Q&A: school time vs. time with traveling father

Bobbie writes:

"I have a question about my daughter and was wondering if you could help me.

My daughter is in Kindergarten and is doing really good. She is where she needs to be and in some cases above where she needs to be, but due to where school is new to her she has been sick a lot and has missed 7 days alltogether. But the point I'm trying to get to is this.  Her dad is gone on a business trip for 2 months and her and her father are very close and she is missing him really bad. He has been gone for 2 weeks now and she is to the point where she cries herself to sleep at night!

In two weeks we planned to go up there for a few days but she can't wait.  What should I do?  I don't want to get into trouble for her missing so many days or them holding her back for going to the first grade.  Emotionally she is falling apart because she has never been away from either one of us--maybe overnight, but not weeks or months at a time. Mentally I don't want her to behind in school. Can you please help me?"

Your daughter needs to see her father.

Call the school and ask for a meeting with the teacher and principal for the next day, and go in and tell them what you told me. A kid who can't function because she misses her dad so much is not going to do very well in school anyway, and the teacher and principal will understand that.

The principal will know what the legal guidelines are for your state about how many days she can miss and still go on to first grade. If she's been sick those days shouldn't count against her (but it depends on state law and whether she was sick enough to get a doctor's note). You might have to get her assignments for the days you're going to miss and do them with her while you're gone.

Good luck. I hope the principal can give you good news that she's in no danger of being held back, so call as soon as you can to talk to them. Your daughter sounds sweet, and the attachment she has to your husband is heartwarming. I hope the rest of his time away from your family flies by quickly so you can all be together again.

Comments

[wix]

perhaps you could approach the principal and her teacher with the proposal that you work on some lessons while you are traveling?

the easiest thing to do might be to just withdraw her entirely from school for two weeks, if your state is one that requires a fixed number of days of attendance without some kind of serious complications. you could then petition to homeschool her (just so you're covered, if your state requires a record when a child is being homeschooled) for the two weeks, and when you're back at home you could re-enroll her at school. i know that must sound complicated, but it's one way you might be able to dodge the attendance bullet.

[Sarah]

Have states lowered the mandatory school start age? It usually is 6 and 1st grade--kindergarten is optional. In a quick Google search I found artcles on states considering lowering their mandatory start age to 5 but not earlier.

I hope the school is understanding.

[Jody]

Yeah, I was going to say what Sarah does. That legally, I'm not aware of a single state that mandates kindergarten attendance, and legally, you can show up with your six-year old and demand that she be started in first grade. So technically, all kindergarten retentions have to happen with the cooperation of the parents.

But I'm by no means an expert on these things. I could easily be wrong.

I would hope that the teacher would agree with the need to see Daddy (heck, we've got friends pulling their kids for a week just to go to Disney World when there aren't huge crowds) and that the issue of legal requirements would never come up.

[Jody]

Oops. A quick google shows that a few states have made kindergarten mandatory (Maryland came up first). But even there, they allow pretty wide latitude to get around the requirement.

I'm actually assuming the question was, what's more important for my daughter, consistent kindergarten attendance or emotional health through a visit with Daddy. And the answer is emotional health. Although there might be a transition time getting back to kindergarten, it probably won't be too bad. After all, kids take two weeks off at the winter break already, and kids on all-year schedules take longer breaks between sessions.