<p>I feel horrible for the D in this case. My parents forced me to stay local and live at home for two years. I never connected. If I had stayed I would not have attended the graduation ceremony. Who wants to sit alone in a crowd of your fellow students celebrating with their friends. (Thankfully I was rebellious and transferred behind my parents back.) </p>
<p>I do not understand why the OP cannot take D out for a special dinner or spa day or done other way they can mutually celebrate this accomplishment.</p>
<p>"A large part of that could have been my HS classmatesā lines to their parents had they passively obeyed and stayed at our local public colleges when they were at their academic nadir. "</p>
<p>Cobrat, this isnāt about your HS classmates. Please stop turning every thread into a discussion of your HS classmates. Adults donāt typically reference or care about their HS classmates one way or the other.</p>
<p>I didnāt attend my high school or college graduations. They were not meaningful to me and I donāt regret missing them. I, like the OPās daughter, did not feel particularly attached to the schools or the ritual.</p>
<p>My kids didnāt graduate from high school, technically speaking, but both walked in their college graduations, and we (parents) attended and were happy to celebrate that with them ā because <em>they</em> wanted it that way.</p>
<p>For the OP, this is a decision that should be your daughterās. Ask her what other nice thing your might do together to celebrate. A nice dinner? A family party? Whatever appeals to your daughter.</p>
<p>Thatās a good news for both of you.
Perhaps going back to receive the diploma at the end of spring makes her feel the ceremony is less desired?</p>
Your opinion about this might change when you have kids.</p>
<p>OP, I do think there may be more to this than just her feeling of alienation from the college. It may also have to do with her feelings toward you. You will have to decide how deeply you want to delve into that.</p>
<p>Obviously parents canāt know every little detail about their child, and there will always be things that we as parents wonāt know. But, in general my daughter and I have had a generally great relationship, to the point that I have had to give her a little nudge to spend time with her peers other than with or around me.</p>
<p>But even with that, that doesnāt mean there is not some issue or problem that she might have. So I might have to ask her and see if I can get more from her that might give me more insight to what might be the real reason for all of this.</p>
<p>Actually I am very certain about my stance even when I have kids because:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The graduation ceremony is primarily about the graduates first.</p></li>
<li><p>If my parents/family are any indication, Iāll follow in their footsteps and leave the decision up to the one who is actually graduating. To do otherwise would be considered excessive parental micromanagement into a matter that is mainly the business of the graduate and a bit too āhelicopterishā for us. And we tend to love our graduation ceremonies. </p></li>
<li><p>There are far bigger major issues to argue aboutā¦such as whether children who donāt want to go to grandmaās or other older relatives for holidays because āI DONāT WANT TO BE BORED!ā or āGamez!ā. Holidays are good times to develop and strengthen family bonding. To be fair, I do believe the hosting older relative and rest of the family should do their bit to ensure the gatherings are enjoyable or at leastā¦very interesting. :D</p></li>
</ol>
<p>On the other hand, graduation ceremonies arenāt going to facilitate familial bondingā¦and in this case, forcing the issue may very well end up doing the exact opposite considering the OPās own admitted approach in broaching this issue with D and Dās justifiable digging in her heels as a consequence.</p>
<p>coolweather sheās not going to go back and get the diploma in the spring. The school has Spring and Winter graduation dates and usually sends the actual degree/diploma shortly after the ceremony, if the students final grades show they passed.</p>
<p>So thereās no worry about getting the diploma much later than the actual ceremony.</p>
<p>I didnāt go to mine. I felt like the $12 was a waste of money and I hated Jostens because they interrupted like the only class I cared about to try and sell us class rings. And I didnāt really like my school.</p>
<p>Maybe you can do some sort of compromise where she doesnāt walk but she goes for pictures with her friends?</p>
If anyone believes that post #119, with yet again another banal reference to HS experiences of yore was an attempt at humor, I have a bridge to sell you. And if in the infinitessimmally remote chance it was an attempt at humorā¦ epic fail.</p>
<p>In my former country there was no high school and college graduation ceremony. Students got lucky if they passed the exams after the school was sclosed for 1 or 2 months. Celebration was done in the family.
My son had preschool graduation ceremony with cap made with paper. I felt itās more special than his college graduation ceremony.</p>
<p>A bit off topic but, Iām somewhat amused by the visiting relatives for the holidays example.</p>
<p>A similar issue did happen with not wanting to go see her Gparents for the Thanksgiving holiday a few years ago. A little because she would be bored and little because she rarely has contact with them so didnāt see the point.</p>
<p>That time because her father was also going there to visit, I had made her go so she could bond with her fatherās side of the family, because of how rarely she sees them. And she came back saying she never wants to have to go again, and this was somewhat obvious before she voiced that opinion when she got back. </p>
<p>In an attempt to relate the two situations, I ask that she only do it once and if she doesnāt like it she doesnāt have to do it again. Iāll let her decide for her graduate degree, but as for the bachelorās its just one day that she can do, get it over with and never have to do again.</p>
<p>In the greater scheme of facilitating familial relationshipsā¦itās more worth it IMO to force a visit to relatives than it is to force her to perform what she feels is a meaningless symbolic exercise.</p>
<p>Only exception to #1 is if the relatives concerned are acting as negative influences* on your child. </p>
<p>*I.e. Encouraging addictive/dangerous/illegal actions, acting hateful for various reasons, etc.</p>
<p>Iāll āletā her decide. There you goā¦ you are SO SURE that you get to decide. Why should you? Why donāt you go to graduation and leave her home? You can pick up a program and enjoy the pomp & circumstance without a sulky student along.</p>
<p>Also, did she go to high school graduation? In that case, she has done one, and under your own logic could be off the hook now. Plus, lots of people who say they are going to grad school donāt ever get thereā¦</p>
<p>Here is an option ā offer to flip a coin with her. She wins, she skips it and no more is said about it, but you get to pick some other activity like dinner, spa, whatever to celebrate. You win the toss, she goes without complaining, but also gets to pick some other celebration (spa, dinner, etc.) of her choice. And no fair picking something you KNOW the other person will hate.</p>
<p>No offense, but you are coming off as a littleā¦ selfish, to be frank. This is her graduation, yes, but try to approach her kindly and explain to her that youād like her to think about how you want to have your proud moment as a parent. Try not to be abrasive, and give her time to think. If she still insists on not going, donāt make her.</p>
<p>The funny thing about graduation ceremonies is that you are not even together with the person for whom you are celebrating the event. You get to the venue a couple of hours early and then separate for the graduate to go do whatever they have them report early for. You donāt sit any where even near each other and are lucky if you can even find each other among all the seats to exchange glances. You sit for a few hours of boring speeches and watch ranks of students cross the stage ad nauseum in order to hear the name called and to watch your student for 10 seconds or soā¦and at large graduations, even less than that. Once the name is called, you sit there totally bored for the rest of the ceremony, then have to try to find each other in the crowd, then fight the crowd to turn in whatever needs to be turned inā¦</p>
<p>We much more enjoyed the smaller departmental ceremonies where honors were distributed, and where we could mingle with the friends they had made in their majors and with their professors afterwards at the receptions.</p>
<p>OP, could you work out a compromise where your daughter and you could attend the departmental ceremony but not the mass graduation?</p>
<p>All this being said, we did attend each of our sonsā undergrad graduations.</p>
<p>They were not nearly as nice or as meaningful as the high school graduations had been.
Anti-climactic, actually.<br>
We attended for S2ās masters as well. S1 did not go to his ceremony for his MBA or his M.Ed; he was starting a new job and it just wasnāt that important to him. DIL graduated from Sloan with her MBA this spring but had a limited number of tickets, and we deferred to let her parents and grandparents enjoy the occasion and came in a week later to celebrate.</p>