was sent to the head.

He said to her that it "was a stupid reason to miss a lesson and really not important enough". This has been confirmed (got a phone call).

Anyway, our much loved boy was PTS. She wasn't aware of this yet and I explained on the phone that it's best he doesn't mention it, but I said I'd come and get her because she was clearly going to be sit waiting for the news and I told her I would let her know. PE was last lesson and so it wasn't the end of the world. This is when he said it would be a ridiculous reason to come and collect a 15 year old. He really was quite snappy. DD was sitting in the office at this point and it was all a bit of a mess tbh.

AIBU? Apart from the other bits that I admit were my fault.

OP - sorry you've had to have your dog put to sleep.

However, I think this thread shows the problem of mobile phones and the constant obsession of people (especially young people, but not exclusively) to be in touch all the time.
Phones should be / are banned in schools for a very good reason.
I'm a teacher (you could tell, couldn't you) and frankly it's got to the stage when as far as the majority of the pupils are concerned, lessons are just an annoying break between chunks of real life i.e. when they are in contact with the rest of the world via their mobile phones. (Not for teachers - we don't check our phones between arriving at school and the lunch hour and sometimes not even then - we are too busy concentrating on the job in hand - and would really prefer that our pupils were similarly concentrated on their work.)
It's not necessary. From the moment they walk through the school gates to the moment they leave they should be either learning or interacting directly with the other pupils and children - not via a small screen.
If there was a family emergency and the parents really needed to contact their child they would do what they did 20 years ago and phone the school. Being 'incommunicado" has advantages - default position is "no news is good news." Personally, I would have told a little white lie and said that there's be no news until I picked her up from school as the vet's appointment was at 4 p.m. (or whatever time is just 30 minutes before the end of the school day.) Sorry OP, but you should have thought it through and taken steps to ensure that your daughter did not spend all day checking her phone for updates.... which is what got her into trouble.

Another example of similar is the girl who burst into tears during a lesson. The cause? Her boyfriend had dumped her by text and she'd sneaked a peak at her messages under the desk.

Parents really do need to think carefully and learn to avoid feeding the obsessive need to be in touch 24/7- it's simply not healthy.

OP get off here and look after yourself. You don't need mumsnet judging your actions today in addition to what has happened. Very sorry again to hear about the dog x

100% agree with Majorgoodwinschickenbeatstrump

"... get off here and look after yourself. You don't need mumsnet judging your actions today in addition to what has happened."

Really just go and plan a nice way to remember your beloved pet. make a scrap book of photos with your dd, do something in the garden like a memory garden. Don;t over analyse what happened re school.

www.petlosshelp.org/10commonquestions.html

This may not be right for you but your daughter may like this idea...

www.petlosshelp.org/memorialhalloffame/dogs.html

www.pet-loss.net/

Sorry to hear about your dog OP. YANBU.

StephensDW

What are you actually complaining about?
That the HT was doing his job by reprimanding your DD for bunking a lesson to use her phone, to find out when the dog was going to be picked up.

Or his response to you once you had told him (but not your dd) the news?

I'm so sorry for your loss and YANBU. The head was out of order in my opinion.

I am so sorry for you loss for you and DD. The headteacher was an uncaring twat when my dog got pts I was deverstated he was a massive part of our family and I still miss him now.

Parents really do need to think carefully and learn to avoid feeding the obsessive need to be in touch 24/7- it's simply not healthy

A very good point. But actually schools and more particularly pre-school provision, expect parents, or someone designated by parents, to be available at all times so they also feed the idea that you must always be contactable, even when you can't be eg driving, working in an operating theatre or just out of reception or battery power. When I was at school the school just had to accept that if your mum (it was of course always the mum) wasn't home, they'd have to wait until she was.

However, it's true that the OP should not have told her daughter she'd text her an update.

And it's true that the HT could have been more understanding. I'm not a dog lover either, but it isn't for a HT to minimise the feelings of someone who's obviously in distress. And you can miss a PE lesson!

I think he was slightly insensitive but your daughter had bunked off a lesson, so he may have dealt with it more sensitively if she'd not done that.

Not an animal person and find people's obssessions with their pets annoying but....it is not for me to tell someone else what is or is not or should or should not be important in their life.

Headteacher totally overstepped the mark.

The obsession with being in touch 24/7 is also annoying but...... I would keep my phone on all day if I needed an update on something important to me and would give a 15yr old the same respect.

I do think headteacher was harsh but then I also think your daughter shouldn't have skipped a lesson based on your text. Your daughter was naughty for this.

IT's a very different situation if a teacher has an upset child coming to them saying "I've just heard my dog is going to be PTS" and may well give them leave to miss the lesson.
Than the situation here where the child chose not to go to lessons so they could check a text. The text would have been there at the end of the lesson, which surely would be the idea of texting over phoning.

And teenagers can have much more imaginative excuses than "I'm waiting to see if my mum texts me with the update on the dog after she's collected it from the vet". Can't see my line manager excepting that for missing a meeting.

The fact the dog had to be pts is irrelevant really as the dd had no idea (nor by the sound of it the OP did either) at the time she was caught and had bunked off before that was on the cards.

But actually schools and more particularly pre-school provision, expect parents, or someone designated by parents, to be available at all times so they also feed the idea that you must always be contactable, even when you can't be

That's not a new thing, when I was at school the office records held both the parent's contact details but also asked for a further emergency contact, so that in the event they needed to contact someone and couldn't get hold of mum or dad, there was someone they could call to at least inform of any issue.

Also, they have to have contact details - schools are legally responsible for the children in their care, and if something happens they need to be able to contact the parents/carers asap to inform them, especially in this litigious age where there will always be one parent who would pitch a fit if they weren't contacted as soon as something happened and instead had to wait uutil pick-up to hear about an incident.

There is nothing that requires a parent to be instantly and constantly in contact with their child when they are in school ... if they can't get hold of their child directly they can call the school, which is actually better as if I needed to give my DD bad news, I'd want to be able to tell an adult at the school first an overview of the situation, so that they could appropriately support my DD until I could come and collect her.

I think you did say Sundance

^Did the dog have to be PTS straight away? Couldn't you have done that later and let your daughter say goodbye?

Granny - this depends on how much the dog was suffering, and how much room the vet has for "passengers" i.e. animals which aren't going to recover. Sometimes they need to make way for animals which will, if they receive the treatment they need.

I have been guilty of keeping a dog alive when the kind thing to do would have been to let her go. In retrospect I did the wrong thing.

OP has taken a massively brave decision to allow her beloved dog to be PTS - it's never easy, and it doesn't get easier with time. She did what was best FOR THE DOG. That is all we can do.

YANBU at all, very insensitive of the Head.

When our cat got pts we were all ofc devastated but DDs still had to go into school on the day. DD1, 15 at the time, was very upset so her head of year called me to arrange both DDs getting picked up and then drove them to the vets as I didn't have to time to pick them up without missing our appointment. She was then very understanding when they told the next day off of school. She was absolutely amazing and I made sure DDs thanked her first thing when they were next in and we brought her some flowers and chocolates to thank her.

There is no reason for the head teacher to be rude to her and so dismissive of her hurting. Loosing a pet, especially one you've had for 10 years, is really hard.

Ffs- the head wasn't insensitive to an upset child - the op's daughter didn't know the dog had been pts!

Ginmakesitallok

I get the feeling that posters are either ignoring or not reading that important piece of information.

There is no reason for the head teacher to be rude to her and so dismissive of her hurting. Loosing a pet, especially one you've had for 10 years, is really hard.

The DD didn't know the dog had been PTS though

Dd didn't know the dog had been pts but at 15 I suspect show was worried and anxious and really wanted to be available for when her dm phoned/texted.

Yes it would have been better if dd or dm had spoken to pastoral at the beginning of the day. Ime they may well have said at X time come to the office to take the phone call.

I suspect the head was pissed off at having to deal with something that he felt should have been the remit of hoy or pastoral. He was completely lacking in empathy in his response to both the dd and the dm IMO.

granny no the op acted in the best interests of the dog! Keeping it alive for several hours when it was suffering for dd to say goodbye would not have been good for the dog.
The ht was insensitive,yes dd didn't know the dog had been pts sleep but the comments towards the dog were still uncalled for

Even if he disagreed with the reason to skip the lesson, the delivery sucked.

It must have been an awful day for your dd, being sent to the head, having never put a foot wrong before and losing her dog on the same day. Is she at home today? I'd let her take the rest of the week off if she wants to. Sending sympathy.

kali it was a vet who originally advised me to do this. She said she would keep the dog comfortable, he was very sedated, and advised me to come back with the children so they could say goodbye. Then I did the same when the other dog was taken seriously ill in the night. The vet said it is hard for kids to trust parents again if this happens and in her experience it was much better to give the child a chance to say goodbye and then they would trust you if you had to take a pet to the vet again (I had 3 dogs so obviously we went through this more than once not to mention the cats)

I was surprised originally as I didn't think it would be appropriate for young children but with experience I did agree with her. I don't know why I ever thought it was ok to tell kids you are going to the vet with a much loved pet and come back having had them PTS.

grannytomine The dog had been taken in the day before and had been there overnight, so the DD already knew the dog was a the vets.