<p>I need some advice from some parents. So my dad has made some plans to go to Switzerland. Apparently my whole extended family is doing this in response to my grandparents' fiftieth anniversary. However, I will miss about four days of school. Im taking four ap courses and am stuck with SAT prep. I have three other commitments that week as well. I honestly do not want to go. I actually looked ahead at that week and it appears to be quite a busy one. I tried to convince my dad that I really dont want to go and that I would rather spend my time getting work done, but he refuses to listen. I could really use some advice from some parents about this?</p>
<p>Just go. Work it out in advance with your teachers. Your grandparents will only have one 50th anniversary. The trip will be a happy memory for the rest of your life. Go.</p>
<p>Is it an option to skip the family trip and stay with a friend? Missing a week of school seems challenging.</p>
<p>go. Work it out with your teachers, take your computer and your books, get homeworks online, vow to keep working whenever you can - and do it. </p>
<p>Life is a journey, not a destination.</p>
<p>I sure see that the timing is unfortunate, and this will cause extra challenges (if not difficulties) for you. But this is a very significant event for your family. Rise to the occasion, make the sacrifice in terms of less sleep and a fair degree of discomfort (studying on the plane, jet-lag, etc) and make it work. This will be good practice for times in adult life when, try as we might, we just can’t arrange important events optimally and, instead, have to go with the flow.</p>
<p>Your concern about this demonstrates that you’re a responsible student who cares about meeting commitments. Use those qualities to find ways to get it all done.</p>
<p>okay, perhaps I am not very sentimental about these things, but personally I think it is very selfish of the grandparents to expect their whole family, including the OP, to drop everything in their lives and fly overseas to celebrate THEIR anniversary. I would not want to miss that amount of school work if I was the OP! Let me just say that I would LOVE to go to Switzerland in your place harvard76 :)</p>
<p>Missing a week or so of school was not as big a deal when your Dad went to school, so on some level he may not understand how things have changed… BUT, for more reasons than I have time to type, you should go and be with your family 100%. Work out anything you can in advance but don’t bring a laptop or books and don’t do homework when your on this vacation. Life is shorter than you think and opportunities like this don’t come along often… Don’t forget to thank your Dad for giving you this and so many other opportunities…</p>
<p>No where does the poster say that this is the grandparents idea. Maybe the kids (posters parents) put this together as a special treat for the grandparents. If they’ve been married for 50 years, then they must be in their 70’s and quite frankly health issues do start to appear.</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of taking kids out of school for vacations once they get past early elementary school, but this isn’t a regular trip to Disneyworld. Since you have plenty of time, you’ll be able to tell your teachers weeks in advance and position yourself so it shouldn’t hurt too much to be gone. Framing it as “I have this wonderful opportunity to experience another culture AND celebrate a family occasion that is truly a milestone that most don’t reach” should convince the most hardcore teacher to work with you. Make sure your parents contact the administration as far ahead of time as possible.</p>
<p>Agree with previous posters who have said OP should embrace this opportunity. A 50th Anniversary (or other equally significant event) will NEVER happen again. Speaking from the perspective offered by age, family time is precious; enjoy it while you still can. In the grand scheme of life, missing 4 days of school is not significant, even though that may not seem to be true at the moment.</p>
<p>Since you are a high school student, I’d say go. Chances are school policy dictates you be allowed to make up work and stipulates an amount of time you have to do so. I mean, hey, how often does one get a chance to go to Switzerland? </p>
<p>If you were a college student I’d have a very different answer as you might not be allowed to make up any missed work.</p>
<p>Just go and try not to give your parents a hard time…in the bigger scope of things missing four days of school will be hard but missing a big family event like this will stay with you a lifetime. It is hard for a teen to understand how important a milestone like this is - being married for 50 years - and knowing that each family event could be your grandparent’s last.</p>
<p>If you cannot handle four days out of school, you shouldn’t be in those AP classes in the first place. You have plenty of time. Talk with your instructors now and get things sorted out so that you can fit the work around the trip.</p>
<p>Just remember that no one says you have to sit next to your dad who you seem to hate right now, on those long flights to Switzerland and back.</p>
<p>I would double check school policy that you would be allowed to make up work or that it would be an excused absence. At our public high school, this would be an unexcused absence and teachers would not be required to allow any make up or special consideration. Certain teachers stretch that to imply that they are not allowed to give make up or special consideration. This, of course, leads some parents to decide to lie (great example to set) regarding the actual reasons for the missed days. Per school administration this is to encourage the benefits of regular attendance and reduce the burden on teachers making alternate lesson plans and test schedules.</p>
<p>“okay, perhaps I am not very sentimental about these things, but personally I think it is very selfish of the grandparents to expect their whole family, including the OP, to drop everything in their lives and fly overseas to celebrate THEIR anniversary”</p>
<p>I agree. The grandparents could have celebrated their anniversary during the summer or some other time that would have been convenient for others.</p>
<p>I think the OP should stay home with a friend and go to school.</p>
<p>It’s very hard making up APs and any other high school classes. I don’t blame the OP for not wanting to go on the trip.</p>
<p>to further expand on Archie’s post 11, “It is hard for a teen to understand how important a milestone like this is…” that is true for the student, who likely sees the importance from his own youthful perspective right now, but is also true for the parents and grandparents too. It may not be important to the student to attend, the students’ attending is also important to others. It’s not just what the student wants. It is likely the parents and grandparents had to re-arrange their personal scheduling preferences to accommodate the student’s wishes and schedules in the past; this is the student’s turn.</p>
<p>I agree with NSM in that they could have taken a family poll to determine the best time for others. Perhaps they could have chosen to celebrate their anniversary when it was most convenient for the student. Apparently they didn’t though, and so how it could have been handled doesn’t count now. If your school doesn’t see being required to be out of the country(remember-as a minor, your parents are the boss) for a week is not a valid excuse, well then so be it. I have a hard time with a school saying- “You may have been out of the country last week, but that’s no excuse for missing Wednesday’s test”.</p>
<p>Plan in advance with all teachers and instructors and consider this one of those things you do for the family though it’s not your preference.</p>
<p>I have a number of reactions:</p>
<ol>
<li>I think you should go, this is a big milestone in their lives and it’s reasonable to question how many more of these milestones they’ll be around for; it’s also hard to imagine that something in AP Whatever will be more memorable or important. (Though I certainly agree that the grandparents should be scolded for not thinking about there future grandchildren when they decided to get married in the middle of the school year 50 years ago. The nerve.)</li>
<li>I’m pretty sure holliesue was being sarcastic and angling for a free trip to Switzerland.</li>
<li>All these years later I can honestly say that there was no single week in my high school career that had a long lasting impact on my life, the experience was important but I can’t point to a single week as being life-altering. Yes, “things” are harder now, but back then we all thought our parents didn’t understand how hard our lives were either.</li>
<li>Dude, are you nuts? It’s an all-expense paid trip to Switzerland!</li>
<li>Offer your dad a compromise. Offer to fly out for a subset of the time. If the party is on Saturday night at the end of a week-long visit, offer to fly over on Wednesday night, you miss fewer days of school and your family gets to have you at an important milestone.</li>
</ol>
<p>You should go. We have a rule: Family first, school second, sports third. Work with your teachers to make it happen. With internet, cell phones, networks there is no real reason that you can’t stay connected. Most teachers have notes or PowerPoint presentations that they can give you and you could even have a friend record the classes, zip them and e-mail them to you if necessarily. High school may seem the the most important thing in your life right now but those four days are miniscule, absolutely a miniscule moment in your lifetime.</p>
<p>the only thing I was being sarcastic about was that I would go to Switzerland in his place.
Honestly, I am still suffering the effects of having missed the ONE day in high school in 1978 where we had computer instruction. And I am not being sarcastic (just exagerating a bit)! My d went on a SCHOOL sanctioned exchange program last year, missed 4 days of school (2 AP classes, 2 honors classes). Her grades really suffered!
In our school if my D missed work due to a family trip the teachers would not give her makeup work as they are illegal absences. I would not MAKE my D go on the trip if my parents scheduled something like this. I would find another way for her to celebrate with them when it wouldn’t cause her to miss so much school.</p>
<p>btw I think vinceh’s suggestion listed in #5 is a great compromise.</p>
<p>I wish I had your problems, OP.</p>