How much do you expect college-aged offspring to be involved in family life?

[Clarita]

58 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Oh no! Asking the professor whether they are "doing anything important in class" implies that you expect that the prof is not doing anything that is worthwhile attending, and that comes across as quite an insult.

That's probably because you are a good teacher. Not all professors are professors because they want to teach. So not all professors are (or should be) insulted if you asked them whether attending a certain lecture is important. I had one professor spend 90% of lectures talking about his fishing trips. The other 10% were syllabus, midterm and exam. As a good student who tries to attend all the lectures; that was a waste of time. 

Add: You are in college yes use better language to ask. Basically you are asking whether something "important" is going to be covered but ask in a socially acceptable manner. 

Of course also just now realizing that nowadays you have to inform professors if you are going to miss regular lecture. That was never a requirement when I was there. You have to ask for extensions or a different turn in time for assignments or a different test day but you just skipped lectures and rarely would a professor notice or be concerned about it.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Clarita

[Laura Corin]

Those types of absences would not be approved at the university where I work. Missing more than 30 percent of tutorials without good excuse would result in a zero grade.

[Terabith]

My oldest is in college this year, for the first time, not counting the semester they did in high school that got interrupted by covid.  None of these things have come up.  However, something that DID come up was a medical appointment.  They are attending school locally, and there was a very important medical appointment that was scheduled almost a year in advance.  We scheduled it originally on when we GUESSED they would be least likely to have any classes, but we certainly didn't know their schedule at the time we made the appointment.  As it turned out, we guessed correctly, but then the medical office rescheduled the appointment four times.  And it had to happen.  I think it wound up so that they didn't miss any class, but it was very possible that they were going to have to miss at least one class.  

[Jaybee]

Back in the dark ages when I was in college, most of the professors took attendance, and there was an attendance policy that if you missed so many days, you couldn't pass the course. Besides, I didn't want to miss because it was so hard to keep up with things if I had to be absent. So many things were different then, though, as notes were taken by hand, etc. If you missed a week, it would take you several weeks to catch up with everything.

For our own kids, once they graduated from high school, our expectations for them to attend things as a family was greatly reduced. Our older ones were in school too far away from us, so it was impossible. And our younger ones were living at home for college and/or working, so we gave them freedom. We don't make big deals of birthdays, etc., as far as expecting everybody to be there or anything, though. Currently, all but one have graduated from college, and that one is working full time. We are very much in the stage of "Hey, we are going to do ___, and you are welcome to come if you'd like/if you can," which is the stage we moved to after high school graduation for most things. 

We did have one grandparent funeral where college student, high school student, and I were unable to go due to distance. Another one, we thought death was imminent and the weekend was coming up, so we went, but person held on longer and the three of us had to return before the funeral. I can understand why some wouldn't have made the same choices we did, but we felt it was best under the circumstances. 

[Pam in CT]

I would never schedule a family event that required a kid to miss class.  My eldest finished university, and is now attending grad school, in NYC which is an easy train ride from here. I schedule stuff, invite her, and if it works for her schedule (class and personal) she joins and if not, not.

The others have gone further geographically. When my father died, the middle one missed two days to attend the service. This fall when the eldest got engaged, her now-fiance put together a bit of a party (over a weekend) around the event; and I invited the siblings to come; they were eager to join and I paid for their plane tickets. But had they had academic or other commitments, NBD.

 

In terms of what courses and grades.. it's varied. With the eldest I had no idea what she was taking; I knew she was generally doing well gradewise but didn't know until graduation HOW well. The middle struggled and I was more aware and involved, in part because the executive functioning / planning / puzzle piece aspects of working through the requirements of gen ed / major / minor and how to schedule the sequence was difficult for him.  With the youngest, she chooses whatever she wants but TALKS more about her daily coursework so I have a general sense.

[QueenCat]

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

This was the thought when planning weddings when I was in college, also.  At most, someone might be scrambling to figure out how to miss a Friday afternoon class to be able to get to a wedding rehearsal on Friday night for a Saturday wedding.  I am simply not used to the expectation that siblings, parents, and friends will be able to take a week off of work or school to go to a destination wedding celebration in Hawaii.  

Nor should you be okay with that expectation. Missing a Friday OR Monday for a weekend wedding is one thing. A whole week is quite another. Every class my kids took allowed 2-3 days of excused absences per semester. They need to use those days AND understand that the work is still DUE. 

[QueenCat]

1 hour ago, rebcoola said:

When I was in college you showed up in class or didn't an no one cared. I mean if there was a presentation or lab you obviously had to be there but otherwise no one was checking.  I wouldn't ask the teacher because they didn't care.  Shoot I took a sociology class that I only showed for like 4 times because the teacher basically lectured straight from the book showed up test days and got an A.  

Interesting. My college definitely had attendance policies and expectations for adherence in the 1980s.

[annandatje]

I expect college age children to be involved with family to the extent that they have the time and interest in doing so. Whether or not I am paying for any of the college is irrelevant.  If they cannot or prefer not to get together on a holiday, there are 364 other days in the year to celebrate together.

[HomeAgain]

This is weird, and doesn't keep up with the changing academic culture.

I just sat in a class today.  My first in person classroom in about 30 years.  Professor doesn't care about attendance.  She has it in her syllabus for one reason: she's not allowed to drop students without having that structure, and it's better for students to be dropped than it is for them to get an F.  None of my professors have really cared if we were there or not as long as we sat the exams and did the work.  The only excuse for missing an exam is death, illness, or injury. 

[Eos]

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

The idea that parents are paying for an expensive college education makes them more involved in their child's success (knowing about exams, helping with papers, etc.) makes some sense.  I hadn't really thought about it from the perspective of paying for the child's education also entitles the parent to request that the child miss college classes.  Maybe that is some of the mindset; I was looking at from the opposite direction--why would you pay so much for a college class and then encourage or pressure your child not to get the most out of it possible?

My older three had really high levels of financial aid and possibly because of that they would never ever have missed class if they could help it.

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

Of course also just now realizing that nowadays you have to inform professors if you are going to miss regular lecture. That was never a requirement when I was there. You have to ask for extensions or a different turn in time for assignments or a different test day but you just skipped lectures and rarely would a professor notice or be concerned about it.

Why do people have the idea that you have to inform professors if you are going to miss a lecture?  

I have different attendance policies for different types of courses I teach.  For some courses, there is a certain amount of material that needs to be mastered by the end of the semester.  I do not care if you come to class or not--just pass the exam at the end of the semester.  This would be the case for a more problem-based finance course, for example.  If you can work the problems by the end of the semester without coming to class, fine.  If you miss class for any number of reasons and you fail the final exam because you can't work the problems, that is your responsibility.  I do not need to know if you were not in class because you were ill, hung over, studying for another exam, at your brother's wedding, or any other reason.

I teach other classes, however, where attendance and participation are an integral part of the learning experience.  If I am teaching a portfolio management class where different students are researching investment possibilities, presenting those to the group, and the group is choosing the portfolio (as would be done in an investment management position), then attendance is important.  If a student who is supposed to make a presentation doesn't show up, their input is not provided.  If a student does not show up when someone else is presenting, they cannot properly assess how that investment possibility might fit into the whole portfolio--which is a major concept to understand.  In this type of class I evaluate class participation as a major portion of the grade.  I make no distinction between excused and unexcused absences.  I have built into the grading some leeway so that a student can still earn an "A" when life happens--but a student who misses because of a vacation, and to study for another test, and then gets the flu... their grade is going to suffer.

I clearly state my attendance policy at the beginning of the semester and in my syllabus.  For some classes it is straightforward that "attendance" does not count--you decide if it is important to you or not.  For other classes, I clearly outline how participation and attendance will count in evaluation and grading.  In those cases, if the student chooses to miss a class, they know what the consequence will be.  I am not in a position to know whether attending brother's birthday party is worth taking the chance of ending the semester with a B instead of a B+ or if studying for a chemistry exam is more critical than receiving a participation grade in finance this week.  I am not going to spend my time judging for students what is in their best interest; I do not have all of the information about their lives and they are adults to make their own choices.  But for some reason they still contact me to tell me why they are missing and asking me to "excuse" it.  

 

[Sneezyone]

55 minutes ago, QueenCat said:

Interesting. My college definitely had attendance policies and expectations for adherence in the 1980s.

In the mid 90s, mine didn’t, at least not for lectures. Maybe there were a certain number you couldn’t miss for discussion sections b/c they were so small and participation was part of the grade but, otherwise? Nope. I got through almost every class freshman and sophomore year doing nothing but midterm, paper, and final. It was glorious.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Kassia]

Just now, Sneezyone said:

In the mid 90s, mine didn’t, at least not for lectures. Maybe there were a certain number you couldn’t miss for discussion sections b/c they were so small and participation was part of the grade but, otherwise? Nope. I got through almost every class freshman and sophomore year doing nothing but midterm, paper, and final. It was glorious.

Mine didn't either (mid 80s). What bugs me is that attendance is mandatory in dd's classes but so much of it is wasted time.  For example, one professor this semester has a very heavy accent and no one can understand him. So the class time is completely wasted and students have to learn the material on their own time anyway.  A professor in another class meant well but his lectures were so incredibly confusing.  Nice guy, terrible professor.  Students ended up totally confused after class and had to figure out the material on their own.  In these cases, they are so much better off not going to class!  

My friend's son had a class with mandatory attendance and he asked the professor at the beginning of the semester if he could be excused for one day to attend his sister's wedding in Canada (we live in Ohio). The professor wouldn't excuse him from class. He went anyway and I don't remember the consequences.  

 

[Harriet Vane]

41 minutes ago, annandatje said:

I expect college age children to be involved with family to the extent that they have the time and interest in doing so. Whether or not I am paying for any of the college is irrelevant.  If they cannot or prefer not to get together on a holiday, there are 364 other days in the year to celebrate together.

This.

I will also say re vacation or other missed college time--some things can be missed by some students and some students should never miss. This varies by class and by major and by that individual's strengths.

There is a college student in my life who thinks they can miss classes and make it up from the notes later. This person absolutely cannot. This person is barely scraping through an extremely demanding major in an extremely competitive program. This person is really, actually not learning the material, and it's really hard for those of us who love this person to watch them make choices that so thoroughly undermine their hopes and dreams and goals and frankly, quality of life. The stress this person lives under trying to navigate school with both a disability and with a cavalier attitude towards class attendance (and sleep!) is heartbreaking. They do this because they just want to be "normal."

It's all the harder because a different college student in my life has been on the Dean's List every semester. This person also has some other impressive academic achievements. This person works hard at school. This person is also quite gifted in their chosen major. This person really can miss classes and make up what they missed from the notes later. This person has chosen to miss a few classes to join their family for at least part of a vacation together each year.

These two people know each other. The one who struggles absolutely does not understand - at all - that they cannot live the way the second person does.

When it comes down to it, they're both adults. Personally I don't think it's the professor's job to make sure they attend or do assignments or anything. I don't think a professor should be required to go to any huge lengths to accommodate students who miss for vacations, but I also think it's fine to simply recognize that people have families and lives outside of the classroom as well. If it's easy to accommodate, might as well. I think it's reasonable for a student to turn in work early, before a planned absence. I also think students can be responsible to get lecture notes from another student in the class. Missing an exam, though, is a much bigger deal and would require more work on the professor's part, so I think missing an exam should be reserved for illness or surgery or major family events like weddings or funerals.

[Harriet Vane]

Just now, Kassia said:

Mine didn't either (mid 80s). What bugs me is that attendance is mandatory in dd's classes but so much of it is wasted time.  For example, one professor this semester has a very heavy accent and no one can understand him. So the class time is completely wasted and students have to learn the material on their own time anyway.  A professor in another class meant well but his lectures were so incredibly confusing.  Nice guy, terrible professor.  Students ended up totally confused after class and had to figure out the material on their own.  In these cases, they are so much better off not going to class!  

My friend's son had a class with mandatory attendance and he asked the professor at the beginning of the semester if he could be excused for one day to attend his sister's wedding in Canada (we live in Ohio). The professor wouldn't excuse him from class. He went anyway and I don't remember the consequences.  

 

Yes, this.

Your friend's son should have been excused. He asked well in advance. It was the wedding of an actual sibling.

In real life, at a real job, this is the sort of thing that wouldn't raise an eyebrow at all. It shouldn't become a power struggle in a college setting either.

[Innisfree]

I wonder if college students today generally just have more contact, of various sorts, with their families, than we did in the eighties. Long distance phone calls were expensive. I think my folks tended to call once a week or so, maybe less, certainly not more. We wrote letters, but not all that often. It’s so easy today to have text conversations, or even phone conversations, as often as the student or parents want. Maybe that leads to being a bit more enmeshed in family life than happened in earlier generations. That wouldn’t apply to kids who attended college locally in the past, obviously.

As far as university policies, I had some professors who took role daily, even (especially?) in big lecture classes. Others didn’t, but would be aware of who missed class.  The only time I missed because of a trip was to attend a grandparent’s funeral. I don’t remember others missing classes for vacations, just illness.

Dd’s college today has firm attendance policies, usually permitting up to two or three absences per semester. Not sure how that works in practice, though, since she says a sizable minority of students skip regularly. She doesn’t know if they end up passing the classes or not.

[saraha]

Knowing myself and both my current college kids, missing an entire week of classes would literally cause so much anxiety we wouldn’t be able to enjoy whatever we are missing for! I absolutely would inform a sibling that planned a wedding that college student shouldn’t be expected to miss more than one day of classes and none of it is exams week or the week before

[JennyD]

11 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Why do people have the idea that you have to inform professors if you are going to miss a lecture?  

I make a big production on the first day of class that students do not need to tell me if they are going to miss class, that they are adults (this is grad school) and that I do not take attendance, and I still regularly get emails,: "Hi Prof X, I know that you said that we aren't supposed to email you about missing class, but just so you know I am going to be absent on Tuesday because of XYZ."

I will note that we are required to have an attendance policy in our syllabi.  It's either a university requirement or mandated by the accreditor; I don't remember what the explanation is.

I once had a class in which two of the students took several days off in the middle of the semester to get married to each other.  I thought it was weird timing, for sure, but maybe they had reasons.  

Students have lots of opinions about how valuable class attendance is,  but FWIW all final exams in my field are administered completely blind -- each paper has an ID number and I only find out which number goes with which student after I'm done grading -- and in my classes regular  attendance correlates very strongly with better grades.  

 

 

[Clemsondana]

I was never sure what students meant when they wanted me to excuse an absence.  The class was weekly and met 18 times.  There were 4 tests, which could be made up any time during the week after the test was given at the testing center (and if I knew a full week ahead of time I could drop it off when I was there to teach - I only taught 1 class so only came to campus once/week).  There were 5 quizzes, and I dropped the lowest (no make-ups).  I did, one time, come up with a different policy for a guy who was a good student who had 2 work trips that couldn't be moved.  I could have worked with other extenuating circumstances if needed.  But, as i said above, students with a big issue rarely asked for anything and I often only found out about their situation from chatting.  Other than than, there was some version of interactive lecture.  Excused, unexcused, there was no difference on my end.  Some students seemed to feel that excusing them meant that they didn't need to learn the material or get the lab data or whatever was needed to make up the work.  I get that with students in my co-op class sometimes - one answered test questions about a lab with 'I wasn't there that day' even though the simple lab procedure and the pooled class data was all posted so that they could all know about it (the online students had no problems).  I always did better with students who were proactive - I have situation X, can we do solution Y?  Then I know what they want and can decide if it's reasonable.  Asking to swap presentation days with another person, especially if they other person has agreed, or asking if they can turn in work early or have 3 extra days - those are easy to work with.  

[rebcoola]

1 hour ago, QueenCat said:

Interesting. My college definitely had attendance policies and expectations for adherence in the 1980s.

I was the early 2000's

[BusyMom5]

I would try to schedule a wedding for a time all kids could attend.   I would expect them at a siblings wedding, but not necessarily at extended family.  

I would expect them to come to a funeral of grandparents,  aunt/uncles, or close cousins,  even if it means missing a class or two.  You do not get a second chance for that.  I also cannot expect them to really be paying attention in a class if close family passes away.  That said, their great grandparents are still living, and I would only expect them at those funerals if they could make it.  This is actually a conversation we have had, and we decided they would stay at school (its a 6-7 hour drive one way).  I feel like we are all more prepared for those losses, where the others would be a surprise.  

We don't usually take vacations during the school year, so I have never considered taking them out for a vacation.  My two in college will not have the same spring break this year, so no trip there either.   Oldest away at college is hoping for a trip with girlfriends on Spring break.   I'm not sure how family vacation will work this summer, but its looking like it will be our first vacation without one of our kids, unless we go close to where she will be interning.  We haven't made any plans yet- its hard to think about a family vacation without one of our kids.  I do think it might be nice to go somewhere close enough for her to come for the weekend with her boyfriend- we could get to know him better.  

[Spryte]

3 hours ago, marbel said:

I see this differently. If it's a huge family moment, then certainly the schedules of all family members should be considered. I can't imagine when dates were discussed the college student wouldn't be asked "will this work for you?" "Lemme check, uh, that's in the middle of midterms." Can the response to that be anything but "let's look at other dates then. When does the semester end/when is spring break?" I mean, I guess it can but what a lack of consideration for the entire family. 

The thread has moved on, but this post really struck me.

My older sibling’s wedding was right at mid-terms, and I didn’t make it. My university was 2,000 miles away, and I couldn’t figure out a way to fly in and fly out in a way that worked with mid-terms. I wished I could have been there, and kind of wondered if anyone ever might have done something like you describe, in other families, or if I was just being overly sensitive. I definitely didn’t ask them to change anything, just told them I was so sorry not to be there, and why. (It’s entirely possible that my mother, who lacks any filter, asked that question on my behalf. I don’t know. But whatever she did/didn’t do — the wedding was mid-term week.)

This was back in the 90s, and while I would have been able to miss lectures and reschedule labs, missing mid-terms wasn’t an option. My classes were straight up based on midterms, finals, and a paper. 

Our family culture is such that missing class for illness or true emergencies happens, but never something like a vacation. 

My kid is not away at college, but living at home, and we schedule around his classes. If we want him to attend a family event we make sure it fits his schedule and we give him the option to say no. And we would never schedule a family vacation during classes. Just no.

[Miss Tick]

In brick and mortar high schools there seems to be a large emphasis on limited absences, with different tracking for "excused" and "unexcused" absences. I also am surprised, in my very limited sphere, at the number of families that take vacations during the school year, maybe adding on to a scheduled break. Perhaps both of those family/school culture aspects are assumed to still be valid at college.

As far as calendars are concerned, every organized school I know has calendars published at least 1½ years forward. If you Google they will pop up.

[teachermom2834]

I just see a lot of, in general, expecting to have your cake and eat it too on everything and this is just one more thing. Like a student getting married and taking a honeymoon mid-semester because it is cheaper than the summer and expecting that everyone understands that is a good reason to miss midterms. Like that is a totally valid choice if your dream wedding and honeymoon have to happen on that budget but then I guess you take a semester off to make that happen. Or you spend more and get married in the summer. Choices.
 

I don’t know. I guess I feel like I get in a lot of conversations with people explaining to me why people have to accommodate their choices because that is what works best for them. Of course things come up that have to be worked with but planning things to be in conflict and then expecting no fallout is something I don’t generally do. Now I might anticipate the fallout and choose to accept it but I don’t expect other people to just accommodate my choices. But now I’m just ranting. 

[wintermom]

I have 3 dc living at home and attending university (Canada). I just asked my ds, and for his university they are only allowed 3 medical/emergency absences from a course - more than that and they won't receive credit for completing the course. 

For my dd's university, there is often a certain % of the final mark given for class participation - so students have to attend to get participation marks. I don't know if there is any other attendance police.

For my recent graduate courses I took, there was also class participation marks, and the amount of content that was covered prior to and in class was huge. I never missed any classes, and the expectation was to show up to class well prepared so you could discuss the topics. 

Re: family expectations and knowledge of class schedules for our university kids, we know their schedules so that we can help them out with transportation - particularly late evening classes. Otherwise, we don't expect them to miss any classes for family events. We plan trips around their courses, though we don't travel much so this doesn't happen much anyway. 

[footballmom]

I definitely see the trend of enmeshed parents more and more. Our oldest is a college freshman and we have highly encouraged him to go to every class and we would love for him to make the most of educational and social opportunities.  However, we have no idea what classes he is taking this semester or his specific classes. We’ve verbally confirmed with him he has worked with his academic advisor in planning this semester to progress him towards graduation requirements.  We would not (spoken or unspoken) have an expectation he would prioritize something for family over class.  In fact, his little brother’s birthday falls over college spring break and I support oldest making travel plans for the week if there’s something he would like to do. Sure, it would be great if they had some time together that day, but in a healthy attached relationship, love is not conditional on checking specific boxes imho.

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Why do people have the idea that you have to inform professors if you are going to miss a lecture?  

5 hours ago, Loowit said:

She can make her own choices as to missing classes or not, but some of her professors have pretty strict attendance policies, and some do not allow for excused absences even for illnesses.  If you miss X number of classes your grade will go down no matter why you missed.

Because other comments suggests attendance is for some reason tracked now or at certain colleges. 

Then I thought based on those comments that your students were informing you because of the attendance policy. Otherwise seriously why are they informing you. Then I'm with you just get the notes from your classmate and study the material on your own, do your assignments, ace your tests and no one cares. 

I went to college in the 2000's in half my classes there was no way a professor would know you didn't show up to class. Seriously the professor who is trying to take attendance for a 100+ student class is wasting everyone's time. Even with a more manageable class size I've never had attendance taken. Necessary participation classes (like labs, etc.) they know by the work you turn in or not turn in. (Either you didn't do the work or the content of the work you turned in you clearly didn't participate in the discussion.) There wasn't that much fluff participation when I went to college or for my classes.

[BlsdMama]

6 hours ago, Bootsie said:

What I have been surprised about, however, is I have seen an increasing number of parents who expect their kids to miss class for things that are important to the parents.  It still surprises me when Billy says he is going to miss class for a week during the semester to be in his brother's destination wedding.   It also surprises me when Sally needs to travel home because grandma is ill and she needs to be their to support her mother.

 

I'm shocked that you're shocked. Granted, DH and I attended state universities but skipping class for NO reason (or a hangover) was far from unusual.  To have a good reason and miss? 

I'd be floored if sibs didn't show for a wedding or grandma's hospital stay (given that it is mom's mom & kiddo is college age, an illness would be serious.)

Now, I'll say that my kids all went to school in state.  But we've had five graduate now and I think we're far from controlling? We have kids for holidays when it works for them or their spouses, don't insist they coordinate for a single date, etc.  But miss a wedding? I assume it's on a weekend.  Miss Th/Fri class to leave Weds. evening, be back Sunday night or Monday at the latest. Miss 1-2 classes for a wedding? Absolutely.

The frivolous reasons I'd bet are likely more justification for skipping rather than parental expectation?

[BlsdMama]

17 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Because other comments suggests attendance is for some reason tracked now or at certain colleges. 

Then I thought based on those comments that your students were informing you because of the attendance policy. Otherwise seriously why are they informing you. Then I'm with you just get the notes from your classmate and study the material on your own, do your assignments, ace your tests and no one cares. 

I went to college in the 2000's in half my classes there was no way a professor would know you didn't show up to class. Seriously the professor who is trying to take attendance for a 100+ student class is wasting everyone's time. Even with a more manageable class size I've never had attendance taken. Necessary participation classes (like labs, etc.) they know by the work you turn in or not turn in. (Either you didn't do the work or the content of the work you turned in you clearly didn't participate in the discussion.) There wasn't that much fluff participation when I went to college or for my classes.

I was with you on all of this, but I will say DD (now 27, graduated 5 years ago) did have a professor who took attendance for a lecture! I was floored.  They used a little device clicker like Turning Point. There are several apps now.

[TechWife]

I’m coming at this biased. My dh is a frequent traveler. He often leaves home early in the morning, flies to another state and returns home before bedtime. It’s all in the flight schedules, there are a lot of things that can be done, including destination weddings and joining the family for a day or two of vacation on a weekend. 

Realistically, college breaks are the only times family should count in seeing each other. Even then, work schedules may get in the way.

I’ve never not known a prof that didn’t accommodate a funeral for a close family member, including grandparents. Different dynamics come into play when exams are scheduled or papers are due and thats when a working relationship with a professor is important.

So many things happen “on demand” now, or close to it. Even funerals can take many travel needs into account. People miss destination weddings all the time. They are pricey and time consuming. A random week off in the middle of a term to go to Vegas with the fam? Maybe college isn’t the right place at this point in time. You don’t get extra vacation days just for fun.

People planning special events understand not everyone can make it. Typically they do their best to accommodate the people most important to them, but realistically, even then there may be a couple of misses along the way.

**This post is brought to you by the boardie who married on her aunt & uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary due to vacation & work travel schedules of the groom; who has a son that missed two days of uni classes to attend one grandparent’s funeral; and same son missed another grandparent funeral because it fell during exams and the funeral day/time had to accommodate the schedule of the national cemetery.** 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by TechWife

[bolt.]

I teach at a Bible College where classes are small and participation is expected. Discussion is the major form of learning, and 'personal transformation' is one of the open and normal educational standards that we hope to achieve. I not only track attendance, I have peers evaluate the quality of one another's verbal contributions to the class. If students miss more than 30% of class times, they may fail (it's in the syllabus). None the less, students miss class throughout the semester for a wide variety of reasons.

Sometimes absences impact their grades, and it definitely impacts the depth of their understanding... but that's okay. It's not harming anyone but themselves, and only they know their lives well enough to set their priorities up in the way that is best for their own goals and achievements.

Many students will attend by zoom if they can't be in the classroom. Or they use the zoom recording to catch up on what they missed. As a last resort, there is always the posted PowerPoints (and sometimes a lesson plan) from the class, and notes can be borrowed from a classmate.

I do make a difference between "Excused" and "Absent" -- an absent student receives a zero participation grade for that class, and a zero on any in-class activities or assignments. An excused student is similarly excused from graded in-class activities and receives a 'below average' but not zero participation grade.

[Clarita]

3 minutes ago, TechWife said:

I’ve never not known a prof that didn’t accommodate a funeral for a close family member, including grandparents. Different dynamics come into play when exams are scheduled or papers are due and thats when a working relationship with a professor is important.

For big deal emergency stuff (death in the family or medical issues), even the college will work with you on that. It depends on when it happens what sort of time-frame you need to take off. I've found colleges (even giant state school) and professors to be pretty accommodating and reasonable, regardless of your relationship with them. In grad school I talked to my advisor about my father's unexpected death and we talked about how I wanted to handle that and if I needed to talk to school administration for accommodations (we did decide to just skip a semester). I had a friend have a medical emergency in undergrad and missed 2 years of school, in that case I believe the school handled the situation and the classes he enrolled in for that quarter he had to take over again.   

[elegantlion]

When I TA'd I would get some strange absentee notices. We did take attendance, which meant passing around a sign-in sheet. Part of the purpose was if students complained about their grade at the end of the semester, we could at least determine if absenteeism was at play. This couse required you to have good notes from lecture to do well, the lectures were not just restatements of the text. 

Most of this is pre-Covid info. Apart from weird reasons to be absent, I saw a lot of students who had to just be exhausted. Many of my student worked at least part-time, some two part-time jobs or full-time on top of family obligations such as babysitting younger siblings or running grandparents to doctor's appointments scheduled during class time. We had a lot of first generation college students who still lived at home. I can't remember more specifics, but I do remember being frustrated as it seemed some parents did not see college as something that requires full-time focus. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Ds says a growing number of his fellow students are becoming houseless and are couch surfing as rents have skyrocketed here. Hunger is an issue also. It’s not just the non-trad students who are struggling…

[J-rap]

I feel like everything has been taken up a notch since I was that age.  My college was just an hour away from home, but it could have been 6 hours.  People just didn't travel back and forth much then, and few of my classmates had cars.  So we went home for breaks (on a bus), and that was it.  My parents would come visit for an afternoon if there was a special event, not more than once or twice in a semester.  It never even occurred to any of us that I should go home on a weekend to celebrate a family birthday, even though we're a very close-knit family.

As other have said, if my sibling were getting married (back then), she would have timed it around when I was available -- like summer, or during a break.  Special wedding venues weren't yet a thing for most people.  All of my siblings and I had a very simple church wedding with a reception also at the church.  So, I guess it was easier to fit in a wedding according to the family's schedule.

For my own kids, things were a little different because our situation was different.  For example, one time our family coincidentally ended up living temporarily in the city where our dd ended up going to college a few months later.  She didn't like living in the dorm so ended up living with us and we spent more time together than we otherwise would have.  

I think the changes OP is talking about began before the pandemic though.

 

[SKL]

I would try to schedule all optional family things for when my kids are on vacation, just like I have always done.

I would try to schedule things with limited time flexibility (such as funerals and weddings) on weekends.  I would not expect kids to travel extremely far for such things during the school term ... but if it's a close family member's wedding or funeral, then yes, they should try to come.  The hospital vigil stuff would be decided case-by-case.  I'm not going to say there's never a reason for a student to see her dying family member or to help someone in an acute crisis.

I do think sometimes people use family events as an excuse to do fully optional things, but I could be wrong ....

I assume that today's courses vary in terms of how much can be done remotely.  I guess if the student can keep up remotely, it's not that bad for them to skip.  But this is me talking - I used to skip classes just out of laziness.  I'm probably not the best judge.

[Murphy101]

ah. Never mind.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Murphy101

[DawnM]

Dang, I have had 3 kids in college and I don't expect them to skip classes.   We are even scheduling my dad's memorial during their Spring Break so that they don't need to miss (I understand for many this isn't an option, but we wanted to make it work.)

We worked around their schedules.   

[marbel]

So I'm kinda still stuck on the wedding thing. I thought about it more after people responded to my earlier post, with reasons it might not be feasible to schedule the wedding around college students' classes. And I get it, venues and dates and such can be important for the marrying couple. 

I think my disconnect is - what's of primary importance? If it's important that all family members be there, which would include college students, then, scheduling for family availability would be the priority. Perfect venue, special date, etc, would be secondary, right? 

Honestly I haven't been in this position so I can't say for sure, but I think if one of my kids scheduled their wedding at a time they could not reasonably expect their sibling to be able to attend, I'd be disappointed in them. Obviously things can happen that people can't control, so there is always the chance that something will prevent attendance, but school schedules are generally pretty set. Even for workers, there can be times they can't get off work. I had a job once that did not allow for any time off the last week of June, including weekends, full stop, no exceptions. If a sibling had gotten married then, I wouldn't be at the wedding. If my sibling didn't even ask before scheduling the wedding, I'd be hurt. (I wouldn't end the relationship over it, and if they couldn't schedule it at any other time, I'd understand. But then I would also expect them to understand that I couldn't be there.) 

I understand people have different opinions on this, and it is just an opinion. I'm just publicly working out my own thoughts, I guess, because I'm surprised that people think college students should take off from classes for a wedding, when it seemed obvious to me that a wedding wouldn't be scheduled at a time a college student would have to miss class. 

ETA: Thought I'd add - I have just two kids, which would make scheduling much easier than for many families.

Edited January 25, 2023 by marbel

[Tenaj]

Once my kids hit the stage where they are adults, my expectations of attendance at family events are zero.  We are glad to see them, happy when they can attend but I am not going to be upset if they have commitments that cause then to miss things and I'm not necessarily going to plan my life around their availability.  So far, all have been able to attend siblings weddings but as we get farther spread out I'm not going to be surprised if that doesn't happen.

  My mom died last winter and my 20yods was in the middle of an on-the-job training program that he had been waiting to be scheduled for a year.  He could not attend the funeral and that was fine - if Mom had been able to be asked she would have told him not to come.  

I'm trying to think of a circumstance where I would be upset if one of my collge-aged kids couldn't make it to a family event and I'm hard-pressed to imagine more than a momentary disappointment.  They are adults with adult responsibilities - I'd probably be more upset with them missing classes if they chose to come rather than be upset at them for missing the event that will go on whether they are there or not.

Editing to add:. I think that our family attitude toward these situations has been influenced by the fact that my husband's parents were in the mission field.  His sister is currently overseas serving and my eldest and his family have been and will soon be overseas for extended periods of time.  We almost always have missing people at important events.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Tenaj

[EmilyGF]

I've told DS17 that I expect him to come home for Christmas.

(DH spent the Christmas of his freshman year in college traveling Europe with his brother while his parents stayed home. I told DS17 that he's in deep trouble if he does that. He can go to Europe during spring break if he wants, but family has dibs on his Christmas time while paying college bills. This was a joking conversation; I think he already knew this expectation and looks forward to time with family.)

Emily

[Kassia]

15 minutes ago, marbel said:

 

ETA: Thought I'd add - I have just two kids, which would make scheduling much easier than for many families.

I think that might be where the difference is.  My family has four kids who all live apart from each other and two have significant others who are practically wives since they've been together so long.  The SOs also have siblings - one has siblings/family in another country.  They all have careers (other than my youngest, who is still in college), plus DH works and the SOs parents work as well.  It's just too difficult to pick a time/place when everyone is available and I hope a special event like a wedding is something that everyone would try hard to attend - even if it means making some sacrifices.   I'm pretty sure my kids would choose their siblings to be in the wedding party, so there's that too.  

[teachermom2834]

As far as weddings go- if this comes up and it may I think compromises get made. I can see in our family doing something like flying someone in for a quick turnaround to be present at a wedding but maybe they would miss some festivities or the plane ticket would be more expensive or whatnot. You make things happen to the best of your ability. But I do see a lot of people unwilling to make any sacrifices so they would be taking an extended time so as not to miss a thing or to get a cheaper flight or whatever. Choices. I would expect the student to have conducted their studies in such a way to absorb any penalty for something missed in their brief absence and hope it could be worked out and usually it can be. 
 

Something like finals can’t be missed. If a sibling really puts another sibling in a position of of choosing to take a semester off of college or miss a wedding that surely would be disappointing and I would be annoyed with the wedding planners. But I do not expect my young adults to put their lives on hold and I would tell my student to keep their studies going. 

 

[KungFuPanda]

I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. As a teacher it’s a VERY frustrating thing, but I rather admire some of these younger people for insisting upon some work-life balance. In ten years the wedding will be more memorable than whatever happened in class. A kid choosing a family event over class once or twice in their college career doesn’t strike me as a character flaw. (I’m assuming they can catch up and pass the class.)

It’s only really a problem if the same kid is doing this multiple times a year. I understand that it might be annoying to the instructor getting loads of emails explaining absences that they don’t feel are warranted, but it’s really on the student to deal with any consequences. It’s not like they’re 4th graders and you have to make a special homework packet. Even though I never asked my kid to do it, I can get behind choosing family over work on occasion. 

[Kassia]

1 minute ago, KungFuPanda said:

I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. As a teacher it’s a VERY frustrating thing, but I rather admire some of these younger people for insisting upon some work-life balance. In ten years the wedding will be more memorable than whatever happened in class. A kid choosing a family event over class once or twice in their college career doesn’t strike me as a character flaw. (I’m assuming they can catch up and pass the class.)

It’s only really a problem if the same kid is doing this multiple times a year. I understand that it might be annoying to the instructor getting loads of emails explaining absences that they don’t feel are warranted, but it’s really on the student to deal with any consequences. It’s not like they’re 4th graders and you have to make a special homework packet. Even though I never asked my kid to do it, I can get behind choosing family over work on occasion. 

This is my thinking.  I think about them years later and thinking, "Wow, I'm really glad I went to that lecture instead of my brother and SIL's wedding" or would they be glad they went to the wedding and missed a class? What would really matter 5 or 10 years later?  

That being said, my kids never had to miss school other than for job interviews where they had to travel.  They missed funerals but I can't think of any other big things that they missed.  

Family vacations were tough - we had to skip them many years because there was just no time with school and internships.  Definitely a sacrifice.  But I would never expect my kids to take time off from school for a vacation. 

 

[maize]

Is attendance taken at every class? I don't remember attendance being a thing in most of my college classes, so unless there was a test or something you didn't talk to the professor about missing class--you just didn't show up.

[Clemsondana]

6 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. As a teacher it’s a VERY frustrating thing, but I rather admire some of these younger people for insisting upon some work-life balance. In ten years the wedding will be more memorable than whatever happened in class. A kid choosing a family event over class once or twice in their college career doesn’t strike me as a character flaw. (I’m assuming they can catch up and pass the class.)

It’s only really a problem if the same kid is doing this multiple times a year. I understand that it might be annoying to the instructor getting loads of emails explaining absences that they don’t feel are warranted, but it’s really on the student to deal with any consequences. It’s not like they’re 4th graders and you have to make a special homework packet. Even though I never asked my kid to do it, I can get behind choosing family over work on occasion. 

If a student just misses and needs an extra day to turn in work, this is true.  But, so often that isn't the expectation.  I had it easy, being at a CC with a testing center. Many instructors don't have this, and may be asked to proctor make-up tests for multiple students who don't have compatible schedules for taking the make-up at the same time, so this would take several hours.  Or instructors may need to write new versions of the test.  Some students expect 1:1 instruction on what they missed because the absence was excused.  If an instructor says 'I drop 2 of the 14 quizzes' some students will request that excused absences not be part of those 2 in case they are sick or have another 2 missed days later in the semester, even though the dropping of 2 quizzes is meant to deal with exactly this situation. 

Many instructors are willing to do a lot to work with students having a crisis and build in flexibility to accommodate choices and 'life happens' moments, but can end up investing a lot of time even if they are just saying 'No, this counts as one of your drops' to the many students asking for an exemption.  Particularly for people teaching large classes, this can be a huge deal.  A friend who teaches 3 200-person sections of an intro class said that she finally had to tell students 'There are 600 of you.  If you send 1 email each week and I respond in 1 minute, that's 10 hrs just responding to email'.  She's more than willing to deal with real issues, but can't manage individual work-arounds for everything that students want.  Sometimes I think that, as with many situations, students don't understand the cumulative nature of this - any given thing isn't a big deal, but multiple requests from a few students, or even 1 request, multiplied by 30, 50, or 600 students, can really add up.  

I think it's also hard for people who don't see it to understand the scale of what students do.  I once taught a lab (meeting once/week), which started with 24 students but only had 3 pass.  Since it was a lab, there wasn't a lot that I could do to change it - many parts were standardized by the department.  At the end of the year, i had 1A, 1B, and 1C.  The A student had missed class once, the B student had missed class twice, and the C student had missed class 3 times.  Everybody else had more than 3 absences.  One student even wrote on their course eval ''She did everything that she could to help us succeed.  I should have come to class more often.'  Fortunately, the school was more concerned with keeping the content of the class consistent with what would be needed to transfer to State U than they were with my pass/fail rate.  I have no idea why there were so many absences, but I struggle to believe that they were all necessary.  I never had a class like that again, but it was memorable.  

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, EmilyGF said:

I've told DS17 that I expect him to come home for Christmas.

(DH spent the Christmas of his freshman year in college traveling Europe with his brother while his parents stayed home. I told DS17 that he's in deep trouble if he does that. He can go to Europe during spring break if he wants, but family has dibs on his Christmas time while paying college bills. This was a joking conversation; I think he already knew this expectation and looks forward to time with family.)

Christmas and holidays become tricky as soon as they are in a serious relationship.
I don't want to be the mom that keeps a tally on where the young adults go for which holiday and who keeps tracks of "turns". Holidays are just an arbitrary human convention after all.
Currently my DD is home for her "Christmas" visit since she spent the holidays at her bf's family. 
If they had a chance to travel over their Christmas break, I'd be happy for them.

Edited January 25, 2023 by regentrude

[Tenaj]

1 hour ago, EmilyGF said:

I've told DS17 that I expect him to come home for Christmas.

(DH spent the Christmas of his freshman year in college traveling Europe with his brother while his parents stayed home. I told DS17 that he's in deep trouble if he does that. He can go to Europe during spring break if he wants, but family has dibs on his Christmas time while paying college bills. This was a joking conversation; I think he already knew this expectation and looks forward to time with family.)

Emily

 Honestly, if my adult child had a chance to go to Europe but it meant missing Christmas we would zoom him in several times to see what he was up to and spend time together when he got home.

My at the time 14yodd was in Asia during Christmas one year and this was before video calls or zoom.  It was different but fine.  She opened her gifts a month later and had egg nog.

How long are you going to put this expectation on your son.  If he married is his spouse's family just out of luck on holidays?  

 

[regentrude]

29 minutes ago, Kassia said:

 I think about them years later and thinking, "Wow, I'm really glad I went to that lecture instead of my brother and SIL's wedding" or would they be glad they went to the wedding and missed a class? What would really matter 5 or 10 years later?  

Does it really matter to people ten years later that they were a guest at some wedding other than their own?