13 year old hamster/school

[Chickencuddle]

My 13 year old has been hard work recently. I think hormones abd teenage years etc.
She will make a mountain out of a molehill all the time. Screaming crying and holding grudges which sometimes dont even make sense. These will last dor hours. The past few days have been really hard with her. Im spending so much time talking to her etc. Her attitude is awful too.
Yesterday her hamster died and she was devastated. We all spent hours holding the hamster. Talking about memories and burying hamster. Going to bed she was upset abd she said she didnt want to go to school (she hates school and any excuse not to go) but I felt sorry for her. But her attendance is 88% so not the best and I personally think staying off school for a hamster at 13 is maybe a bit indulgent.
She is saying she doesnt want to go this morning and taking so long getting ready. I dont think she will be ready in time. I feel bad for her so dont want to implement a consequence if she refuses to go. But what do I do?

Make her go. She needs to know school isnt optional.

I would let her have the day off honestly.

Her pet died and she's upset.

I have two teenage girls so i understand the drama and constant talking and calming down etc. It's really really hard but yoi have to accept that sometimes you know what's best for them and you have to impose that even if they act like they hate you. As long as you're fair and kind with it they will get over it. It sounds like rhis is more about school than anything else so i would focus on trying ro solve the school.problems.

She has never liked school even primary school she just hates it. She gets good grades and has good behaviour at school great reports etc. Nothing really to fix. Ive tried my best to show her the positives of school but she just hates it.
I do feel bad fr her but I think for a hamster dying she doesnt need a day off. Shes come into me crying a few times. I feel like if I give in there will be more things in future and she won't learn she has to put on her big girl pants and it will be a distraction etc.
But then part of me feels really bad for her and like im being a mean mum.

I always think this is an interesting response - what does "make her go" look like? I had a school refusing daughter and people told me I should just "make her go" - but no one ever told me how 😏 I couldn't exactly pick her up and carry her to school!

OP it's a tricky one. At my daughter's school they are super strict on what counts as an authorised reason for absence and being sad wouldn't count (even though I think it's ok for your daughter to feel that level of sadness at the loss of a pet) so we'd be looking at an unauthorised absence.

In your shoes I would explain to my daughter that her sadness is valid but that school would still expect her to go in, and the consequences of low attendance (here it would be an attendance letter, potential referral to EWO) and maybe suggest something nice after school to look forward to.

But perhaps you just need "tough love" and just "make her go". I certainly got told that enough times about my own daughter.

I actually think a day off when your pet has died is perfectly acceptable. I’m a grown adult and closed my business for a day when our cat died as I couldn’t stop crying.

I feel like a cat is a bit different to a hamster

I would let her stay off today.
School isn’t for everyone. The children who hate school flourish in their lives too when they find their passion.
It’s not the be all and end all.

She needs to go to school. You can be sympathetic to her being upset and clear that she needs to go to school at the same time. Stop worrying about being mean and start thinking more about being the leader that she needs. She will love you either way.

She went into school in the end. And was ok going in. Fingers crossed today goes ok.

Why?

A hamster lives two years a cat up to 20.

Okay, and? My cat died when she was six, another when he was two - I was equally devastated both times and wouldn’t have been able to work the following day.

I see she’s gone to school but a bit of empathy wouldn’t have gone amiss. She’s a kid and has just lost her pet - a day at home to feel sad and cry really wouldn’t have been the end of the world.

I hope she has a good day - she'll probably be distracted once she's there. Much sympathy on the teen emotional rollercoaster!

Its not her choice. Make her go to school. DS will often have an excuse about why he can't go. I explain that we regularly have to do stuff when we are not fleeing 100%, then make him go.

Pretty outrageous to suggest OP isnt empathtic with her daughter based on her going to school.

As I said previously we spent hours yesterday having hamster funeral cuddling her talking to her sharing memories looking at photos etc. Even though I said she needed to go to school today I still said its ok to be sad and im sorry shes feeling that way cuddled her etc but said the death of a hamster wouldnt really be a reason not to go in. Honestly in the end she was happy to go in and gave me a hug and said she loved me and I told her to text me if she needs to at any point. I think she does need to learn resilience too. But everyone's different. There's a big mix of comments. I think the big thing for me is she tried to get out of school all the time. So I have to be careful about it as I dont want to end up with her thinking she can stay off for everything.

The point of having a hamster is to learn about death and grief, they have a very short lifespan. Surely right from the moment you agreed she could have a hamster you talked to her about the fact that it would only be in her life for 2-3 years maximum and would then die and that's ok because the point is to have a happy life beforehand. Obviously yes she's sad, but being totally overwhelmed by this grief says more about poor parenting than anything else - if she didn't have the emotional resilience to cope with how fleeting the life of a hamster is, then you should never have agreed to her having such a pet in the first place.

Firstly why would uou place a cat above a hamster?? Its the death of a pet! Just because uou dont rate the hamster as significant enough , doesn't mean your daughter feels the same.
I know a woman whose DM died and her son was upset, but nit distraught. His hamster dued a couple of months later and he was inconsolable!

Secondly, as pp have suggested HOW do you make a teen go to school. As a foster carer we have had kids who have refused at times and sometimes it has really been a much needed mental health day, others not so.
I always wonder what parents are really able to do about it! Yes you can put in consequences but doesn't mean you can physically get them to go in.

I would be sympathetic to her feelings about the hamster and it isn’t wrong for her to feel this way, but it doesn’t sound like this is really about the hamster if her attendance is 88%. More like she is treating any sadness or problem as a reason to justify not going in and this needs tackling if she is to function in the adult world.

And I would even be making my 6 year old go to school after the loss of a hamster let alone a 13 year old. I’d be talking to her about how being with her friends and surrounded by things to take her mind off it will be better for her.

Well done OP it sounds like you handled it well.

You sound lovely. I sympathise with your quandary of not knowing exactly how to deal with this. So hard to balance validating a teenager's (volatile) feelings and encouraging resilience. Sounds like you handled it well though. Not sure I would have been so patient🙂

FFS let her have the day off. Some people are heartless. She will always remember this and if you fuck it up, she will hold it as a worse memory than it needs to be.

If it starts with a day off here then it can escalate.

This.
I only looked at this thread because I thought you had a 13 year old hamster. Ours only ever lived 2 or 3 years and this seems to be what happened here. I was upset when my hamster died when I was a child but life goes on.

What a bizarre comment.