vacations...missing School... Advice?

Whew! Good luck with this. Well - yes - I guess I think you are maybe making a big deal out of a small thing. I personally never saw a problem with an elementary school age child missing a week or two of school - if she/he is doing well in school! Find out what the school thinks about it. This will back you up if they agree with you. If they agree with the ex- then, well - take the expert's (the school's) advice - and lighten up. Put the responsibility on the ex- and your daughter to get the work done...generally the easiest time we found to get our kids to do their school work while traveling was - in the car and/or on the plane. Get it over with before the visit to family ever begins! Can you make that happen? No. You can say the school suggested it and it can be our little secret. I would NOT stay up late the night before she returns to school to make the ex- and your daughter look good. The message your daughter gets from that cannot be good. (Daddy is a screw-up! Look what he did!) Unless you have a supremely better temper than I do, it would be better for your daughter to face the consequences at school of not having the work done on time than for the two of you to have had the type of experience I am imagining must have happened. You don't need to scold. You just check and then give your daughter advice on letting the teacher know that it didn't get done and ask for a new deadline for completing it.

If the school agrees with you (they might - it has been many years since my kids were in school)...better check with your divorce decree before beginning world war 3...does it spell out how and when visits should occur? does it specifically provide for this type of event? if so, don't overstep your legal bounds before beginning the war...then - I have no idea what to say. Me and my ex never amicably settled anything after our divorce - so - clearly I have no advice worth listening to in this eventuality.

My son is 12 and I've had to deal with that since he was 4! His dad never pays attention to the school schedule or his sports schedule when making vacation plans and it's been a problem.
That said, at her age, I wouldn't fret about missing a couple days of school for a family vacation. Once they hit 5th grade it may become a bigger issue, but for now the benefits of the vacation outweigh the negatives.
Lots of kids miss schools days for vacations. We used to take my son out for a week every February to ski! It's harder now that he's older so we don't do it.
The bigger issue to me is that you're getting stuck helping with homework that should have been done with her father. I would want to work out a solution for that.
In these situations you do have to be flexible within reason. After all, you may end up wanting to take your daughter out of school for an extended vacation as well!
Good luck!

I think you are really over reacting. LOTS of kids miss a whole week of school to take a vacation that works into their parent's schedules. Any school work that a young student misses for a few days is really not a big deal to make up at home-- Sitting and doing a few workbook pages (or not) doesn't make an enormous difference in their academic future. Brush up on some math skills and do some extra reading right before and right after her vacation with her dad, then relax and let her go. If it makes you feel better, talk with her teacher when school starts. I'm sure she'll tell you it's fine.

I don't think that missing a few days of school is such a big deal. My parents used to take us out for a week every year to go on vacation. That being said, I do think that parents should make an effort to arrange vacations around school holidays. However, with divorce and with two parents wanting to go on vacation it can be difficult to arrange. Also, there are some events that just can't be rescheduled and it sounds like the Fall festival is one such event. It sounds like this is something special that your daughter and her father enjoy doing together and missing a few days of school isn't a big deal.

The bigger problem is the communication between you and your ex-husband. He is her father and he does have a right to make decisions. The two of you may need some help in learning to co-parent better. I know it's tough. As a single mom, I fall into the trap of thinking that I have total control too. I have to remind myself that his father has as much of a right to make decisions as I do. Sometimes they are not what I think is best and as long as he's not getting hurt I have to let it go.