For those who say no, or that you have very strict school districts, when do you take a family vacation? Like, when would you go to disney?
Summer isn't an option for us due to work schedues and all our other school off weeks fall over holidays that would make it impractical to be on vacation.
We will take family vacations when school is not in session. But, full disclosure: DH is a teacher so we're used to not traveling during the school year minus breaks and maybe an occasional Friday or Monday to make a long weekend. It sucks because his time off includes all the peak travel times, but it is what it is.
If summer didn't work for us we'd probably plan an occasional great Christmas/New Year's getaway or something.
So you would just tell you kid sorry, you can never go to disney because it's not "critical" so it's not an option. My dd would be so crushed.
Disappointments are a fact of life. If you can't take a vacation over the summer and don't want to take one over holiday breaks, that's what happens.
To each their own, but trying to tell a 6 year old that they can't go to disney like all their friends because daddy's career makes it not possible over them missing a few days of 2nd grade is silly to me.
but I just looked at our school districts policy, and they excuse family vacations, so we will pull our kids out once or twice before middle school for a family trip. I think occasionally spending time as a family on a trip is more critical than skipping a few days of school.
badgergrl, DD got a pretty long spring break last year because of how Easter and Passover fell. We used that break to go to Paris and visited EuroDisney while there.
Our next big family trip will be during her week-long school break in February.
Post by imojoebunny on Sept 17, 2014 13:50:39 GMT -5
I have. I took my daughter when she was in 2nd grade, out to be in a wedding in CA, we live in GA. The family time and experience of being in a wedding outweighed missing two days of school.
I am taking my son out on Monday because he is out all week, but DD is only out Friday and Monday. He is in Kinder, and leaps and bounds above where he needs to be. We are going to out of town and on the way home on Monday, to the science museum, so again, I feel like what he would get out of that is greater than his need to go to school. He is making up and solving double digit addition and subtraction problems right now, while he sits next to me for fun.
Post by gibbinator on Sept 17, 2014 13:54:14 GMT -5
No. Well, if I had 100% say, I might for a very special occasion and if it was a young grade like Kinder or one when there's not going to be a huge impact for missed time. But school attendance is essentially dh's parenting hill to die on... So it'd never fly.
Disappointments are a fact of life. If you can't take a vacation over the summer and don't want to take one over holiday breaks, that's what happens.
To each their own, but trying to tell a 6 year old that they can't go to disney like all their friends because daddy's career makes it not possible over them missing a few days of 2nd grade is silly to me.
but I just looked at our school districts policy, and they excuse family vacations, so we will pull our kids out once or twice before middle school for a family trip. I think occasionally spending time as a family on a trip is more critical than skipping a few days of school.
It's pretty shitty to pull the "daddy's career" card. If its important enough to you, just take your child on your own. I've traveled plenty with DD without DH. In fact, DH still isn't sure he can take off for her February break this school year,but I'm not going to make her sit at home because of that.
Spring break is always over Easter so that's not an option either.
Is Easter such a big deal that you really couldn't go over spring break? I ask this as a person who has celebrated Easter on many spring breaks. Also our spring break generally either started with Easter or ended with Easter so you could conceivably do Easter at home and still have vacation.
We lose a day on either side to travel, so if we didn't leave til Monday and then had to fly out the following Saturday or Sunday(if we wanted to cut it close) we would really only have a 4 or 5 day trip.
I have a lot of guilt over what my kids miss because of my dh's work schedule, so it think this might be one of my hills to die on. I am not going to let them miss out on week long family trips because of it.
Once they hit middle school I guess we will hope dh's schedule allows of travel.
Post by schrodinger on Sept 17, 2014 13:57:09 GMT -5
I answered SS. We would pull SD2 for a week without hesitation since school comes easily to her and making up work wouldn't be a huge deal at this age. SD1 struggles with her current workload so we wouldn't consider pulling her for a week for a vacation. Their mother, on the other hand, had no issue pulling them for a week for a trip to Disney last year.
We plan to do Disney during the summer break next year. The timing sucks, but we don't really have any great alternative.
To each their own, but trying to tell a 6 year old that they can't go to disney like all their friends because daddy's career makes it not possible over them missing a few days of 2nd grade is silly to me.
but I just looked at our school districts policy, and they excuse family vacations, so we will pull our kids out once or twice before middle school for a family trip. I think occasionally spending time as a family on a trip is more critical than skipping a few days of school.
It's pretty shitty to pull the "daddy's career" card. If its important enough to you, just take your child on your own. I've traveled plenty with DD without DH. In fact, DH still isn't sure he can take off for her February break this school year,but I'm not going to make her sit at home because of that.
Yes, because my kids should never experience a family vacation, And my dh has no desire to take his kids to disney. I have two kids 4 years part too, so I would like a second adult to take the older kid on some rides that the younger can't.
Yes. I work in a school and people do it all the time. They try to schedule it obviously over a long weekend so they're only missing 3 days or so. My schools policy is "5 days without prior administrative consent."
This is one of those "only on the internet do people stress about this" issues.
I disagree because depending on the district, there are some real and strict consequences.
Totally. I'm not saying there wasn't. In my state which is a lot of small rural districts it's not that big of a deal. Their have been issues with truancy paperwork (I actually work a lot with this) being filed over 2 week vacations but it's been pretty quickly resolved as the attendance secretary was just doing her job and nobody notified her of what was happening, kwim?
I guess moreso on the internet it's the "OMG. My kid missed 3 days of kindie...there goes Harvard" mentality I don't see in my real life.
Is Easter such a big deal that you really couldn't go over spring break? I ask this as a person who has celebrated Easter on many spring breaks. Also our spring break generally either started with Easter or ended with Easter so you could conceivably do Easter at home and still have vacation.
We lose a day on either side to travel, so if we didn't leave til Monday and then had to fly out the following Saturday or Sunday(if we wanted to cut it close) we would really only have a 4 or 5 day trip.
I have a lot of guilt over what my kids miss because of my dh's work schedule, so it think this might be one of my hills to die on. I am not going to let them miss out on week long family trips because of it.
Once they hit middle school I guess we will hope dh's schedule allows of travel.
Are you really complaining about having 5 days of vacation versus 7 days of vacation? I mean, sure, the more days the better but a 5-day family vacation is still worth it for me if that was my only option.
I think traveling in and of itself is educational. I would not pull them to go to Disney, but mostly because I have no desire to ever go to Disney. The places we do go are very educational for them, particularly culturally. I really don't want my kids to grow up thinking that the culture where we live is all there is.
I'm taking my preschool out of school next month so I can go to Hawaii. And she can stay with my inlaws . But, it's preschool. I would rather my MIL stay down at our home and take her to school but then again, she's doing us a huge favor by watching all the kids so if she wants to do it at her house, the last thing I will do is bitch. Except here, I'll bitch here lol.
I dunno, DH and I have talked about it. We went to Disney last January when the crowds were low and were still kind of annoyed. It pretty much sealed the deal that Disney during any sort of peak time would be a no-go for us and I do want to go again, probably two years from now and DD would be in first grade.
I think early grades I would be more likely to be okay with it but not when they're older. Now, tacking a few days on to a holiday? Yeah, even more likely to happen but I can see everything getting complicated with activities the older they get too. This is a wait and see scenario for us I think.
We are planning to let our kids miss one day in January so we can take a three day weekend to go skiing and one day in March because we are leaving a little early for spring break. I would not pull them out for vacation for a whole week, but I am fine with 1-3 extra vacation days over the course of the school year.
It's pretty shitty to pull the "daddy's career" card. If its important enough to you, just take your child on your own. I've traveled plenty with DD without DH. In fact, DH still isn't sure he can take off for her February break this school year,but I'm not going to make her sit at home because of that.
Yes, because my kids should never experience a family vacation, And my dh has no desire to take his kids to disney. I have two kids 4 years part too, so I would like a second adult to take the older kid on some rides that the younger can't.
You asked if you should tell your children they can't go somewhere because of Daddy's career. My answer is no, that's a shitty thing to say.
We lose a day on either side to travel, so if we didn't leave til Monday and then had to fly out the following Saturday or Sunday(if we wanted to cut it close) we would really only have a 4 or 5 day trip.
I have a lot of guilt over what my kids miss because of my dh's work schedule, so it think this might be one of my hills to die on. I am not going to let them miss out on week long family trips because of it.
Once they hit middle school I guess we will hope dh's schedule allows of travel.
Are you really complaining about having 5 days of vacation versus 7 days of vacation? I mean, sure, the more days the better but a 5-day family vacation is still worth it for me if that was my only option.
I'm no disney expert, but I am saying that a 4 day trip to disney over Easter week would likely not allow us to do much due to the crowds.
i am saying that I would rather pull my kid out of school for a few days, which is what this discussion is about.
Yes, because my kids should never experience a family vacation, And my dh has no desire to take his kids to disney. I have two kids 4 years part too, so I would like a second adult to take the older kid on some rides that the younger can't.
I have never been on a vacation with my dad. Not once. My parents have been married for 31 years.
No major 'vacations' until I was probably in 3rd grade. This was just mom, sister (4 years older), and me.
I get where you are coming from, but a vacation just the 3 of you is possible. If you DH doesn't want to go to Disney, I don't know why you'd make him. :^)
I'm confused, my husband WANTS to go, just is much more limits in when he can travel due to his trial schedule. I would not want to go to disney without him, now would he want to miss a trip with his kids.
It's pretty shitty to pull the "daddy's career" card. If its important enough to you, just take your child on your own. I've traveled plenty with DD without DH. In fact, DH still isn't sure he can take off for her February break this school year,but I'm not going to make her sit at home because of that.Â
Yes, because my kids should never experience a family vacation, And my dh has no desire to take his kids to disney. Â I have two kids 4 years part too, so I would like a second adult to take the older kid on some rides that the younger can't.
Why are you being so contrary? A lot of people, myself included, would not pull kids out of school for a Disney vacation. If you don't care, then just do it! It shouldn't matter what people on a message board think.
I missed about a month a year through sixth grade and my sister missed that much through 8th or 9th grade. We were both exceptional students and didn't miss anything classroom wise. We went to Europe or Asia during that time (for extended months, one of which just happened to be at the end of school). We didn't have any issues with teachers approving it but I imagine the rules were more lax back then.
If the school allowed it I would have no problem pulling my kid, but would prefer end of the year like we did.
We take vacations when school is not in session. Disney is not a critical thing to do a as child. There is very little educational value in going. I could see missing one day for travel but overall I think kids should be in school when it is open unless they are sick.
So you would just tell you kid sorry, you can never go to disney because it's not "critical" so it's not an option. My dd would be so crushed.
Well honestly we may never get to go to Disney. I don't know if my kids will be crushed or not because we never talk about it.
If you really want to go I'd go after Easter (so 3-4 days of the break) or other one of the other holidays. We usually get presidents week off from school.
Post by galaxy8227 on Sept 17, 2014 14:19:20 GMT -5
I voted yes but it would depend on how much time, where we were going, their age and how they are doing in school. We always traveled on school vacation cause my Mom worked for the schools and couldn't go at other times so I never had this growing up
Post by Yankees21 on Sept 17, 2014 14:20:26 GMT -5
Depending on how they were as a student, I would. This is colored by my experience in going to Florida every fall for a baseball tournament my dad played in (so neither once in a lifetime nor educational) and these are some of my most fond memories from my childhood. I was a very good student and brought homework with me when possible.
Post by nonsenseabound on Sept 17, 2014 14:20:28 GMT -5
sure. We did it with DD in April. Granted, she was in 4K, so not even state mandated school. She missed two days of school and the rest were spring break.
I would try and do a vacation where my kid would miss the least amount of days. So schedule it around teacher in service, memorial day, etc.
Post by fortmyersbride on Sept 17, 2014 14:20:41 GMT -5
I would. We've taken DS out of school for 2 wks/year since starting PS and will do so again this year in K. If it gets to a point when it's disruptive to his schooling (or our other kids'), then we will stop. DH and I aren't able to take vacation time at holidays, including spring break as they are busy times at work. It's hard for us to get weeks during summer break as well. So I hope it continues to be ok for them to miss a week or two during the school year.
I think traveling in and of itself is educational. I would not pull them to go to Disney, but mostly because I have no desire to ever go to Disney. The places we do go are very educational for them, particularly culturally. I really don't want my kids to grow up thinking that the culture where we live is all there is.
Exactly this. I don't think we will go to Disneyh- just not our thing.
Post by mollybrown on Sept 17, 2014 14:30:24 GMT -5
We're taking DS out of school next year for Disney. We've picked a week that will only require him to miss 3 days. Flammable, but that's preferable to me over FL in the summer or any other school break where Disney is a mad house. This is a very special trip for us with 3 generations of family. I wouldn't do it if he were older, but I think we can keep him caught up in K or 1st just fine.
Post by jeaniebueller on Sept 17, 2014 14:35:23 GMT -5
Yup, sure would. Orlando or Florida? Especially. No way am I fighting holiday break crowds or dealing with Florida heat during the summer. School is a BIG deal for us, but so is our family time. And we don't take big vacations regularly, so its not like we would do it every year.
And again, since we rarely take a week long vacation out of state, I would not consider doing that without my husband.
I wouldn't even hesitate to do this. In fact, I'm positive we will do it more than once (not always Disney) during her 13 years of school.
My mom used to wake me up once or twice a school year and ask if I had a test that day. If I said no, she'd say, "Great. Let's have a girl day!" I remember those days with such happiness and I'll do that with C too.