To keep DS off school due to death of pet?

[Banananaaa]

We have just had to have DPony PTS. Shes had a good old innings, shes 36 and we have owned her for 22 of those years. She was my first pony and taught both DSs to ride.

DS1 (13) absolutely adores her and in these later years even those shes now retired she has been what I would quite clearly call his pony. He spends time with her before and after school, he takes her for walks, reads his books to her and does his homework sitting in her paddock.

We found her collapsed in the stable tonight, vet reckoned her liver was failing, and we have had her PTS. DS is understandably devastated and finally cried himself to sleep about 15 mins ago.

He has some health issues anyway which mean he is easily fatigued and I know getting him up at 7 for school tomorrow is going to be hell on earth, and he would struggle to manage the day even if he was just tired, without the emotional stuff on top.

Its the last day before half term and all morning, he has PE so its not like they will be doing loads academically, however on the other side, she was a pony and I don't know how the school will feel on a days absence due to that.

AIBU to keep him off or take him in late tomorrow? Or should I just take him in as normal?

Suburban, what has mamasiz said to make you call her rude and smug? I only saw her saying a bereavement is a bereavement whether human or otherwise?

lemon

If you read both her posts to me - The whole post, not just a section, and bear in mind this is someone who says she works with bereaved families for a job (you know, people who are at their absolute lowest ebb and have been sent to her for comfort and a kind word), it might become clear.

When my mil died recently i didnt tell anyone

Luckily i had a few days off

If i had to go to work the next day i would have been a bit tearful

My children went to school two days later,

I would not want a crying or close to tears child to have to go to school the same day or the next day if i could help it

It doesnt matter what or who died...the OPs child was upset and obviously extremely tired

At the school I work in we authorise absence due to the death of a pet if attendance is otherwise good.

So do we, sad.

I get a child being sad at the death of a pet and needing the day off.

But is no one else at the suggestion upthread of someone having 3 days off work due to the death of a pet?!! 3 days?! As an adult?

I get pets are part of the family. We just lost our 19 year old cat. But if I wanted 3 days off to deal with it?!

Yeah the thing is Kent, none of us actually know anything about the circumstances causing them to have three days off. Maybe they had depression and this was the final straw after holding it together. Maybe their mum died six months earlier and the pet dying shocked them into grieving and out of the shock period. Maybe they were physically unwell and wanted to keep that private and blamed the loss. Or just maybe some grown adults have such an attachment to their animals that one of them dying unexpectedly or in tragic circumstances is enough for them not to have been able to hold it together doing their job for a few days. If you're a nurse I'm sure you understand some jobs need you to be 100% and you can't really work when you're crying spontaneously every five minutes if you have to be strong for sick patients and their families?

Absolutely lemon

Grief is weird

So when my mum died i was obviously really upset

But i was really hit by the urge to self harm and a short period of something close to depression the day after he got married...and that was a few days later, weird

So sorry for your loss.

Day off, 100%. I would take a day off work if one of my pets died.

The charity I work for has a policy that we can take a day off work if we lose a pet.

We also as a hardly run a bet bereavement support service which is a free confidential support service that anyone can phone if they have lost a pet, or are having to make a euthanasia decision etc. The death of a pet can be just as traumatic as death of a family member to some people. The pet may be their last remaining link to a loved one, their only company in the home etc.

I have lost both both people close to me, and pets too.

Any persons death is individual to them. We have a lot of people who struggle hugely with the grief they feel when losing a pet as they often feel that people write off their loss as being insignificant due to being "just a pet". Unfortunately, I have seen some of that attitude on this thread although I am heartened by the number of supportive posts.

Yes you need to be 100% in our job @lemonshark but we rarely are. Obviously not the fault of anyone in this thread, more of an issue generally. But when I know how hard our jobs are and how demanding it is on our family and how hard it is is when we try and take time off for anything (leave refused for me when my fil died suddenly and my own father was in iCU unexpectedly plus we had a 10 month old).

So excuse me if I'm questioning someone taking 3 days off work for the death of a cat when I don't even get that for the death of an in-law

I know somebody who took 6 months off work with depression when she lost her horse very suddenly after it had emergency surgery . That was a bit extreme , but I assume she had other issues and that just sort of tipped her over the edge , a mutual aquaintance who went to see her about 4 days in said she was just hugging a head collar and crying .

Sounds like a very difficult time, KentNurse, it really does. Doesn't that make you more determined that adequate compassionate leave should be available to everyone, now you know how difficult it was for you to be denied it? Otherwise it's a bit 'it was crap for me so everyone else should experience that too', race to the bottom.

See the thing is for me my horse provided far more emotional empathy than my mother.. maybe that the key to this raging issue regards bereavement. I'm not going to equate this to everyone but I had no emotional stimulus at home and my pets have been like family members ever since. A lot of me thinks this would be the case regardless of my upbringing based on my personality but part of me thinks I'm over invested emotionally due to lack of any care, interest, emotion or feelings as I was growing up.

Hope your DS is doing ok and you too. Hopefully the half day will of helped.

I sent my DS (10) in when he found our Guinea pig had died last week. He struggled. Phoned me from the office in the morning. I had asked if they wanted me to collect him He had support from TA and sounded much better by lunch. His mates were very supportive and I think it helped him not be at home all day..

I just wanted to add that I’m really sorry for your loss, OP. flowers

I’m glad you gave your son the choice, and that the school were then supportive when he realised that he couldn’t go in.

Grief really does affect us all differently. Some people don’t process the loss immediately and are “fine” for a while before it hits them. In that circumstance, your DS would probably have been fine at school. Others though find it hits like a ton of bricks immediately. No-one, adult or child, should be forced to go to work or school the day that grief hits them. Especially if it’s just because someone else thinks that they need to be distracted etc. For a teenage boy at secondary school I can completely see why school might not have been a good idea- his friends may have been supportive but other kids, particularly at that age, are cruel and it may have made it worse!

If it were us having lost one of our cats, I know that our boys would be devastated. I wouldn’t make them go into school, if they didn’t want to go in (and conversely I wouldn’t stop them from going in to school if they did want to). I would, however, have been worried about the school putting it down as an unauthorised absence though - IF the LA did decide to issue a fine (because I believe that they can do for any length of unauthorised absence despite the comment further back saying they wouldn’t do for one day) we couldn’t afford the fine at all - not even if we’re just one lot of £60. Imagine having to pay our £360 for 3 children taking one day off for grief because the school didn’t think it would count as an “exceptional circumstance”. So I can see why people may have been advising to call in sick. Whilst I don’t condone lying, I’ve read some horror stories about schools lately and rather over-zealous fining! I would have probably said that DS is absolutely exhausted due to a poor night’s sleep following the shock of us discovering our beloved family pet had passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly.

I hope the half term break helps you all to begin to deal with the grieving process in your own way xx