Attendance is important in life, but while going to school, there will always be some valid reasons that you have to miss a day.

What would you do if your daughter had already missed 20 days of school for sports, but now she wanted to skip school so that she could study for one of her AP classes?

That is the situation that the mother in this story is in, so she is telling her daughter that she cannot skip school since she has already missed too much, but her daughter is upset about it.

Personally, I think she shouldn’t have let her skip school for sports, but that is in the past. Going to school is important, even when she has other things she would rather do. Read through the full scenario below and see if you agree.

AITAH for not letting my kid skip school?

I (42F) have a 16F student athlete in a California public school who gets decent/good grades.

She is getting excellent grades.

She mostly gets A’s, with a few A- and even some A+’s, so I know she’s capable and takes school seriously.

I’ve always told her I only need her to get an A-, but her school is very competitive and she’s always prided herself on being smart so it makes her feel like she should be getting at least an A+ in each subject.

This is a lot of school to miss for sports.

However, she’s already missed around 20 days of school this year, mostly unexcused, because of sport tournaments (not a school sport-> not excused, even if I call the school).

She misses quite a lot because of national and international tournaments. She wants to skip even more days to study for her upcoming AP exams.

Attendance is an important part of school.

She’s asking me to call the school and tell them she’s sick so she can study, making these excused absences. Our school doesn’t have a limit on absences.

The APs she’s taking are the ones that she is self-studying for, as in she doesn’t take those subjects at school because our school doesn’t offer APs, so she’s teaching herself.

This seems like a bad excuse.

Her argument is that she doesn’t really pay attention in class anyway, and just watches shows on her laptop because her teachers won’t let her study, and she thinks it’s a waste of seven hours that could be used to study or train.

She says she won’t be able to focus on studying if she’s constantly trying to hide it from the teacher, who expects them to be taking notes, but she doesn’t mind not being able to focus on the show.

Honestly, she shouldn’t be skipping school for any of these things.

She says there’s no difference between missing 20 and 30 days at this point. She says she won’t have enough time to study later if she doesn’t start now.

She’s also annoyed because she has many friends from her sport who are homeschooled or have way more absences than her, but I won’t let her skip unless its necessary for sport.

It is clear that she is a very bright young woman.

Also, her AP tests really don’t matter that much anyways. She’s on track to being recruited at a good school that doesn’t give credit for most APs.

She’s around t5 in the USA for her recruiting year, and she says she’s fine with any Ivy or other top college. I’ve always told her she shouldn’t try so hard on school.

Being this busy might not be healthy.

What concerns me is that her participation grades have always been low, and I feel like actually being present in class matters. I also don’t like the idea of her deciding on her own that school isn’t worth attending, and I want her to get used to going to class to prepare for college.

I told her she should go to class and find time to study outside of school instead. After school she has around 2 hours of practice+1 hour total travel time and does school homework or studying for 2 hours.

Sleep is important.

She doesn’t even do any clubs or extracurriculars. She currently sleeps from about 10pm to 7am, which I think is more sleep than most high schoolers get.

I suggested she could stay up a bit later if she really needs more study time, but she doesn’t want to. Most of her classmates whose parents I know sleep at 12AM, and doing this could get her another two hours of studying per day.

Attendance is important in life.

She thinks I’m being unreasonable and not supporting her ambitions, and I’m prioritizing “attendance for the sake of attendance” over her success and sleep schedule.

AITAH?

She can’t just miss school whenever she has something that she feels is more important. That being said, it seems like studying is a more valid reason to skip school than a sporting event.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this situation.

This person would be proud to have a child like this.

Not all colleges look at attendance anyway.

She is clearly doing very well for herself.

This seems a bit extreme.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who is thinking of alerting the city to their neighbor’s campers being lived-in while parked on the street.

Teenagers need plenty of sleep.

Missing school is not something that should happen on a whim. That being said, this young lady does seem to be a hard worker and doing well for herself, so there may be an exception to the rule.

If she is going to be not allowed to skip school, it should be for the sports, not studying.