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.

This.
No chance of it though with a parent like this. She is already projecting it onto her child that 'if you stay away from home baaaaaaad things will happen to you'. So of course the first time her child does it she is all at sea and can't cope.
Oh but of course magically once she is in secondary school the risk no longer exists.

Why do it just before moving up to KS3 then?

Not everything a school does should be approached from an emotional perspective.

Part of loving your child is preparing them for the World.

With respect, you sound like you're overly protective.

Maybe I'm being naive but I just thought they'd have their own phones that were locked away and then they could just allow them to have them for half an hour to call home.
I guess if you know it's not feasible then fair enough.

@Thedoorisalwaysopen no, I’m not projecting anything onto my child. However, I don’t believe in allowing my child to stay somewhere with people who I don’t know. You might be comfortable in allowing your child to stay with whoever, wherever, but I think that says more about you than about me. Yes, my daughter was upset on a school trip, does that make me a bad parent- no. What would make me a bad parent is putting her into a situation to build resilience by allowing her to stay with effectively strangers! Once at secondary school, they should gradually develop the skills to know what to do in uncomfortable situations and have a better understanding of what is right and wrong.

Perhaps I should teach her more resilience, I don’t think that would be a bad thing to be honest and it is something I will take away from this experience.

No one is advocating letting her stay where ever and with whoever. This is a school residential with trusted friends and adults.

@hopspotexactly, this is why I encouraged her to go..

Surely the parents of her close friends aren’t complete strangers?

You should be proud of her for going and thankful to the staff for supporting her. Focus on positives and move on.

To be honest, I have found this entire thread so triggering.

I can promise you that I would much rather run this risk of molly coddling my child, so that they feel safe and secure, as opposed to sending them away for the night (or nights) with people I simply just don’t know well enough to trust.

I can also assure you that unless you have experienced abuse on such occasions, you really have no idea about the implications and the misery that can cause.

Read between the lines and understand that I do.

My job is to protect my children; that comes above all else. If my own experiences have made me skeptical then so be it if it keeps my children safe.

At primary level, parents are usually asked not to spend children with a phone. They are massively disruptive and managing them is yet another thing for staff to manage.

@MumWifeOther I agree ❤️

I’m very sorry that you went through that, but thousands of children go to sleepovers every day with no issues.
If you were in a major car accident as a child, would you refuse to allow your child to travel in a car incase the same happened to them?

Oh god that would be such a nightmare to coordinate all those phone calls. It would take up time when they should be watching a movie with hot chocolate/playing board games etc - you know, the things they went on the residential to do….Plus it would just make the children more upset hearing their parent’s voice. Why not let them just focus on their trip.

There's no need to derail the thread with arguments about sleepovers.

At the end of the day, the school will have run residentials for decades. They know what they're doing in terms of the likely outcome of home communications throughout, regardless of the parent's wants or opinions.

It's absolutely normal for schools to not allow communication with kids on rezzys unless there is an problem, and tears at bedtime when missing home are not really a problem, they're normal.

It may feel counter intuitive to us Mums because we're wired to protect our babies, but Primary flies by and in the same amount of years DD could be leaving home to go to uni and be away from Mum every night.

Knowing how to self-soothe, pick herself up and move forward with confidence is better for DD than relying on Mum. The sooner they learn this, the better for them.

And you can guarantee the kids who weren't already upset would then be upset because they'd heard Mum's voice!

Honestly, schools know best, here.

@Pricelessadvice Do you not see how frustrating it is that you can’t understand the difference between something essential, like using a car for daily transport, and something optional, like a sleepover or residential? It’s incredibly hurtful that you’d compare the trauma of abuse to something like a car accident. One is a personal violation, and the other is an accident, not caused by someone on PURPOSE. That kind of comparison dismisses the depth of what children go through. And honestly, do you not realise that kids can still have joy, build resilience, and create memories without having to sleep away from home for nights at a time with no contact? It’s not the sleepover that matters. It’s the feeling of safety.

And some of the reactions on here are why school trips are such a nightmare to organise.
Schools end up thinking it’s all too much hassle, the teachers are giving up their own free time to go, and you inevitably end up with complaints anyway.

Unfortunately OP because she has never slept away from you before it was probably too big a step for her. I know you don’t know the other school parents that well, but does she not have any relatives / grandparents she could have spent a night with to prepare her?

Anyway she’s upset now but I think you should praise her rather than focusing on the negatives. She did a really positive brave thing etc, how proud you are of her for going, how she will have developed skills and independence.

I have no idea why any parent would send their kid on a residential trip if they've never even been on a sleepover

Quite. A parent should be aware of their own children's limitations.

Arguably, it's more important that they do go as their independence skills could be significantly lower than their peers.

Some kids really come on over a residential. It can help them become much more confident and self-sufficient.

That can only be a good thing as they head into KS3.

It’s funny you should say that as I was actually the same at uni - first few months I lived my best life - loved being away and being independent. Mum came to visit in late October and after that I was a mess up until Christmas! It upskittled me having seen her but then not going home. I think the same would definitely happen on a residential.

Mum's are walking representations of 'home' aren't they? For many, anyway.

It's hard learning to adult and cope without their constant support.

Starting them young really does help.x.

Arguably, it's more important that they do go as their independence skills could be significantly lower than their peers

Yep. I agree. But if a parent shows a lack of confidence in their child, then that will transfer to the child. Far better to send them off like it's an normal ordinary thing (which it is) than hum and hah about whether they will cope.

The result of not allowing them to go anywhere without you is that .. well..
they never learn to go anywhere without you until way past the age when they should be fairly self reliant.

Most kids are, but some, through no fault of their own, are held back by worried parents. 50 years agp when I was 11 and making my own tea before my mam and dad got home from work, I would have been made up to be going off for a weekend with my schoolmates. I certainly wouldn't have been crying to be home and nor would any of my schoolmates. I shouldn't judge really, all those years ago life was very different. Maybe we were forced to grow up and be self reliant too quickly.

I'm very glad though, that my age group were raised the way we were.
To be self reliant and capable from an early age. It imbues a very strong felling of confidence and strength that stays with you.

I cried on my yr 6 school trip back when I was young - doesn’t mean I would have wanted to be sent home!

The teachers are better to be encouraging them to stay if they possibly can.

I’m sure if she’d been really distressed and inconsolable they’d have called you.

Shes done her first one now and it gets easier from here on in. Some kids just need to get through one or two trips to get the hang of it - I was one of them!

Agreed!

Well yeah, in an ideal world. I meant to try and stop kids from crying that they want to go home. Surely that's not focussing on the trip at all and needs to be minimised. So having a little chat with parent rather than needing to be collected and brought home? But I get that everyone says the phone thing isn't feasible which I accept.