To not tell DD of grandparents death until after exams

[Lucielue79]

My mum is very unwell, there’s a strong possibility she’ll die around DDs GCSEs.

WIBU to not tell her until after the exams? She won’t notice in terms of not seeing her. My other DD is 10 years younger so no issue in delaying telling her.

We’d mark her passing in our own special way with DD at a later date and she wouldn’t be able to attend the funeral anyway due to potential exams.

Any thoughts particularly if you’ve experienced similar.

I don't think she'll ever forgive you for keeping this massive family loss from her.

Ah , I voted I correctly. You should tell her.

my dad had cancer and we were told at 6am on the morning of my English GCSE that he died . I still went to school and got the result I wanted .

don’t hide anything from her, it will be much worse when you need to deal with the aftermath.

Do you have any idea how long exams go on for? In our house they start on the 23rd of April and finish on the 23rd of May. It's not all over and done in a week. Do you also realise how hard places for everything is now, you can't just wing it on a few average grades anymore.

Of course I do as my daughter did them last year. The special consideration applies across all exams, but it’s only a few percent. If kids miss one exam for something like this they can average the final mark from the other papers. That is the process. My son nearly had to miss an exam as we needed to bury his grandfather, and for religious reasons it needed to be done the day after death, so no chance to just re-arrange. No-one is winging it with an average grade for one subject, they’d only do it if someone died or they were very unwell.

It's clear from this thread how many people have no idea about current exams and next steps. My advice would be:

1. What are her next steps and what grades does she need? If she needs straight 9's to get a place into wherever then think long and hard about how hard these grades are to get and what impact that will make on her future?
2. If she can comfortably achieve what she needs, even with the extra marks, then honesty becomes a bigger player in the choices you make
3. There are a lot of people are only here to say, well that happened to me and I did fine. That's great for them, but only you know your daughter, how will she cope with the news, will it destroy her, or will she be able to cope and carry on
4. It's a month long window, how long into the window do you think it might be (and that might be too soon to tell at this point) and what are her split of the exams across the period. In our house we have one week where we have 7 exams in a week so that would be an absolute no at that point, is there a point where you could consider telling more easily than other times?

There are no easy answers, wishing you the best, on what is a very difficult journey ahead.

My husband died 8 weeks to the day before my son's exams. In the house. He did fine (AAAB... Scottish highers). I think you have to tell her. She will be very upset you kept it from her.

Rubbish. GCSEs are not rescheduled.

I’d do the opposite and get her desensitised to the trauma by her knowing what the score is right now. Her grandma is on her last legs and likely to die in months rather than years. Very sad and tragic but she’d be more prepared for it so she didn’t fall to pieces when she pegs it.

And also tell the school. It's possible that the worst won't happen until after the exams, but they will help if it does. One of our best friends died during some of my important university exams and they arranged to let me sit it in another university in the South West so that I could go to the funeral.

My beloved Nana passed away week of my finals. I knew she was very ill, but my parents chose not to tell me until exams were over.
Yes, I'd have liked to have said a final goodbye, but in hindsight I'm glad they didn't tell me as likely would have failed my exams.
Nana knew how much I loved her. A final goodbye wasn't necessary.

Let her know now that your mum is unlikely to survive; inform the school of the situation and be honest and upfront with your daughter. Let her see her if you can.
Some things are more important than exams; if you lie to her now, by omission, you’re setting her up to lose trust in you.

My uncle died at the end of May 2022 and he was buried a couple of weeks later. My cousin's son was doing his gcses at the time but the funeral was arranged so it didn't interfere with an exam. He was very close to his grandad and I can't imagine him not going to the funeral.

My parents are in their 80s and ds is sitting his finals for his MEng this year. Thankfully they are both well (touch wood) but if the worst happened I probably wouldn't tell him immediately (I think his exams are all within a short period of time) as I know it would definitely affect his result. He is ND, adores them and is very sensitive. Dd3 is 17 and if there was a similar scenario next year when she is doing her IB I probably would tell her as she is good at compartmentalising and obviously she lives with me.

But surely you will play a part in organising the funeral so you would arrange it for a day she doesn’t have an exam? I sympathise with your situation as I have faced something similar, but my DM held on until 2 days after the exams finished. I think if it had just been a day or possibly 2 I might have been tempted not to tell my DC but I think it’s very hard for any longer length of time. I’m sorry you are going through this.

Nope, don’t keep it from her. My mum died a month ago and no way in hell I could have kept it from my daughter and she is only 10. She was asking after her gran several times a day anyway while she was in hospital. My sister didn’t tell my nephew (12) till the next day because he was with his dad. She wanted to tell him herself because his dad is a bit of a prat and didn’t like my mum and she was worried he might be dismissive. It ended up being really stressful and we had to make sure one of his cousins didn’t accidentally tell him at school or on FaceTime. You just don’t know how it will pan out. She could pass at the weekend or on a day DD doesn’t have exams. The funeral might be on a non exam day. Are you really going to be able to suppress all the emotions until exams are over? I can almost guarantee she will guess. If she knows Gran is dying you can prepare her for the possibility it will happen during exams. If she really can’t cope, is there a system for being allowed to defer/resit on compassionate grounds? Sometimes being in a state of not knowing / not being able to predict what will happen is harder to cope with than the loss itself. I’m so sorry this is happening to you all.

My nephew was in this position last year. MIL passed away in early May, the funeral director offered 2 funeral dates but nephew had exams on both dates offered. The family rejected both dates and we were offered a date in July. Everyone agreed the exams were a priority. I actually started a new job the week of the funeral, I advised them during interview that I had a funeral, was given compassionate leave even though it was week 1.

My DGM passed just before my GCSEs. My DM lied to me when they got the call to go to the hospital and say goodbye and told me she was going for surgery but would be fine. I have never ever forgiven her or the rest of the family who knew about it. I did find out next day and go to the funeral etc, school were great and I passed them because I knew that’s what she wanted.Please don’t keep it from her

I remembered something else I should have suggested, I know someone did already say about asking for the call to come through a bit later in the day rather than right before she would be setting off for an exam, but I would also add to that asking for the call not to come through in the middle of the night (with my grandad, it was about 3.30am). If she does pass during the night, a) the interrupted sleep if anyone does call at daft o’clock won’t help with the exams if there is one that day, and b) if you did decide to go down the route of not saying anything even if just leaving it to the afternoon when your daughter is home from school, a call at that time of night wouldn’t be as easy to explain away.