To give DS a 'mental health' day off school?

[beethebee]

My DS11 started secondary in September. He's doing fairly well despite a packed schedule and the teachers saying that his class is pretty tough to manage. He likes his teachers and they seem to like him.

He never really gets ill and hasn't had a sick day in years, but this week he's asked if he could have a day off on Thursday. He's not pretending to be ill or anything, just says he's feeling a bit tired and meh about school and wants a day to 'get himself together'. He doesn't have any tests or work due on Thursday.

I thought the way he approached it (not trying to fake anything) was pretty mature and I'm inclined to say ok and let him stay at home on Thursday on the understanding that it's a total one-off.

AIBU?

Good mental health is also putting your hand up and saying I’m struggling a bit and need some time out, not just adapting and coping

Soldiering on isn’t working for adults so why should it for teens?

I get personal leave days at work to use at my discretion. Not a lot. But if I need a mental health day and I have the leave I’m allowed to and don’t have to explain myself or get special permission.

We all need a break sometimes, you know your son and if he’s genuine or having a lend.

Agree with LolaSmiles :
"
Then again what this thread shows us is that people are all too happy to take whatever medical label or mental health label they can to justify having a duvet day, leaving people with very real conditions having to challenge misconceptions and misinformation. Of course none of that actually matters as long as people can have a lie in and a lazy day."

Yes, we all need a break sometimes

That is why kids have weekends and holidays

Our mum always let us have the odd day off, and she was a teacher 🤷🏻‍♀️ And we all got clean sweeps of As when it came to results, and pull our weight as adults etc I have a job where I can never pull a sickie - I have to go even when I am pretty sick, so a few days off from my education clearly didn’t harm me, I expect quite the reverse.

As a result, I do the same for my kids.

I can see why you'd be tempted but unless he's really at the end of his tether I'd encourage him to plough through to the end of the week and plan a weekend of recuperation and fun to rejuvinate a bit.

It's Thursday now OP, did he have his day off?

I found that missing even one day of secondary school meant that I got behind with the work and it was really hard to catch up again .

blue
I'd happily keep a child off who was really struggling and needed that time to genuinely deal with mental health.

My issue in this situation is that a parent:

• sees their child has a packed schedule
• allows their child to have a packed schedule with no respite or down time
• their approach to giving their child time to chill out would mean replacing their sport (which they enjoy) with staying at home doing chores... So not a break at all
• they fill the rest of the weekend with seeing friends/family
• but then think taking a day of school is reasonable because they're totally in tune with teen mental health

Equally there's other posts on here saying "oh yes I give days off because the kids are so busy they need time off to unwind".

These are adults who claim to care so much about mental health they will encourage pre planning days to bunk off, but clearly they can't care that much because otherwise they'd actually do something about the cause of the teen feeling overwhelmed or over tired.

Equally, there's people who think nothing of trying to appropriate mental health and/or physical conditions such as migraine as ways to justify duvet days, which has massive implications for people who do have those conditions. For example one workplace seemed surprised I had multiple days off for a bad migraine. They clearly had so many people taking single days that it hadn't occured to them that a migraine sufferer may well be taken out of action for days and feel hungover at the end.

Good grief, if I took a meh day whenever I wanted one I'd never leave the house! We all have lots if things we do because we have to, as adults that's work, as a child, that's school so make sure he has a quiet weekend and send him to school

I would let him. My mother used to do the same with me and my sister, she used to say better it known we weren't at school than bunking off and doing god knows what.
Childrens mental health is so important