Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't understand what you're concerned about, you're still being vague. Aren't most field trips out of town? Does your child need extra supervision to stay with the class?
Are they flying? I remember an elementary field trip to the state capital, it was about $200 because they flew up and back the same day. On that one, several students didn't go because of the expense.
Is it wrong to hold back a child from going on a class field trip for some reason other than illness?
It really depends on the reason. What would be reason to hold the child back from a class field trip? It is impossible to give a blanket answer without knowing more.
What if it's an out of town, day trip to another city?
Why would that matter? When I was in the 4th grade we had a day trip to Washington DC to see the museums/monuments, it was something I had been looking forwards to for years. I would have felt terrible if I were not able to go.
I know for a fact that my mother held me back from one in 6th Grade at my request-
It was to a Swamp (back in Australia where I grew up) to trek around a "Mangrove Environment". As somebody who seems to be more susceptible than most to mosquito bites, and a girly girl on top of it, just the idea of being knee deep in a muddy swamp sounded torturous.
PV, if I remember correctly, I think your children are very young? Like preschool or kindergarten? (I could be confusing you with another poster.) I am not a fan of sending very small children like that on an all-day field trip anyway. They do need a lot of supervision. We used to do a lot of weekday trips to museums and zoos and the like (we homeschool), and I often had concerns about the groups of young children with what seemed like few chaperones. Maybe 15 kids and two adults... for a class of 10-year-olds, that's fine, but not for a class of 5-year-olds, in my opinion.
But if you are concerned, can you just chaperone the trip rather than not sending your child?
When my daughter was in 5th grade, she attended a charter school and they went to SeaWorld for a day. It's 3 hours away and they were leaving early in the morning and returning late at night. I was a little iffy about it, mostly because she has a food allergy and at that point, she was not yet super-reliable about knowing what she could order at restaurants, so any adult she was with got the lowdown. So my husband went as a chaperone. It worked out well, because her best friend's mother was also concerned about the supervision, and since she knew us, she felt better about her daughter being with her friend's dad.
I'm wondering if your child would be overly upset if he/ she had to miss the field trip.
I'm sure it depends on the child and the venue. They do probably talk up the trip in school and all of the other kids will be going. On the other hand, some kids truly don't care and would rather stay home that day. And if you frame it as, "we will go to the zoo as a family next month and be able to spend the entire day," they will probably be fine with that, especially if they're little. If they're over 8 or so, that might not fly as easily!
Either way, I don't make parenting decisions based on whether my kids will be upset, particularly if I think there's a safety issue. Example: My teenagers are not allowed to be in the car with a teenage driver. That's just how it is in our family. We do not think that 16- and 17-year-olds should be transporting friends, mainly because it increases the risk of car accidents immensely. So if my son, who is 17 (and who isn't ready to take his driver's license exam yet), is invited to go somewhere with a 17-year-old friend who will be driving, the answer is no. One of us might bring him or he could ride with an adult, but until he is 18 and able to make his own decisions, he is simply not getting in the car with another teenager whether he's upset about it or not. (And he hasn't been upset about it, probably because he's known the rule from the beginning.)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
