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Parenting

Would you let your 10 year old go away with school for a week?

56 replies

yoyo · 04/07/2005 19:51

DD came home today with details of a trip which will take place next year when she is in Yr 5. She has never slept overnight anywhere.

My gut reaction is to refuse but this will obviously lead to other problems. She will have the opportunity to do the same trip in Yr 6 and I will be far happier to let her go then.

Any thoughts/experience? All advice appreciated.

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Sponge · 05/07/2005 12:01

Don't worry Frogs, another evil mother here. Dd is only 5 but has had regular sleepovers at friends since she was about 3. She's stayed a week with my parents a couple of times and wants to do so again this summer. She's also going away with a schoolfriend to Portugal for a week this summer (with the friend's mum but without us). We also regularly have her friends to stay without (m)any problems. At age 10 I would certaily let her go on a school trip without any hesitation and I don't think she'd ever forgive me if I stopped her.

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frogs · 05/07/2005 13:17

Ah good, Sponge, was starting to feel like the lone evil one.

Question for those of you who wouldn't let a 9 or 10 year old go on a week-long trip -- why not? I'm not criticising anyone's parenting here, and I know Kangamummy has her own reasons for being hesitant, but what about the rest of you? Assuming the child wants to go, why wouldn't you let him/her? What do you think could happen?

I'd never force a child who was adamant she didn't want to go away, but otherwise it just seems like a brilliant opportunity for a child to have new experiences and see that they can cope without a parent in a different environment. How is this not a good thing?

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piffle · 05/07/2005 13:37

my ds went away in yr 5 and 6
although he was very used to sleeping away as his father and I live apart and he has travelled extensively, the trips they arrange are excellent and even the more homesick children that went on my sons trips, were fine after the first night. They were also allowed calls home if they were worried.
What does your dd think of it?

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yoyo · 05/07/2005 13:50

I have two main concerns about DD going , one of which is rational and the other completely irrational. The rational concerns are to do with her development as I would hate for her to be teased by anyone. These are things I can discuss with the Head. My irrational fears are about DD being driven anywhere. I know it sounds ridiculous but a friend was driving her DS and his friend, they were involved in an accident and the little boy was killed. I know accidents happen, etc but I am really scared whenever any of my children are driven by someone I don't know. I am slowly overcoming this but am not there yet. Maybe by the time the trip comes I will have cracked it. It was so bad that I saw my GP who confessed to the same thing! (Made me feel better in a strange way.)

Anyway, I know she would have a great time and I don't want to deprive her of the experience. I will see what happened at school today and take things from there. I have also arranged for her to stay with my folks overnight during the Summer.

RTKM - have catted you.

FROGS - I do not think you are a witch mother at all. Wish I could be more relaxed about it. Any tips to add to the other excellent suggestions?

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PiccadillyCircus · 05/07/2005 13:50

No experience with DS yet (only 19 months) but I went on school holidays when I was in year 5 and year 6 and I can't remember anyone not going. From year 3 onwards there was the excitement of knowing that in year 5 you'd be going away.

I'd never been away from home, apart from staying with my gran for 2 nights at most and I loved it. We weren't allowed to phone home but sent postcards to say we were there, and I did write letters while we were there. My mum sent me about 3 letters as well (we were only there from Monday to Friday ).

When DS is old enough, I'd definitely be happy for him to go on similar trips.

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frogs · 05/07/2005 22:28

I don't think your fears sound ridiculous, yoyo.

I don't have any experience of early puberty, but if dd1's classmates are anything to go by, I would be surprised if your dd is the only girl in the class to be developing by Y5. Quite a few girls in dd1's Y5 class have the beginnings of boobs; I know two of them have started their periods, and there may well be others who have kept it quiet. The girls seem to be dealing with it in quite a mature way, although dd did come home recently giggling about one girl who announced while changing for PE, "I have hair under my arms" and then proceeded to prance around showing everyone. But the others were laughing with her rather than at her, IYSWIM. I would have thought that as long as the girls aren't being forced to have communal showers, your dd shouldn't be any more exposed on a school trip than getting changed for school PE or swimming.

I can see that you might be extra keen to protect your dd because she's developing so early, but at some point all girls are going to encounter other people making nasty remarks about their physical development (or lack thereof) and will have to deal with it somehow. Might it perhaps be worth helping your dd1 find strategies to cope with possible reactions from others rather than trying to protect her from it?

Although my dd isn't developing yet, she has also been teased about her body, in her case because she has very hairy legs. While I find it upsetting that she has to deal with that, I've concentrated on getting across the message that everybody has things about their body that they don't like, and that you can either waste your life getting paranoid about it, or make the best of it and get on with having a life. Humour has helped too: when she came home with a story about some particularly obnoxious (and very overweight) girl saying to her 'Eeer, yuk, you've got legs like a gorilla" my immediate reaction was, "Well ** isn't exactly a supermodel herself, is she?" which dd1 for some reason found incredibly amusing, and I've since heard her reusing that line to other people.

I think it might be worth trying to sort out how you feel about letting your dd1 go, because it does become more of an issue in the Y5/Y6 age groups as the world opens up a bit more to them. My dd1 has had all sorts of other problems of her own around being very perfectionist, finding it difficult to cope with criticism or failure and learning how to persevere, which have arisen partly from her personality and partly from being in a class where she's been very underdemanded academically (as I know your dd1 has been). Sending her on trips and activities away from the family environment has been a big part of our strategy for building up her confidence and encouraging her to tackle new and difficult things, and it has made an enormous difference to her over the past couple of years -- she's much more relaxed, more confident and flexible, and has much better social skills, with adults and other children.

hth

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