Sad about reaction to summer residential trip but is it a sign of the times?

[Flowersinthehood]

DC is in year 5, we were speaking amongst us (the parents in the class) about the year six residential trip next year. It’s five days, three hours drive away doing activities and stuff that most children would probably enjoy doing with their friends.
My DC has SEN and is emotionally about two years younger. She still needs some help with dressing, time management etc, making sure she has things she needs, even more so than most kids of her age.
That said, I really want her to go on the residential trip. I have such fond memories of my trip. I know she’s not me though, and she’s not a kid of the nineties.
So many other parents said they didn’t think their kids would go, or they didn’t want them to. The main reason was anxiety (the child’s), them not trusting school, didn’t see a need for it as they did lots of activities ‘as a family’ (failing to see how much more fun it would be with friends), kids haven’t slept in anyone else’s house or been apart from them.
It made me think about how much has changed. I grew up in a council estate (whilst we live in an affluent area now) and we were out and about on our bikes. Kids walked to the local shop on their own from around 7, no real discussion of stranger danger.
My DC hasn’t had any of these experiences. We parents manage her social life, we are cautious about knowing friends families before she goes for play dates. I’m a single parent so she goes to her dads for sleepovers but hasn’t been anywhere else to sleep.
Are we unrealistic to expect our children to cope with the same things at the same age when they have so much less freedom?

Also some are very good, some are over priced and crap. Parents can’t take their kids out term time now so have to pay full price for family holidays. If it was between that and a family holiday I’d choose family.

Another issue to consider is that many girls are getting periods much younger and don’t want to be away from home on a Y5 or Y6 residential dealing with changing, hygiene, etc. i don’t blame them.

Maybe be cost is an issue but they don't want to say

We’re in France also and my kid went on their first trip age 4 (some of the kids in the trip were 3) a 2night/3day ski trip. The kids age 6+ stayed 5 days. She loved it, asked to stag the full 5 days. We don’t have family nearby so she had only ever stayed overnight away from both parents maybe twice in her life but she had a blast. I wasn’t concerned for her although did think the teachers were slightly mad for signing themselves up for it but by all accounts everyone had a great time.

edited to add: I think about 8 kids in the school didn’t go, some of the 3 yr olds and then 2 brothers from an older year. It cost €50 per child. Bargain!

Our primary residentials are shorter and cheaper now than they ever have been, and pupil premium children don’t pay at all.

This was my experience in the 80s , the school 4 night trip away was nothing short of an ordeal.

My DC has been away through Brownies, Guides and school with very mixed experiences; enjoyed everything during the day but couldn't sleep due to crying kids/ kids that wouldn't sleep etc.

It's almost like a ritual, the trips away..it builds resilience and independence. I do get all the parental misgivings but teeth have to be gritted.

Aside from that, I hate all the 'back in my day' stuff. Just because parents didn't care about danger in the 70/80/90's doesn't mean it was better parenting.

And how is their situation made worse by going away with their school?

Yet on another thread you said 14 year olds should be chaperoned everywhere by their parents.

Parents anxiety making children anxious. Less social interaction in person due to phones. Less tolerance to even low risk.

Agreed. People keep telling me I should pay for DD to go on the year 10 skiing trip which, as a single parent, would obliterate my budget entirely. I manage to afford scouts camps and primary school residentials by not buying myself any new clothes or getting my hair cut more than once a year. I earn a good salary and am definitely not eligible for pupil premium funding but paying the mortgage, utility bills and putting decent food on the table comes before ski trips. My kids are very well rounded, independant, confident kids. School trips that cost ££££ are not needed.

I think it is important to distinguish between the extortionate "activity" trips and the resident also aimed at giving children an experience of being away.

For example DDs Secondary school have a Camp for Yr7s... usually attended by about 150 of the 200 pupils. Of the rest, some have accumulated too many behaviour points, and some don't want to go. Its free for those on pupil premium, and costs about £25 for 3 days for the rest.

They also have ski trips, water sports trips, theatre trips to New York or geography trips to Iceland costing hundred of pounds, if not over a thousand pounds. Very few go on those. They also have a fund they can target on low income families whose children would really benefit from those trips.

No one loses out by not going on the second type. Everyone should be able to access the first type.

I think the impact of the lock down must play a part (in the way parents have chosen to parent, I mean, in not attempting to address the missing out of these opportunities). Both my kids are ASD/ADHD, they went on every school residential trip (I sat on my phone the whole time they were away) but I also took them to brownies and beavers when there were young (and was one of the leaders) so that they went on sleepovers, camping and PGL from as young as 6yo.

I think people can use SEN as an automatic reason to discount their child taking part, rather than a reason to increase opportunities/exposure to such trips so that they are better able to cope with them (I appreciate that SEN needs differ, but we happily took a girl with down syndrome on brownies/guides trip in the knowledge mum was on call if needed). Both mine loved collecting their ‘nights away’ badges for their uniforms and whilst they really are not fans of camping, esp now they are teens, they are largely happy to travel anywhere. We just have to ensure there is build in space for them to opt out (spend time in the hotel rooms etc), which even on school trips they are able to facilitate with extra ‘down time’ and quiet activities/spaces for kids who are over stimulated.

Agreed @CautiousLurker01, I’m all for making residentials as accessible as possible for SEN kids. My SEN DC has actually happily gone on their school residentials (4 to date) - I guess I meant that they probably wouldn’t opt to go on something such as an optional music residential… though I suspect there are circumstances where the draw of the trip (e.g. trip to CERN) would be enough to outweigh their discomfort! But it certainly requires a lot of planning and discussion to mitigate their anxiety as far as possible.

I'm on a council estate and kids here go out on bikes, go to the shop etc.

I don't think many go on school residentials due to cost.

£25 for a camping trip is a bargain.

I feel sorry for these poor kids. I'm sure the parents think they're keeping them safe/protecting them but it's no wonder our teens and young adults are paralysed with depression/anxiety. They've been getting the constant message that the world is a terrible place filled with danger for them.

Not much help to the many over the threshold and in need.

This!

And why should they?

My memories are quite hazy, but I think I enjoyed doing the activities and had a good time overall. I don’t remember being especially homesick, but my children wouldn’t have been that keen to go away at such a young age. They didn’t do a residential until Year 5/6.

Agree - I think that some children (SEN and not) need a lot of scaffolding but my experience to date has been that if parents of anxious children work with the staff/trip leaders it can usually be sorted. My kids are teens now but in all the trips I did as a leader and all the school trips my kids went on (one a year with school from Y3, where they started as 2 day trips and build up to a 10 day outward bounds trip in y9 for my eldest the year before lockdown), not a single child was every sent home. Went the trips restarted after lockdown, mine went skiing, to France on language trips and on the obligatory war memorial trips to France/Belgium (I booked them on everything to make sure any lock down loss of confidence was countered!).

I think that many parents missed a ‘window’ in their own experience-gaining and it’s undermined their confidence in the fact that they’ve parented well enough that their kids will be fine. Their kids may not love it, initially, but they do survive and it’s not a trauma unless parents make it one. From observing 100s of kids, what I see is kids being surprised at how well they are able to cope, kids then having fun, and parents realising that their kids will be okay (and that maybe they’ve done a good enough job after all, so they eventually feel validated and more confident).

I’d hope that schools would work with reticent parents and anxious kids to try and make this work. At my kids’ school the annual trips were not ‘optional’ (obviously the choir tours or language trips to Paris were, but not the annual year group event) and if you seriously did angle to miss out, the children left behind floated around the school, sitting in other year group classes like a bit of unwanted flotsam which soon made kids on future trips chose to be part of the dreaded school trip next time.

Aside from that, I hate all the 'back in my day' stuff. Just because parents didn't care about danger in the 70/80/90's doesn't mean it was better parenting.

I think this assumption is really unfair. Allowing your children appropriate independence and freedom does not mean you don’t ‘care’ about danger. Keeping your child tethered to you at all times so you can control your anxiety about anything ‘bad’ happening to them when they are away from you really is worse parenting.

I’m having trouble getting my head round the idea that parents book into hotels near The residential site. Both of mine were a bit nervous before going but had a great time. Tears in one case on one afternoon but the head dealt with it.

I mean, we have a society where parents are panicking about leaving kids alone as teens/tweens..

My nephew in France just passed his driving test at 15yo, has finished school and working full time and driving their own (really weird) little car. Yet people in the UK won't allow a 15yo on a sleepover??

No wonder anxiety in young adults is so rife in this country!

Why do we need expensive residentials. I went to school in the 70s and 80s. We didn’t have residentials in primary school. We’ve managed to be fully functioning members of society.

Lucky you that could afford it. Children left behind absolutely shouldn’t be treated like flotsam.

Indeed. But if the entire year is away and there are a couple of kids left behind, they seem to get parked in whichever classroom has enough scope under safeguarding ratios with TAs etc. That may an older or much younger class, where they are set a project to do. They get little teaching because the plan is for the kids to go away and do the structured school trip so there are no teachers allocated to the one or two kids left behind. It is brutal on those children, as far as i can see from all the schools I’ve had kids at unless the parents just keep them home (risking an unauthorised absence). However, at most of those schools the trips costs were within the budget of most families with a fund (raised by the PTA during the year) to subsidise struggling families.