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.

You are over reacting.

At that age I think it’s fine. Homesickness is something she will need to learn to deal with. She’s not a baby so unless there was something else going on you are being very overprotective.

Was it the Chalet School?

Eustacia Benson did exactly that.
🤣🤣

So much drama. Strongly worded email my arse

This sort of nonsense is why I don't volunteer to go on Residentials anymore.

If they called a parent to collect every child who had a few tears at bedtime half the year group would be going home on the first night. We would also no doubt have parents complaining to the HT and writing "strongly worded emails" because they were pissed off to get a call.

The idea that you would bother the HT with this is ridiculous.

A strongly worded email?

how about a thank you note and some chocolates for the teachers who gave up their own personal time and were away from their families to provide other people’s children with an incredible experience

Be honest OP, were you holed up in a local hotel for the duration? 😜 I’ve never known a residential trip to take place 5 minutes from the school’s catchment area!

Jeez get a grip! You are totally overreacting. Your DD was safe, fed and watered and had her friends and responsible adults around her.
Having given up my time and taken AL to accompany school trips my DH organised, if we had received a strongly worded email or a complaint just because little Tilly missed her Mummy for a few minutes each day I would have given that parent short shrift as I am doing to you. FFS.
Stop mollycoddling and teach her some resilience.

You are over reacting.
At what point will your daughter stay away from home? Do you wait until she is 18? 20? 35? Do you then just go 'cold turkey' and leave her at new uni halls or rental flat?

You may also have indulged her nerves and fear - and encouraged her to be upset through increased attention and more.
She is fresh home, of course the emotions come spilling out.

Of course children miss home and can feel sad they are not there - but developing independence, progressively and with a group that she knows and is cared for by, is a really key thing.

Have you asked her about the positive things - what she enjoyed, what she and friends got up to?

Give it a day.

And plan when your daughter will go stay with grandparents / family / friends overnight or more.

At age 13 my lads were getting the train from Scotland to midlands on their own and staying a week at a time with grandparents or family. This took some thought, but between school residentials, scout trips, and family stays they moved from being very keen on home to very comfortable travelling.

She’s probably exhausted after not a lot of sleep and all the emotions she’s bottled up over the last few days have all come out. My ds10 goes on his residential in September and I’m expecting a similar reaction when he comes home. Doesn’t mean the overall trip wasn’t good or she had a bad experience necessarily. I’m sure the teachers would have called you if she really did need to be collected, they would not want to keep a truly inconsolable child away from home.

Nope, just an International primary school (not boarding) in a Swiss city. 🇨🇭

I used to take hoards of school children on residential trips and the first thing I said when we had the parents' evening was to ensure they took their favourite cuddly toy and a photo of their family which they would put under their pillow and hold if they were homesick. It teaches them resilience in a controlled setting with their peers. Also, think of the teachers who are giving up their free time to take the children. They may also be leaving their own families behind and certainly don't get paid for the out of hours pupil care.

This is one of the many reasons I will never organise or go on another residential school trip.

I think it would be really ungrateful to tell off adults who have been good enough to give up their time to take kids on a residential. I'm sure it will have benefitted your dd. She'll be going to secondary school soon. Maybe send a thank you card instead. Tell your dd she did well to cope with going away. She wasn't crying all day. It won't help her to be angry at the mean, nasty teachers for taking kids on a trip.

OP consider yourself lucky that they didn’t call you

last year the teacher supervising kept on calling as she she was “concerned” that my then 9yo needed 5mins at bedtime to do his prayer

she implied I force him into my religion, she was ready to call SS on me !

If she was genuinely really homesick school would have called you.

Did she specifically tell the staff she wanted to come home? Did she ask to phone home.

She likely just emotional and tired having been away from home and hence the tears now.

It's normal on school trips to get a bit homesick in the evening. In the day they're usually too busy having fun.

I've been on numerous Y7 trips where kids feel homesick but stay as they're having fun.

Do not send a fucking strongly worded email criticising the teachers who just spent a week away from their own homes and families trying to give your kid a wonderful experience.

What a shitty thing to do that would be.

Gently, OP, your DD will not die of this. It was a few days.
The point, as everyone says, is to develop a bit of independence. Imagine if every kid who was homesick was collected on the first night. What would be the point.

I speak with experience of homesickness as a boarding school kid. Your daughter will be fine. But you need to be telling her how great she was for sticking it out, asking her about the good bits etc, not encouraging the self pity

My DC had these sort of kids on skiing trips. Weepy worried parents waving them off and then the children spent the whole time crying to the teachers. Everyone else was like 🙄

Do NOT write anything to school. Teach your dd resilience and the social tools to navigate things like this. By 11 she should have already been prepared for this.

My kids are the same age they have been away many times. Many kids get a bit of home sickness, but honestly that's the whole point of these trips!.
Next year they're have a year 7 school trip, in all honesty you don't want her crying every night to come home. This is a perfect time to teach some resilience.

We used to do our residentials miles away.(200+)

You wouldn't have just been able to pop round to collect her from them

I think you should do what others have said and bolster her up about it.

I bet it wasn’t as bad as she said and it’s the emotion from seeing you and being on the residential. She survived and proved to herself she can do it, even if things feel hard so praise her for that.

Can you imagine being the teacher receiving that email after giving up your evenings and nights to stay on a trip with their class and provide a great experience? It’s the kind of email that makes you go fuck it, I won’t bother with trips in future.

I would be focusing on building your DD’s confidence and independence because there’s a skills gap that needs filling at 11.

The only writting you need to be doing is a thank you card to the teachers who gave up their family time to take your child on the trip.

Your daughter will have developed some resilience for making it through the stay.

Imagine if at the first sign of tears, the teachers phone the parents up and say "can you come and get them, they have been crying for a few minutes". It would be a total failure on their part and would do the children no favours whatsoever. I used to work at a residential centre and bedtime is a really common time for children to get a bit upset. 99% of the time they are fine and raring to go in the morning.

11 is pretty old to have never had a night away from her parents. It will have done her good.

Thank the adults in charge for looking after her and introducing her to some new experiences, and start trying to build her resilience.