Dd17 holiday been turned down from work

[AmusedLemonFatball]

I know I am being unreasonable but I’m hormonal and emotional.

dd is 18 soon, shes my eldest of three.

she has requested our usual dates off for work for our family holidays and all have been rejected apart from one that is for when she is going away with a friend and their family.

im really upset, I can’t imagine going on every holiday without her this year. It’s not big holidays, just to Cornwall etc but the thought makes me feel sick. There’s no chance of her getting any time off in the summer holidays and it has to work around school holidays for my other dc.

On the other hand it’s not fair that the other two don’t get a holiday?

I have autism so the unexpected change has really thrown me off :(

You'd be surprised, lots of people go skiing in February.

Can she not come down to join you for the weekends? Maybe she could ask for a Friday or Monday off? I get being upset that she can't get the whole time off but it's just how it is when you're working, especially when young and working with parents who can only go away during the school holidays.

Has she explained to her employer why she has asked for school holidays?

It sounds like people may have already pre-booked their holidays before the 1st January, is she sure that is the earliest she could book?

Did the leave window open for everyone on 1 Jan or did some people have priority/leave already booked in? Can she join you for a weekend/possibly extend to a long weekend in Cornwall? It sounds shit for her to be unable to book any leave weeks to spend with her family if that is what she wants to do. Presumably it is equally shit for anyone else who wants to take leave over the school holidays - those with school aged DC or partners who are teachers. Have her colleagues found any ways around this for the future? Can she appeal the October half term refusal?

Why so negative? OP had already said that her daughter wants to come. Not all 17 year olds are keen to escape family holiday.
Presumably she's new to this job and more established colleagues had already bagged the school holidays. There's no need to be so unpleasant. The girl is still learning the ropes.

I'm guessing there are a lot of parents with young children at her work who also want those times off, and tbh, they take priority since their kids won't be at school and need caretaking.

That's how it goes. I haven't had a holiday with both my kids together for many years now. It's sad, but the wheel of life's seasons keeps moving on.

The only holiday approved are the term time ones planned with friends.

Not every 18 years old hate their family.

As it's a UK holiday, could you book it so it includes the August bank holiday, so she could join you for a long weekend?

It's discrimination based on need, which is perfectly fair.

I wonder if she perhaps wants to stay at home and not join the holidays and felt a bit mean letting you down on the bookings.

Was she late getting her request in? I think she should push back on at least one of those holidays or look for a new job. It isn't her responsibility to balance staff availability so that people with school age children get preferential treatment.

You don't have to 'hate' your family at 18 to no longer want to go on holiday with them.

What a black and white (histrionic) way of thinking.

Unpaid leave ? X

who goes away in Febuary away?

Plenty of people do but I would also say someone who wants their teenage DD to go on holiday with them after having all other times declined

Honestly I think they’re bullying her and taking advantage as she’s young and they don’t think she’ll fight back.

I’d recommend she start looking for another job this one doesn’t sound like somewhere she would want to be long term.

No it isn’t! It is not ok. And it would absolutely not be an employer I would be willing to sacrifice my time for. It works both ways.
Having children is not a free pass to ride roughshod over everyone else and parents would do well to remember that. After all they may well be the ones in the OP’s shoes in years to come.

I'm not being negative. I'm pointing out that dd is now an adult in an adult working environment. These are the realities of adult working. DD can either 1) accept it 2) have a polite and professional discussion with her management about annual leave allocation or 3) leave her job. If I was her mum I would be encouraging her to not factor my emotional booboos into this decison making as hard as this might be. She should be starting to carve out her own life now and advocate for herself (which might also mean advocating for herself against an overbaring parent...) Fantastic if she still can and will go on the family holday but chances are it's no longer a priority

God what a way to live. Why are some companies so shit to work for.

My guess is that it's the parental leave that complicates things. Businesses can't refuse that without reasonable grounds to do so. It was a minefield navigating it when I worked in healthcare managing patient facing teams. In practice, it did mean parents got the lion's share of school holidays. Although patient need and safety sometimes meant we did have to refuse parental leave requests, we couldn't cite unfairness to other staff as a business reason to refuse them.

For how many weeks is she going away with her friend in late May / early June? As others have mentioned think about alternatives, some weekends / long weekends away, and / or what about October half term?

How do you know this? Literally the only thing we know is that dd has told OP that she can't get the time off. We don't know why. We don't know who else has leave booked or requested. We don't know what their usual policy is on allocating leave. We don't even know if she's truthfully asked for the time off.

But what about parental leave, or the right to request flexible working on caregiving grounds? Maybe this is some parents’ flexible working arrangement?

How else can leave be allocated? As pp has pointed out, if it’s first come first served that’s not fair on newer staff members who can’t get the dates they want because they weren’t there two years previously; if you do it by who has dependents to care for that might impact someone like OP’s dd. The chances are that some points in the leave year will be oversubscribed and not everyone will get their requests. How are companies meant to manage this? Genuine question.

Unfortunately, your daughter is now in full-time employment, and it stands to reason she may not necessarily be granted leave. I think you have to accept that your daughter is nearly an adult and with that comes changes and responsibilities. She is extremely lucky to have employment, there are many youngsters looking for work, in an unstable job market. Of course, you feeling sad that she can't come is valid, but it's part and parcel of life too.

Can she take unpaid leave at short notice? I may have done this when I was young and refused time off. In the longer term, she needs to look for a job with better annual leave policies.

Some companies limit the amount of leave staff can take at the most popular times. For example, I wouldn't be allowed to take all six weeks of the summer holidays as annual leave. I could take about two weeks maximum. I also had a to work a few days over Christmas and New Year.

It helps that workloads tend to be a bit lower in August, as some of the people who give us work will also be away. And that colleagues without school-age children relish the chance to go away outside the school holidays, when destinations are cheaper and less crowded.

Businesses can't refuse but they can absolutely delay. Having to deny other staff annual leave during a popular time would be a good reason to delay someone's parental leave. There is nothing stopping your organisations from telling parents they can have the parental leave but in September