To be angry with school

[crossmummas]

My daughter who is 11 went on a residential school trip.
She has just come home in flood of tears as she cried each night as she missed us and wanted to come home. I don’t think she clearly said to the teacher ‘I want to come home’ but did say she was homesick and missed her family. She was crying for around 20 minutes.

I am so cross the school didn’t ring me so I could pick her up. I actually only live 5 minutes away from the place she was staying.

I’m not sure whether to ring and ask to speak to the headteacher tomorrow or to write a strongly worded email to the school or if I’m over reacting. It’s the first time she has stayed away from home.

That's awful for your daughter. Very stressful for you, too.
How many nights was she away?

Do you know if she enjoyed the rest of the activities and the food?

Ah that’s sad. Probably the tears now are relief it is all over!

im absolutely sure the school wouldn’t have deliberately left her in distress - perhaps it didn’t seem so bad during the trip?

chat to the class teacher and get a bit more background

You’re overreacting. Emotions will be high from both your side and your DD’s because it’s the first time she’s stayed away from home, but having a go at the school is silly and pointless.

Well, I would want to know if she had overall enjoyed the trip, the activities, doing things with her friends etc. Feeling homesick at bedtime when you’re tired isn’t unusual, but also isn’t reason enough to take them home. This residential is, alongside being fun, mean to help stretch them as individuals soon to start in secondary.

Either you trust the staff or you don’t. I would want to trust that they have sufficient experience to know when a child really isn’t coping and needs to be collected.

You’re overreacting

You are over-reacting.

many children on a school trip will say “I miss my family”.

it’s a long way from that to “I really want to go home “.

if all she said to the teacher was I miss my family then half the kids on the trip would be picked up.

You're majorly overreacting.

Will never understand this approach from some parents.

The point of a residential trip is to teach resilience and for children to know they can do things independently.

Why aren’t you telling your daughter that she made it! She did it! Couple of nights away from home, a few tears - but look she’s still alive, she got home, she did the activities, she did everything everyone else did, she’s learned stuff! New experience under her belt, well done!

Instead you’re angry with the school for not calling you to collect her and mollycoddle her and prevent her from stretching herself and learning new things.

Unbelievable.

Isn't the point of these trips to build resilience and learn to be a bit more self sufficient? Unless there is something else going on that you haven't told us about. I hate the thought of my DC being upset but at some point we have to step back a bit and let them find their own way through

20 minutes?! Unless a parent had specifically said beforehand about collecting them, it wouldn't cross my mind to suggest they go home after this very little bit of upset. Part of a residential is learning to deal with a little bit of homesickness. Having said that, being picked up is much more common than it was to the point where I'm considering whether it's even worth running one night LKS2 residentials any more. If one goes home, it sets everyone off and just becomes miserable for all.

You are completely overreacting. Can you imagine how many times they hear that? Had she been insistent that she wanted to go home, I’m sure they would have contacted you. Both of my kids were a little homesick on residentials but overall had an amazing time. They have to learn to be resilient. You should be praising her for doing it, not giving the school a hard time given staff have given up their own time and families to make it possible!

11 is quite old for first time away from home. She was presumably with familiar adults and familiar children and knew you weren’t far away and that she would see you in a few days. It doesn’t sound like it should be too challenging for an 11 year old (speaking as a former primary school teacher who has taken younger children away).

She needs to develop and learn to cope without you that is part of the point of residential trips. Unless she was absolutely miserable and overwhelmed the whole way through then I would put my energy into helping her learn coping skills for homesickness for her next trip away. I think as parents we have to try to raise competent confident children who learn to cope with life’s ups and downs. Although it’s always hard the first time they go to nursery/reception/residential trips/secondary/driving lesson/uni/drive up the motorway to uni etc.

Ridiculous overreaction, for all the reasons given above.

She will be exhausted and overwhelmed.

wait until after she has shower, a meal and a sleep - then ask her how it went

Op, we did our residential 2 weeks ago. Everyone had a ball, we were all knackered when we got back. At least 3 children burst into tears as soon as they saw their parents because they’d missed them, but there was no sign of this whilst on the trip.
Give her a big cuddle, ask her all about what she got up to and then change the subject.

I have taken multiple groups of children on residential school trips. It's not at all uncommon for students to dissolve into tears at the end of the day and say they miss their family. They have had a busy day and are tired and the food/bed/routine is unfamiliar. It's often too late to ring to have them picked up at that point. We would then talk to them in the morning and ask if they wanted to go home. 9 times out of 10 the answer was "No" and they would go on to have an enjoyable day.

This is why I now won’t accompany trips anymore. So much shit from parents. Wrong if you call and wrong if you don’t. Don’t even get me started on the rooming requests.

Exactly this! Champions her in what she did achieve!

I would be v wary of letting her emotional return inform you of how the rest of the week went.

She will be in a much better position to give a more balanced report when she's had some sleep in her own bed.

Hopefully school will share some photos of them enjoying activities etc and you will see that she was well distracted and engaged a lot of the time.

My teens have always reported having had tearful home sick moments on residential trips - when they're tired, irritated, feel poorly or have lost something for eg. They've never regretted the trips overall though.

I don't think school have done anything wrong at all in supporting your child to continue to take part in a trip despite her moments of homesickness. That's in large part what school residential are for.

It's quite unusual to get to 11 and have no experience of nights away. Lots of children do sleepovers, beaver/cub camps and school trips earlier than yr 6. They tend to start with one night, then a weekend and build up to a week and your dd may have benefited from a more gradual approach.

The only time I have ever called for a child to be taken home was when he was inconsolable for hours and also couldn't engage in any of the activities due to his insanely poor fitness levels so it really wasnt worth it for him. Poor kid. I still think about that wee boy.

Still haven't forgotten the 10 year old who fell out with his friend on a school ski camp. We took them from age 8 as we were a school in Switzerland. He decided he was going home (which was an 4 hour drive) and set off to walk down the mountain (in the Alps) by himself, in the dark. He would not listen to reason and ran off into the dark. He had to be chased and physically restrained by one of my colleagues. We sat him down and explained, just why it wasn't a good idea. Luckily the argument had mostly blown over by the morning.

A lot of the children get upset at bedtime but have a brilliant day.

If she had genuinely been sobbing proper upset crying for 20 minutes to her teacher every night they would have called.

She basically had pre bed wobbles and then cheered up every morning.

If they start getting children to phone home or get picked up over wobbles it sets off a chain reaction among the children.

She was safe and fine and overall happy. Just upset at bedtime. If she was on the year 8 French trip would you go pick up her up because she still had wobbles?

Most children aged 11 have spent nights away from home, with Brownies, camping out on the school field, whatever.

Some children have a bit of a moment at night, but a chat or an arm round the shoulders and they’re OK.

I can tell you that teachers accompanying these trips are never really asleep and always ready to be available for their pupils.

YABU.

Your daughter is 11 not 6.

She was safe and being comforted by the adults put in charge of her welfare. If they let every child that had a wobble call their parents they’d be staffing a call centre!

It’s not like she was crying all day every day, it was a little wobble. I’m sure you would have been just as annoyed at them if they called you and said you had to collect her immediately probably having to take time off work and having wasted money on a trip she didn’t see through.

Your daughter will never learn independence and confidence if you keep babying her.

You’re overreacting. Pandering will just turn her into a wet blanket.
Every other child I’ve known has LOVED their P7 (Year 6 in England) school camp.
Focus on the positives. She made it through! And it’s unlikely that school knew how bad she was feeling, as she didn’t make it totally clear to them.