I'm likely rare among higher education faculty in that I don't take off points for late work and I allow students to make up assignments if something has happened in their lives and they've missed class. There are a few philosophical reasons behind this (one of them being my ubiquitous "they need to be safe to work at my bank/hospital/utility/school/defense contractor, etc." - and if they don't practice the thing I can't guarantee they'll be safe), but there's one very concrete reason: I'm paying it forward.
You see, when I was an undergraduate (in the previous century) I had a health event that resulted in missing classes for two weeks. It hadn't occurred to me when the health event started to contact my professors/teaching assistants (I was 20 and this was a big state school and we didn't have student email back then), but after it was over I did go and see each one of them in person to ask whether I could make up the assignments.
They all said "yes". All five. And I ended up getting all "A"s that term (I believe that was the only term I got all "A"s - I used Acceptance as a risk management strategy a lot before I knew that it had a name...) I will always be grateful to those folks for allowing me to make up the work. I have led a charmed life.
So, I pay it forward. And I'll keep paying it forward.