Skipping high school graduation ceremony

HImom
Thu, 08 Feb 2018 01:22:51 +0000

To me, a HS graduation is up to the student–if s/he wants to attend, fine and my spouse and I will also attend. If s/he doesn’t want to attend for whatever reason, that is their choice and I won’t try to guilt him/her into doing it for me.

That said, H did participate in his HS graduation because he wanted to be with his friends. D did NOT because she was booted out of her HS after JR year. She did attend a summer class at Adult Community School and got her GED, so she chose to participate in their graduation ceremony and was the only person called on the stage to be awarded a plaque because of her perfect score on the GED (only person in the nation).

I feel the same about college graduation–that it is up to the student (though I feel we as parents who paid a boatload of money have a more vested interested in watching our young graduate march across the stage). I’m glad both of my kids wanted to and did participate in their college graduations. We enjoyed watching them happily celebrate the rite of passage with their friends and classmates.