I let my daughter take 1-2 a semester, when she’s really stressed she gets migraines. I do make a point of trying to get her to set up good work/sleep habits, but it’s been tough. My son has never asked to stay home from school, only to skip non-school extracurriculars.
@MaineLonghorn We are living in the same world! My son is also a cross country runner and for a while there he was earning his best times ever at meets while having F’s entered into the gradebook in PE. After the season was over he had to go to the PE teacher and do all the runs he missed on the track in front of her eyes. She would not accept the official times and mileage from the meets as recorded on the official website because “coaches lie”. Yikes!
I let mine have one whenever she wants one. She’s a very responsible straight A student holding down a job and EC’s–I think she’s doing great and a day off here and there hasn’t hurt her in any way–she’s happier for it. I have another kid who would use it to avoid responsibility, so I did not let him do it very often. So, it depends on the kid.
Mine don’t ever take them but have been told I wouldn’t object. I’ve seen my now college-aged son pull all nighters for his robotics team, come home and do calc homework and get up and get to school. I think knowing I’d let him stay home alleviated some of his stress but he never seemed to reach his breaking point. I know there were a few days I almost begged him to stay home but out the door he went. The now senior son is my laid back kid who doesn’t ever stress about anything so I doubt he’ll ever even consider it.
I absolutely insist on mental health days.
And, for 2 of mine, this started far before senior year. My oldest has always been quite healthy, until he is stressed and lacks sleep. Then, he gets very sick quite quickly. Without a mental healthy day, his physical health declines.
I also didn’t let child 1 work. He had a few ECs which were very time consuming.
Child 2 works, but for him, when he is stressed, getting out and having social contact helps, so work is a stress relief in some ways. Child 1 and 3 just need sleep when they are overwhelmed.
We never gave them a “mental health day”. They were the type to rarely miss school — even if they were sick. So if they had asked for a day, I probably would have allowed it because it would have signaled a real need in my mind. But they never did so it wasn’t an issue.
At my kids’ school, if you didn’t attend 5 of the 7 periods, you couldn’t participate in after school activities. They never missed school, even when their friends did. The athletic director would check the attendance records and inform the coaches.
In my school, you made up every missed PE class, no matter what the reason. If you had a broken arm or leg, you could do class with a cast on or make them all up later. If it was an excused absence, you made up the class hour for hour, but if unexcused, it was 3 hours for the missed hour. No exceptions, even for the star athletes. If you couldn’t do the activity, you could switch to another (volleyball for swimming) and they even had some office work, but you were in that gym doing something. I know a lot of kids who were in the gym for weeks trying to get enough hours to graduate.
@twoinanddone That’s how it is here too, except they don’t have the office work option. The AD does check attendance records.
All this PE stuff makes me glad my kids attended a private high school. 
Some of it sounds so illogical.
My son DID enjoy beating out big football and hockey players when they had to run in PE! He was a little guy and it drove the other kids crazy.
We do but that was mainly in 9-10th grades when D18 was in a bad state of mind. I don’t think we’ve had one “off” day this year. I think that just knowing it is possible almost makes it unnecessary now. We’ll see next year when she’s doing several more APs, ECs, and college applications. Not looking forward to it.
BTW, things would be great this year if it wasn’t for the terrible AP Chem class. It’s so bad that students formed a “protest” on GroupMe (whatever that is).
Not from school. From ECs, however, sure. And if a kid was ever so tired she verged on being sick, fine. Take a sick day, but if she’s too sick for school, she’s too sick for ECs. I felt like giving permission to skip school while allowing ECs devalued school. Kind of like if I’m too sick to go to work, I’m probably too sick to go to something at church or my friend’s house or out to dinner.
Yes, I do. I got the idea of “mental health days” from a former boss who insisted we all needed at least one every six months. Also, D has a history of OCD and anxiety, so there are definitely times when she needs to decompress or things turn physical. However, there are some stipulations. The missed day cannot be an excuse to postpone a test or incomplete work (or the day before said test or work in an effort solely to finish on time). Also, if you miss school, you cannot participate in extracurricular activities that day. I do let them read ahead in whatever book they’re reading in lit class or go over notes, but the purpose of the mental health day is to just do nothing and reinvigorate their minds and stamina.
@Marian I am impressed you can schedule appointments after school. I don’t know a single doctor, dentist or orthodontist in these parts who schedule appointments after 2 p.m. (for kids or adults).
We had a national news event at our school and it was extremely stressful for my kids who were embarrassed by the erroneous things portrayed in the media and in conversations in class. No real work was happening at the school anyway.
In the normal course of things, missing class results in more stress for my kids rather than less so they would not even want a day off. But mental health is important so I don’t think the idea is out of order.
My older son got as much of his college apps done as possible in the summer to avoid the fall crunch. He was glad later but lots of griping in the summer.
Senior year of high school was much less stressful than junior year for my son. He never took a mental health day in 12th grade…he even showed up for concert rehearsal on senior skip day. Junior year was a different matter. If he didn’t feel mentally up to dealing with school I didn’t push it.
What’s important to me is WHY the kid wants a mental health day. Knowing when to chill out is an important life skill. Academics comes naturally to S so when he said he wanted to take a day off because he was getting burned out I knew I could trust his judgement. I would have been concerned if I thought he was skipping school to avoid an uncomfortable social situation because that’s an area where avoidance was more likely to set a dangerous precedent for him.
If mine wants to stay home, she’s welcome to stay home. That said, the last time she exercised that option was in middle school; she’s far more likely to go to school despite being obviously unwell. In general, it’s more of a hassle to stay home and make up work than to go to school.
The world doesn’t come to an end if you don’t show up, and IMHO it’s good for overly-conscientious kids to realize that.
Also, I am really glad that our school has no mandatory PE, and no crazy workload expectations.
I recently read an article about it and studies show that parents should, though not on regular bases, let high schoolers make these decisions about going late for skipping a day if they are really exhausted. In my opinion health, emotional and physical, comes before academics.
Another perspective of parenting is working with and teaching them… Work on time management, organization skills, prioritizing, planning short term action items for longterm deadlines, minimize social media, eating and staying hydrated correctly, correct amount of sleep, and vitamins.
I have been four year Varsity athlete in 3 sports(summer is tougher than the school year), over 500 hours of volunteering, 3 mission trips, VP STUCO, Ambassador Lead, President of Philosophy and Science club, VP NHS
So my vote is NO need for it.
Three kids – no mental health days. They have never asked and if I suggested it, they would likely go in to school anyway. I have to work. My husband has to work. There is no sleeping in and late arrivals at school - who would take them? We all power through and catch up when we can. The thought never crossed my mind to let my kids sleep in or skip- anymore than I would skip work to sleep in or get that paperwork finished. They need to learn how to balance the workload, make choices, and prioritize - all important adult skills. They have learned that they will get through and things do get better. They have learned one failed AP quiz is not the end of the world and that they probably should have left practice early or used their break time at rehearsal for reading instead. Hopefully this carries through to college and they get up and get to class even when they are tired or stressed.
The problem is when there is no time to catch up. I feel, at least for my son, that he’s constantly running on a hamster wheel and eventually, he’s going to fall off. His school also has make up assignments for any missed classes including PE. He also debated for a long while about going to school today, because he said missing classes just doubles up his workload.