To think we can’t take the children out of school just to spend Christmas with DHs family

[ansieone]

My DH is Serbian, he is Orthodox Christian and celebrates Christmas on January 7th. We have 2 DC our eldest is 4 and will start school in the summer. We are flying out tomorrow for his family Christmas and I was packing, I mentioned casually that it was a bit sad this would be our last year going for a while, he seemed totally shocked and asked why. I mentioned that most of the time school will be back by the 7th so we won’t have a choice. He said that he figured we’d just take the kids out of school for the first week back, we will likely go private so fines shouldn’t be an issue but he said even if we went state he’d rather pay the fines than miss Christmas with his family. He believes that it is really important they get time with his family and not just his parents who will visit but his siblings, cousins etc. and Christmas is the only time everyone is reliably together. I do understand this but I’m not sure I agree that we can just pull them out for the first week of term year after year, maybe I’d feel differently if it was one day, or the last day of term, but 5 whole days at the start of term where I expect they will be refreshing last terms learning and starting new topics feels damaging.

AIBU to say we can’t just take them out of school? DH seems really upset and annoyed at the prospect of missing Christmas with his family.

Do it - other language and culture and family is so important. Only time you might have to reconsider is if mock exams are straight after Xmas.

I would go with a compromise- the first couple of years in school won’t really matter especially if you do some reading with them when you’re away.
After that maybe do every other year, or years where they aren’t going to miss as many days. For example my DD isn’t back until the 6th this year so would only end up missing a couple of days.

When they get to secondary age you won’t be able to from year 10 onwards because they have exams after Christmas.

Firstly, are you sure it would be a whole week missed? My DC are at private prep school and don’t go back until Jan 8th this year.

But in any case I would be happy for my young DC to miss a bit of school for this reason. It’s unlikely to have any long-term detrimental impact on their education at early primary school age, and if you are really concerned you could always get a tutor during the holidays to keep them up to speed.

However I think your DH will need to acknowledge that as the children get older it may become more problematic - exams years etc.

Actually, I was a dedicated teacher, who really cared about kids developing skills and knowledge to the best ofvtheircability. I'mnot patronising. There do seem to be some people on here who come up with the stereotype of the 'patronising teacher ' as a kind of knee jerk.

Im sure they do.
Not me though.
Any teacher i found patronising thought they were amazing also.

I’m not sure you can comment on other people’s typos 😬

Ha. Fair enough. 😂

Go and visit relatives that you have no relationship with and learn about the culture you've got no connection to because you've missed the main family occasion every year due to presenteeism at school? No thanks, OP go and enjoy. Maybe not every year, but a few days of school every other year is really not the end of the world.

I would take them out. I see p problem with a few days at he start of the school year. Especially when they’re in primary school.

'Presenteeism' . Attending school is now presenteeism ? Oh, come on. That really is a stretch.

Being so preoccupied with attendance that you consistently miss out on important family events is absolutely presenteeism.

That's my point though. It's not attendance per se. It's learning. Attendance is learning.

My father is South African and his sisters live in Australia. We used to all meet up in Cape Town over the winter holidays for a month when the school holidays were 3 weeks, also private school. Albeit it wasn’t every year, more like every other and we stopped going when I was about 9 as my grandparents who lived there passed away. Bu it made no noticeable difference to my schooling. I would definitely continue to go.

As someone working in education, I'd say do it now and maybe even for the next 2-5 years (assuming attendance is up in the late 90's usually) but make it clear it can't happen towards secondary school.

But attendance at religious occasions with family
members in a foreign country isn’t learning?

Baffled at how many people think it's ok to take kids out of school! It's disruptive to the teacher & the rest of the class & could put your child behind.

You can still see your husbands family earlier in the Xmas break, or they could come to you, or you could celebrate another day.

A lot of my family work in the emergency services so we sometimes do Xmas day on the 23rd or 27th - what's important is being together, it doesn't need to be on 7 Jan.

Maybe once as learning, but then a yearly celebration of something I would guess. I understand that that sort of thing is very important to many people, and I'm not disrespecting it. Honestly. But I really do not think it should become a yearly thing , particularly not in secondary school. But I'm not religious, so maybe it's easy for me to say that.

I agree with your dh., at least in primary

One of my teachers at school was a Ukrainian Catholic. He was always given their Christmas off. I do t agree with kids missing school for silly reasons. But I think your husband is right.

So we should cancel Christmas in Uk the then for children in high school, because they don’t learn anything from it, or benefit from spending time with their family who they don’t see that often.

Easter, Halloween and birthdays too.

Family culture isn’t a one off thing though. That culture is as much a part of the children as the mothers so why should one be celebrated every year and not the other?

But that's a built in holiday..

What do you mean by one and not the other? Sorry but I don't understand.

assuming the children are living in the Mothers home country they are emerged in her culture all the time. By virtue of not living in the father’s home culture they don’t get that same daily experience which makes it all the more important that when they have the opportunity they are exposed to it throughout their childhood. It isn’t a once and then done type situation

Im half something else myself. There are many ways of doing it that don't involve taking your kids out of school..I'm very in touch with my mum's culture and I never got yanked out of school to observe customs and celebrations.