To not send my children to school because I need to fly ?

[Paticake]

I have to fly tonight and my kids have been left with my mum, she lives two hours away. Is it ok that they don’t go to school or am I a terrible parent for picking work over the kids?

The op is living for now he/she is not thinking about the future. From what he/she has posted they are in and out of their lives he's not only estranged from his/her ex he/she is also estranged from his/her children.

One day the op will get old what attitude is he/she teaching them. He/she will get the same treatment and will be handed to someone else for them to look after and take care of them in a care home. Leaving all the care responsibilities to his/her ex or mum is shocking and they will regret it. I hope you work it out soon op.

Enrol your kids in a school near your mother for the two weeks.
Move to her neighbourhood and have your kids permanently change schools.

If it was a holiday people would be less concerned.

But we have one parent whose mental health is apparently so bad that they are not safe to be around the children, and another parent who couldn’t care less and is off on a jolly with work, and seemingly spends very little time in the same country as the children anyway. The kids are being shipped off to granny who lives two hours away, and may or may not have much of a relationship with the children - given the parent related to her rarely sees the children, it seems unlikely the granny has maintained a close and loving bond with them either.

All of that would be concerning in the school holidays as well. Honestly shipping the kids off to boarding school would probably be less traumatic for them, and I rarely have anything good to say about boarding school.

We don't know how frequent the work trips away actually are. It could just be unfortunate and that they have had two trips away within a short period and that might now be it for the rest of the year.

We also don't know the age of the children to know how much of a problem missing two weeks of school will be. Also if staying with the gran what this will be like e.g. some posters saying the gran can't stay with them because of work, in which case who is going to look after them. I would find the social aspect more worrying than the academic, surely the children will miss the routine and seeing their friends. I think some people have some idillic view that the grandchildren are going to have a wonderful two week holiday, which they may, or else they might be with a grandparent they don't see or know that well, unable to do much and stuck indoors.

I don't know why so many are siding with the burnt out parent. Looking after children every day is what a lot of parents do, especially single parents, and they don't all go round claiming burn out.

I think under the circumstances it can be described as a family emergency. Same would happen if you had already left on your trip and your partner became ill and the kids had to stay with Grandparents. Schools understand, it's not ideal but ensuring your children are safe with someone you trust is more important than a day of school.

One off family emergency due to illness is fine imo.

Also not in UK, and agree. The hysteria around keeping kids off now and again is weird.

That's partly why I suggested they made their way to Ops house.

It's not just about the fine, missing 2 weeks in the middle of a term is crazy. Unfair on the kids and teachers. It also means the kids are out of routine and not seeing friends.

I'm assuming we are talking England where there's another month to the end of term. I'm Scotland we finish up the middle of next week.

So, by your reckoning, no one needs to go to school for the whole summer term. Yay! Holidays from Easter to September!
"Do you what you need to do and don't give your children another thought."

Right, so your children’s father lives abroad/on the other side of the country and is having some kind of mental health crisis…my first question is why you are the one that has to deal with this, seeing as you’re separated and clearly live far away? Where are his own family and friends?

Second question - if you’ve already been away for weeks (assuming due to work), who has been looking after the kids in this time? How have they been going to school? Surely this arrangement could just continue.

Third question, is this really a sustainable lifestyle if you’re away for weeks on end? Who is bringing up your children?

This is fine. Look from the other parent’s perspective:

“I’m unwell and can’t do the school run. Am I unreasonable to expect my partner to cancel her international business trip to take the kids to school?”

This is going to be one of those cryptic threads that runs for weeks despite the OP never returning.

Obviously it is illegal and not ok for kids to miss two weeks of school. Either the ill parent steps up or the working parent cancels work trip or the grandmother moves into the kids' house so she can look after them and do school runs. The children need to be the priority here.

Totally agree. OP is purposefully vague and comes across as pretty egotistical and pointlessly dramatic. I'm a big big hypocrit here but I wish that hardly anyone contributed to this thread.

I assume OP is dad who works away and who hasn’t seen his kids for awhile. Mum has burnt out doing everything and asked for help and his solution is to go on another trip and send the kids 2 hours away to his Mums

at least that is my reading of it

I am taking it that many of us saying the same thing about school attendance are perhaps Irish ??

The approach to schooling was a big factor in me moving home from London.

Same and I would be extremely surprised if this was a mother. Not that mothers don’t travel with work (I do) just more that they wouldn’t do that kind of job unless they had extensive support systems in place.

Fathers often have the luxury of doing what they want and having the other parent pick up the slack

Yes, Irish.

OP has said two weeks away , not sure where one
day came from .

Now and again is fine, particularly in years without formal exams.

But this isn't a 'now and again' issue. OP is shipping their kids off to their mum for 2 weeks, missing school, so they can go work away. After only being home for a weekend after more weeks working away.

It's not like they're being taken out of school to go travelling and embark on enriching experiences, making memories with their parent. They're being dumped on a grandparent to probably do shit all for 2 weeks until they return. It's not being done in the kids best interests.

Of course this isn't on. Op need to put in place other options, either pay someone or re-arrange some sort of back up and plan for these things.

We had to pay because we had no back up or family nearby. Very rare we needed anything, but when we did we had to arrange it.

Thank you so much for updating me. I only replied 1 minute after the OP was published, and after that, it was edited to include this '2 hours away' information, as can be seen by the history.

My follow up responses within the thread do address this additional detail, and I didn't go hours worrying about it until I saw your very insightful reply.

To be honest, one day of school is probably not a big deal; but they’re going to have to make a 2-hour trip home again after, and are they going to school the morning after you get home? Is it just one day?

my instinct would be to ask your mum if she could come down the day of, stay over, and you would treat her to a big dinner or a massage or something when you get back?

Some of the replies make me laugh. Is poor Granny meant to travel 4 hours round trip to take them to school!?She clearly says her poor mum is 2 hours away. And Mum may have her reasons for not being able to upsticks and go to daughters house. It was all very last minute.
Frankly if anyone takes a job they should be committed. Missing a few days of school wouldn't make a scrap of difference.
Obviously a one off as she says her husband usually looks after them when she works away.
Lovely for Mum and kids .

I think people are thinking Granny.takes the kids to the Dads house and they travel to school from there. Not that she makes a 4hr round trip every day.

Its two full weeks of school in the middle of a term, unfair to the kids to miss out on that amount of learning, it's also a long time for Granny to entertain them without spending a fortune taking them places or have them zombified starring at screens.