# Okay for kids to miss a week of school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 20, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620 "2009-07-20T14:14:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ashman165](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@ashman165](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ashman165)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/21 "2009-07-20T20:48:49Z")
> [@qsecofr](#): > > Would you let a fourth grader and second grader miss the first week of school? We’re booking a trip to Asia and we’re having trouble getting a return flight before school starts on August 24th. > > They’re very bright students (top of class pretty much). They attend a Catholic school, if that has any bearing on it. I suppose that depends on what you do there. But I’d be willing to be that the exposure to China of bright children as yours will be far more meaningful than anything they’ll learn in the first week of fourth grade. The chance to experience a real piece of history like that, and to have shown to you the wonders of an ancient land and culture, in my view, will dwarf anything taught in the first week of any class. They just need to understand they’ll have to put in a little extra effort to catch up on whatever they missed. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/22 "2009-07-20T21:07:22Z")
> [@qsecofr](#): > > Not China. They’ll be going to the Philippines to see their grandmother, perhaps for the last time, as she has pancreatic cancer. > > Thanks for the input everyone, my mind is at rest. We’ll touch base with the school. I’d suspect a lot of schools have special policies for things like this. As another datapoint, when I was in fifth grade I missed a lot of school getting shots to get ready to go to Africa, and then I missed from November when I got there to December when the new term at the school I was going to started. Didn’t hurt me a bit. See if you can bring some educational reading for them to prevent boredom. Maybe you could get some of their textbooks early too. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/23 "2009-07-20T21:15:21Z")
School is for kids that don’t have anything better to do. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/24 "2009-07-20T21:19:04Z")
They’ll learn more on this trip than they would in school, so hell yea. Not just is it ok, but it’s recommended. Especially if they are the sort that won’t miss anything. Besides the first week is orientation where they usually spend most of the time getting the kids to settledown and recognize they are back in school. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/25 "2009-07-20T21:19:48Z")
Absolutely okay. How much do you remember of the first week of second or fourth grade? How much do you remember of an awesome trip to a strange land you took as a child. No contest. They’ll catch up, just as they would if they had the flu. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/26 "2009-07-20T22:05:30Z")
They are going to see their dying grandmother. No question about it. ---
**Author:** ![Hokkaido\_Brit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d26b3c/32.png) [@Hokkaido\_Brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hokkaido_Brit)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620/27 "2009-07-20T23:37:26Z")
You know if your mother died out of state, your kids would probably have to take at least a week off while you went to deal with the death, funeral and aftermath. It’s no different. And to add to the voices, family is WAY more important than school. This said by the woman who takes her kids out of Japanese school for two weeks most summers so that they can get to England to see their family. The primary schools have thus far never objected. And that’s even in mad school is god Japan. We do usually make a photo album or a report or something about the trip, and we do (slowly!) catch up with the work missed when we get back. But we wouldn’t do that for a sad family visit where we were saying goodbye. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-for-kids-to-miss-a-week-of-school/503620.md?page=1)