Okay, I don’t know how I did it, but I misread that as “both my hamster and my grapefruit died…” 
I mean, I get attached to my citrus fruits to, but…
And I agree that I probably wouldn’t let a 16 year old take off for the death of a hamster, but in some circumstances, I might.
*“Dad, can I stay home today? I’m really sad.”
“Billy, at times like this you need to think about many things. Like, what would Mr. Bum-Bum want you to do? Would he want you to lay around in your urine soaked cedar shavings, or get in that wheel and run like you’re on crack?”
“Mr. Bum-Bum had a good life, and he went proudly down that tube into some dark and scary places where no hamster had ever…, well, eh-except for mebbe Richard Gere’s, and Tom Cruise’s hamster… anyway-he was always ready to go.”
“You’re right, Dad. Thanks!”*
A note that lies about the reason why the kids stayed home? That seems to teach an even worse lesson than “It’s OK to take a day off if your pet died”.
I get about 7 sick days that require no excuse per year. If I want to take more than that, or take more than two at a time, I need a doctors note. I can take bereavement days, but they are very limited by how long I can take for what kind of relation. I was not allowed to take any days off when my uncle died (who was pretty much my only father figure from about 5 to 15), because he wasn’t close enough, and my sick days were used up already for actual sickness. When my cousin killed himself (who was a lot more like a sibling to me than my actual siblings, who were all much older than me), I couldn’t take a bereavement day. The idea of getting a day off for a dead pet in that context is ridiculous.
My kid gets 6 unexcused absences per semester before they fail. They can have excused absences for certain reasons (illness, death in the family) that go beyond that six, but those require a note from a parent explaining why. I do not lie to try and stretch those 6 unexcused absences. When we kept the kid home for other reasons, we took the hit of taking an unexcused absence. I’m sure there’s kids who got to stay home for unexcusable reasons who had parents lie and say they were sick, and this probably has a lot to do with why schools are so strict about absences and tardies these days. My wife had to appear before a judge because my daughter had three unexcused absences (2 of those were due to tardies, two tardies equalled one absence).
I think it depends on the kid. When I was six, our cat died, and I was sad. When I was sixteen, my bunny died (I feel like I should avoid using the phrase “the rabbit died,” because that seems too easy for the jokes, then I remember I’m old and it would probably be more depressing if people didn’t get the joke) and I was a lot more rattled, because in addition to being sad, I had been responsible for the rabbit and kept asking myself if he would have lived longer if I had taken better care of him. Probably not, he died of old age, but the whole thing seemed much weightier to me because I viewed it in a more complex way.
Uh I don’t know anyone who hasn’t taken a sick day from work even though they weren’t sick. If sick days are part of work policy, then I intend to use them. Everyone else does, and I will not be penalized just because I am never sick.
In fact, companies should just do what my current company does: roll your sick days into your time off. It’s all part of the same pool.
And anyone who says that a 16 year old can’t take a day off because their hampster died seriously needs to get a life. Nothing is going to happen in 1 day of school that cannot be missed. Unless this is a pattern of constant unexcused absences, a 16 year old is still a child, and ought to be allowed to be a child, which includes getting emotional over things that adults might not get emotional over.
And as far as teaching your child about the “real” world is concerned, I dont know what real world some people live in, but the real world I live in allows me to take personal days for reasons that are frankly none of work’s business. I do not need a reason. And a 16 year old should not need a reason either, other than “my parents say I can take the day off.”
You wouldn’t? Frankly, I think it makes perfect sense to sometimes take a sick day when you’re well enough to enjoy it.
I earn one sick day a month and for the first two years or so I didn’t take a single one, so I’ve built up quite the healthy number of sick days. If I know we won’t be short staffed I don’t feel any guilt taking one when I’m OK.
Letting the kid miss one day would be fine with me.
Everyone’s way of grieving is different. Some people take things harder than others. Even though I don’t see a hamster’s death as being an especially big deal, I can see how it could be upsetting for a kid who’s still not quite an adult yet and had been attached to the little critter, so I’d go easy on the kid for a day.
If their high school is like mine was, a lot of it is just busywork to keep kids off the streets for a few hours a day, and they’re not going to miss anything that major anyway.
I don’t have this feeling that school is something that should never be missed.
OTOH, I think we have a responsibility to teach our kids how to deal well with death, and IMO routine is one of the best things for you when you are grieving. If a pet died the evening before, I would see no reason to keep my daughter home from school. If it happened that morning, we’d maybe go for a walk and talk about it, have a cup of tea, and head off to school a little late.
My parents let me skip school as much as I wanted, and I got good grades, but then again, the board is well-aware of my perfidities.
Why would the note have to lie? It could say something vague like “Billy didn’t feel well yesterday.”
Okay, so your workplace has very strict rules. Not all workplaces are like that. And some of us, if a close relative died, would take the day or days off that we needed regardless of what we “get.”
And what lessons are you teaching YOUR kids?
How long did the teen have the hamster? How deeply was he attached to it? Cause if he’s sixteen and this deeply distraught, there’s something else going on here.
I’m on the side of “one school day won’t kill him, unless this happens every week or so”. But I’d take some of that day off to sit him down and talk about at least his pet and his grief over it, if not what else is going on with him.
Hell yes, but just one.
School’s important but not THAT important.
And what do y’all mean “it’s just a hamster”? Hamsters are great!
My main worries in this would be in a) establishing a lifelong pattern of malingering to ditch responsibilities, and b) whether there’s something more happening in the kid’s life right now.
I’d say talk to them about it, get a feeling what it’s really all about… it is really just the hamster, are they trying to cut school, is this part of a larger depressive pattern? Allow for the fact that to a teen, everything is the end of the world. It’s hard for a parent to know when to be compassionate and when to teach the “get over it” lesson.
Possible strategy… tell them you’ll allow it but the note will explicitly say that they are missing school because their pet hamster died. If the child is willing to deal with the social repercussions, that will at least tell you whether the feelings are sincere. Sincere grief does not require a cover story. Once you’ve established the sincerity, then you only have to figure out whether it’s anything to worry about… just a strange one-off, or part of something more troubling.
Honesty and responsibility. My daughter’s realization that her repeated lateness due to dragging ass in the morning could cause legal issues for the rest of the family, she started getting dressed when we told her to, and it’s not a problem anymore.
I agree…well not about the hamster part but about the school part. I wouldn’t give the kid a week off for mourning but day of and after? Sure.
But then again, I give my kids one “hooky” day of their choice each year.
More cowbell.
Yes, for a day.
If I asked my parents for a day off from school, I generally got it. They realized how I hated to ask for things, so if I asked for a day off, it wasn’t for a trivial reason.
School isn’t useful for learning things so much as learning about life (i.e. the social aspect), and there are other ways to learn about that.
Hi. My name is StuffLikeThatThere. Nice to meet you.
I’m not harshing on you because you have, but I can’t imagine that I’m the only person in the world, or even on the board, who has never taken a sick day when not sick.
I can’t take the guilt. I’m also a terrible liar, and I don’t think I could pull it off.
I’m not one who demeaned the hamster, and I really don’t want to trivialize the guy’s attachment to it. But I think a more appropriate way to honor the pet would be to go to school and mourn with friends. Tell them stories about the animal and why he meant so much to you. Like I said in my post, it’s just a matter of proportion. The hamster isn’t unimportant, but skipping school doesn’t make it any more important either.
