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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To let dd take day off school tomorrow?

105 replies

Auntieobem · 04/10/2017 22:29

She's been on a day trip with school to Amsterdam - up at 2 am this morning. Flight just landed, probably 2 hours until she gets home. She can stay home tomorrow can't she?

OP posts:
mymickeysbetterthanyours · 05/10/2017 00:04

Just keep her off. God there are some right martyrs on here

CottonEyedJoe · 05/10/2017 00:06

*Fair enough. I am out. Some people don’t know they are born (or have any sense of team spirit or customer service)

Many, many people work 14 hour days. 14 times 6 is only 84 and lots of people don’t get the choice but to work 70- 80- 90 hours a week.*

I work 30 hours a week. I'm also in my third year of a degree that takes up 40+ hours a week. I'm the lone parent of a non sleeping 2 year old. Excluding raising her, I study and work for over 14 hours almost every day. I'm only 10 years older than OP's child. I still think she should have the day off. She has the rest of her life to slave away running on empty!

TalkingintheDark · 05/10/2017 00:06

Actually I know many, many people who work 76 hour days, 9 days a week, 66 weeks a year. After having their heads amputated, too.

And think themselves lucky to have a job into the bargain.

KeepServingTheDrinks · 05/10/2017 00:08

Hi OP

I started a similar thread once (different user name) when my DD was due to be similarly sleep-deprived. [the difference with me was mine was in the last week of term before the summer hols, and mine was also on a Monday, not a Friday].

And I got a similar-ish range of answers to you. I'd say 3/4 told me I was molly-coddling and ridiculous and it was my responsibility to send her in. The rest said it would be fine. Several of that group were teachers who said they'd rather I kept her off than have an overly tired child falling asleep in their lessons.

What I did was email the school and say I wasn't going to wake her up. In the event, she woke up anyway and went in. But the school were lovely and totally agreed that I shouldn't wake her. I should say my DD averages an attendance of above 98%, so the school do know I don't keep her off for just any reason.

So I'd say let your instinct be your guide. And how tired your child seems. It is only one day to get through and she can chill over the weekend. But if she's exhausted, she's exhausted and she won't learn anything. I hope her trip went well.

mathanxiety · 05/10/2017 00:11

FGS, she is not in the trenches, and she is not an employee yet either, in customer service or any other industry, and school is not about putting on a show of team spirit. She doesn't have to put in 70-90 hours a week because she is a child of 14.

Millions of people in the rest of the world aren’t so lucky ... likewise millions of people in previous generations
In other words, "Eat your stewed spinach because there are starving children in Africa"...
Utterly bonkers.

She would be wasting her teachers' time if sent in while too tired to learn or contribute, and if her teachers have been up too, then they will be phoning it in in the classrooms. She can find out what work she missed and make it up.

Let her sleep in.

Fauchelevent · 05/10/2017 00:16

Oh mumsnet and your race to the bottom, martyresque competitive toughness attitude

This is more like ten hours sleep in what will be over 48 hours, 55+ hours including the school day. You won’t prove a point about the real world, you’ll just make her more tired and less productive for the next few days as she catches up.

Migraleve · 05/10/2017 00:27

I’m baffled as to why you have asked? This in particular from your OP

She can stay home tomorrow can't she?

Who exactly are you asking? Because half the people on this thread will say one thing and the other half the complete opposite.

But.....

SCHOOL HAVE ALREADY SAID THEY CAN STAY OFF.

Erm; I would have considered that your answer and saved yourself and every single person who took bothered replying to your threads time. FFS.

TheCowWentMoo · 05/10/2017 00:53

Just let her have a lie on and a day off ffs. She's 14 and its one day, I doubt it will affect her education one bit. My parents were both teachers and I had to either be throwing up or dying to be allowed a day off normally but after a similar trip when i was about 15 they let me have the day off. School is different to work, you don't need to spend your entire childhood preparing to work. And tbh if I could take a day off work and no one would be affected after a trip like that I would

sinceyouask · 05/10/2017 06:48

In the trenches wtf? That's someone's actual, real argument asto why op's dd should get up and go in today. Wtf? The trenches? Are you cringing at yourself right now?

nokidshere · 05/10/2017 07:07

When our school have done long day trips arriving back at midnight or later the letter usually states that all children are expected in school the following morning.

youarenotkiddingme · 05/10/2017 07:16

Ds school have guidelines around this.

E.g. They say if children take part in these extra curricula trips they are expected to attend school the following day despite long hours.

The teachers are expected to turn up and teach despite giving up their free time to take the pupils. And it's much harder to teach 5 x 1hr lessons to 30 odd teenagers than it it turning up and listening for 6!

MsGameandWatching · 05/10/2017 07:18

Your only mistake was posting about it here OP, MN is ridiculous about kids missing the occasional day of school. Flight lands at 10.30, then they've got to get through customs etc, all get on the coach, get back, get home etc. I'd be very surprised to see her back in the house and ready for bed by 12.30. It's ONE day.

FakePlasticTeaLeaves · 05/10/2017 07:23

So now school have said she can stay off. What a strange thread.

WomblingThree · 05/10/2017 07:27

My son had a day off school after a holiday once. He’s now an unemployed, skinhead NF member who smokes heroin and robs banks.

Oh, wait......

BeyondThePage · 05/10/2017 07:30

I'd be surprised if they are home on time. Ours never are. But DD always goes in after.

Tonight she will probably be home between 1 and 2am - trip to a musical event 90 miles away with school, she will get home and into bed around 2.30, get up at 6.50 shower and head off to school - walk and bus - I have not said she has to, school would probably be fine if she didn't, she just sees school as non-negotiable, so turns up.

She just has to make a choice - doesn't have to be made before-hand, go with the flow, wake her up - if she feels able she goes.

5rivers7hills · 05/10/2017 07:33

No, not everyone would be willing to work a 14 hour day, even if it was occasional. I certainly wouldn't. An extra hour, or two at a push, but no way in hell am I working an additional 6 hours, no matter what the emergency. And no, I don't work for the civil service or as a teacher. I'm in the corporate dept of a multinational.

@bogofeternalstench oh god you’re a back office cost centre.... No one likes doing 14 hours days but most people do them when needed for short stretches (or long stretches if you are a lawyer)

hippyhippyshake · 05/10/2017 07:37

Did anyone query when the trip was first mooted as to why this wasn't planned for a Friday? I can just imagine the teacher's faces when asked for volunteers for the trip 😱

SoupDragon · 05/10/2017 07:48

Based on the info in the OP, I would send my child in. I bet the teachers are in.

Since the school have said they can stay off, I would send her in when she wakes up. She doesn't need a whole day off.

ifonly4 · 05/10/2017 07:54

You'll have made your decision by now, but my DD would have gone in (her choice). From memory when she came back from Spain around 4am they were told they didn't have to be in before 11am and approx 25% followed that, the others were in at 8.50am

notanotherNC · 05/10/2017 08:05

You are her mum you know her best. If you think she is too tired then I wouldn't send her.

Kipi · 05/10/2017 08:13

“Exhaustion is a medical condition”

You don’t get exhaustion after one long day! 😂

SnugglySnerd · 05/10/2017 08:17

At our school parents are told that we expect children in school the day after a trip. Any absence is unauthorised unless parents can prove actual illness eg with a doctor's note or prescription. After all the teachers who went on the trip still have to go to work and you must have been aware of the hours involved before giving consent for her to go.

Kipi · 05/10/2017 08:23

Plus you’re supposed to be preparing her for the real world!
She’s going to be a right one if she thinks she can pull a sickie at the slightest thing.

MsGameandWatching · 05/10/2017 08:43

She’s going to be a right one if she thinks she can pull a sickie at the slightest thing.

Or she will go off the rails and "pull sickies" at the slightest thing because she was never able to make the choice to have to odd day off while she was growing up. If you control your children too much they don't learn balance; they've never been allowed to. This was me. My parents were controlling authoritarian nightmares, I don't remember ever being allowed a day off. Couldn't believe it when I didn't have to answer to anyone and could stay of whenever I liked.

AlbertHerbertHawkins · 05/10/2017 09:14

God, is it just me or are people way too invested in this mother's decision. I'd let her sleep in if she wanted to but then again it's people like me who would have lost us the second world war.......or something.

Also, lots in the press at the moment about the importance of sleep to health. What message are we sending out kids about ensuring that we get enough sleep - which is the bedrock for good health - that it's for weaklings and those lacking moral fibre.