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Original poster

Am I being unreasonable?

106 replies

flustered · 25/06/2008 19:14

I have volunteered to help on a School trip in reception class. I found out from another parent today that I will not be allowed to be with my Daughter. I am going to find this very hard. Part of me wants to go to her teacher and say that if I can't have my own child with me then I am not helping. The other part keeps telling me not to rock the boat and when we actually get on the trip the teacher won't be able to stop her coming to me. None of the parents are particularly happy about the set up. I can understand it with older children but these are 5 year olds that have only been at full time school a few months. Why can't we have our own children with us?

OP posts:

Lazycow · 26/06/2008 15:34

Well I offered to help out at my ds's nursery on sports day recently and I deliberately chose a tent that my ds was NOT in. Ds has a tendency to play up MUCH more when I'm there.

I agree that a school trip is most emphatically NOT about you having a trip out with your child. You are volunteering to help with the school trip. If you can't give the other children as much priority as your own child for that short period of time then you shouldn't be volunteering end of.

Then again I acrtively enjoy spending time with small children not just with my own ds and I can appreciate that I am out of step with the majority on that one.

MrsGuyOfGisbourne · 26/06/2008 15:41

Have not read whole thread, but at our school, if the parent helps then the child is in that parent's group. If the child is Fred, then tthat parent's group is known as 'Fred's group'. This works spectacularly well in getting the children's pester-power to get the parents volnteering. I could not understand why my DS was so desperate for me to do a trip until I got there and saw that he had lots of responsibility for 'his' group, which was mine IYSWIM. I can't say I favoured him over the others - I know the others anyway and in any case there was not anything in the way of 'favouring' to be done...

foxythesnowfox · 26/06/2008 15:53

'have you there'

should get myself back to school perhaps

Acinonyx · 26/06/2008 16:03

MrsGuy - I can see how that would work well. The problem is not necessarily mum being glued to child - but some children will find it difficult to have mum there but not there. I really don't think having my child in the group would prevent me interacting with the other children and it would be very interesting to see the interactions.

As for taking a different trip altogether, well, I think I'd sooner scrub my kitchen floor with a small toothbrush....

TheProvincialLady · 26/06/2008 16:23

If you do ask to be with your DD and make a fuss of it this time, I guarantee that next time you want to go on a school trip they will "already have enough parent helpers, thank you!" If you are so desperate to go on this trip with your DD why don't you just take her there sometime at the weekend?

paros · 26/06/2008 16:34

God I feel bad . I must be the only one to ask not to go with my own child . On every trip I have been on I come home totally exhausted it seriously is head counting all day . Watching out for the more mentally less abled (little sods LOL ) children . i know for sure my kid behaves better with another teacher than he does with his mum so surely he gets more out of the trip . especially the London museums . (nightmare )

Kimi · 26/06/2008 16:38

It is standred on trips not to have children with their own parents.

I think you ABVU you say "My Daughter is my priority," this is why parents do not get to be with their own children in case on an emergancy they need someone that would help everyone

clam · 26/06/2008 17:37

Can't believe how precious some of this thread is. Schools ask for parent helpers - they're not inviting you along for a jolly. And why on earth would you need/want to spend the whole trip seeing what your DD is doing? Talk about helicopter parenting. So, probably better to take your ball home and not go at all. Let your DD enjoy the benefits of the trip as intended by the school - which is not to cling to mum's skirts all day, but go out and about and see a bit of the world without her breathing down your neck.

ladymariner · 26/06/2008 18:15

Well said clam!!

procrastinatingparent · 26/06/2008 21:53

Here, here, clam.

catkinq · 27/06/2008 00:20

Both you and your child will be happier if you are together. I cannot see how this will be a problem. If you are anything like me then having your child with you would enable you to relax about your own child and so free you up to get completely paranoid about the other children that you were looking after. If someone else was looking after yours then you would be worried abut her and that would then take your attention away from the otehrs becasue you'd always be looking across the park to see what she was doing rather than being relaxed about her becasue she was at your side and then worrying about everyone elses if you see what I mean.

colditz · 27/06/2008 00:25

Your child would probably be happier there without you anyway. Ds1 was quite forthright in telling me to clear off from the school disco.

Desiderata · 27/06/2008 00:38

Flustered, the world does not revolve around your relationship with your daughter. It's unhealthy of you to assume so, tbh.

Helping out on school trips is about a sense of community. She will get a very different, and perhaps welcome perspective on you, if she sees you helping out with other kids, whilst other parents are helping her.

You may well have valid reasons to feel protective, but you really do need to work on how those reasons impact on your relationship with her, both now and in the future.

AbbeyA · 27/06/2008 08:51

As a teacher I have always put a volunteering parent with their own DC and a group. Having said that, I think that you are volunteering for the wrong reason, it is not about you and your DD.
I would agree with Desiderata, it is all a bit unhealthy.
If you volunteer you should be prepared to go where they want your help-not lay down your own requirements.

clam · 27/06/2008 09:23

Catking.... lighten up! Why would you be "worried about her," to the extent of it distracting your attention from the group you're with? It's a school trip fgs, with enough risk assessments carried out to cover any eventuality.

cory · 27/06/2008 09:39

I wondered that about catking's post, too. Particularly as the OP's response to the situation was to threaten to withdraw from the trip altogether- how would that be less worrying?

Unless we choose to home educate we entrust our children to other adults every day. Should we live life in a permanent state of paranoia? And I doubt that home educators would be happy to have it said that theirs is the route of helicopter parenting- they tend to stress independence as one of the most important parts of what they do.

Acinonyx · 27/06/2008 10:17

I think catking as a valid point there. And as for looking after others in an emergency, are you seriously telling me you would pay no attention to your own child in a real emergency situation? In a real emergency, it would be more efficient to have your own child as part of the group you are helping surely.

OrmIrian · 27/06/2008 10:26

"It is not our fault that other Mums don't help. Why should we suffer?"

You won't be suffering. Your DD will get to go on a school trip with her friends which is the main purpose. And how will you suffer exactly?

And those other selfish mothers might well have younger children to look after or be at work (heaven forfend ). It might well be a question of 'can't help'.

cory · 27/06/2008 10:30

In an emergency situation, you should pay attention to the responsibilities you have been assigned; that's the only safe way of dealing with emergencies. What if a parent left the other children to their own devices in an emergency and a more serious accident happened to one of them?

I am happy for my dc's to be left in the charge of other adults every single day of the school year- otherwise I'd be home educating.

Besides, Catking was not talking about a real emergency (serious emergencies are, thankfully, few and far between on infant school trips), but of a constant attitude of paranoia about her own child being with another helper. Which makes me wonder how she copes with everyday school life.

AMumInScotland · 27/06/2008 10:37

I would have been very unhappy allowing my DS to go off on trips if I had thought that the people who were looking after the group were spending their time worrying about their own child's happiness, and if an emergency did happen would immediately abandon my child to look after their own.

I've gone on a lot of trips, with a wide range of other parent helpers, and it has been very clear in some cases that this was the attitude some of them took. Those parents were never given the responsibility again - the teachers (who have overall responsibility) need to know that their helpers are actually motivated by a desire to help and not by their own selfish wishes.

Acinonyx · 27/06/2008 10:44

I see your point cory, I just think that, being human, we might all tend to look for own child or at the very least be very distracted in a serious emergency. Thankfully of course, such an emergency is unlikely.

I just can't really imagine ignoring my 4-5 yr-old on a trip and trying to explain to her why I'm supposed to do that. I don't think that would work for me.

And how odd really, to talk about volunteers as though they were slave-robots without any volition or 'requirements'. I can see I'm going to be somewhat unpopular at dd's school if they take that attitude.

cory · 27/06/2008 11:10

You don't have to ignore them as in staring past them. Just explain that you'll be in a different group. My dc's have always been happy with their independence.

Noone is talking of volunteers as if they were slave-robots. But they are talking as if the teacher was in charge- and quite rightly. If the trip is organised by the school, the school makes the rules and as a volunteer you accept them. How else could you organise the trip safely (visions of 20 parents all arguing over the rules and having their own specific requirements?)

The school sticks to a careful health and safety assessment- how would you like to feel that this was being tweaked because some other child's parent had their own 'requirements'?

Teachers, after all, aren't allowed to have requirements that go against school policy either. And you wouldn't want them to.

For some parents, this is one of the hardest things to accept as their children start growing up: that the child is now part of a group and has to function on other people's terms. But for the child, it can be a wonderfully exciting and liberating experience!
(speaking as somebody who has just waved her disabled daughter off on an adventure school trip to the Isle of Wight. I believe rock climbing and abseiling are on the agenda but am trusting the school to make responsible decisions).

Litchick · 27/06/2008 11:33

I do think there's a wider point here about collective rather than individual responsiblity. Have we all grown so self centered that our every action hs to have direct benefit to ourselves and our chikldren?

titchy · 27/06/2008 11:47

How did you get on Flustered? FWIW I'm with the 'do what the teacher tells you' school of thought. I assume she is your pfb (and only?). You really must let her spread her wings, she needs to be able to function without you (and I assume she does so quite happily when she's at school or on other trips?). Please don't become the parent I know who even now with a nearly 10 year old will not let her go on school trips unless she is a parent helper, and sits outside party venues for 2 or 3 hours in the car just in case her pfb can't cope with being on her own.

Acinonyx · 27/06/2008 12:41

No Litchick - but I would avoid 'helping' if I thought it would negatively impact my child. Neutral impact wold be fine. I guess I'll judge that in a year or so when this is an issue.

In all honesty, I can think of few ways I would less like to spend my day than to help with a school trip but might well-feel that I should help out since it sounds like there is a real need there. The presence of my own offspring would certainly make it more palatable for me personally.

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