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The school in question is 13 hours away by car and my husband and I won't get vacation at the same time until early 2007, so there's no way daughter can do an overnight trip at this time.
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I'm late to this thread, but I think there's a very troubling message here. </p>
<p>"no way"/impossible mean something actually cannot be done except at dire cost. A poor family <em>could</em> steal the money for a visit they can't afford but most would agree that if you can't afford it then it's not possible. If the school would fail a kid for missing the class days the visits would take, that too is in the category.</p>
<p>However when I see personal preference cast as creating inviolable rules (eg. as the OP later writes, our family makes important decisions together so she can't go alone) that indicates a degree of inflexibility and rigidness that doesn't bode well for reaching good decisions. And what kind of message does this send to the kid? We don't trust your impressions/thoughts, we still need there to make sure you're doing the right thing?</p>
<p>I could decide that it's just "impossible" for me to ride in anything under than a Porsche 911; if I did, I'd be doing a lot of walking! Parents that make decisions by refusing to even admit that their preferences are just that -- preferences -- are going to bypass a lot of opportunities that are open to their kids and set a poor example of how to approach life to boot. Life is all about tradeoffs, flexibility and compromises; simply announcing "this is the way it is" as if there are no viable alternatives doesn't strike me as a very promising approach.</p>
<p>In sum there does seem to be some valid disagreement over the importance of visits, and the consensus is that schools won't penalize the kid for not visiting if alternative methods of showing interest are followed. But to plain-out-say there is "no way" the kid can visit rules out the benefits those visits MAY bring, and I have to wonder just how many other things are "impossible" as well.</p>