To hunt down these bastards who exposed my son to chicken pox

Can't believe OP is being flamed for not getting her DS the vaccine and not the people who knowingly went on holiday with a poxy child! What utter utter arseholes.

I've been on MN threads where OPs have been flamed for bringing a poxy child to a pharmacy in a buggy under the rain cover to get essentials. Perfect illustration of the anti OP bias on MN.

I feel for him, it’s a horrible time to get it. But he could have caught it in the supermarket, or anywhere. Only way to prevent it is paying for the vaccine, but bit late for that now. I’m sure he will still make friends but I know he won’t want to hear that now. Poor kid

Good grief OP - some people are missing an empathy chip aren’t they? Apparently getting to feel smug for a bit is more desirable than just being… nice 🙄

I’m sorry this has happened and it’s incredibly shitty timing. I would also be raging. Being exposed accidentally when a kid is infectious before the spots appear is one thing, letting your kid knowingly spread their nasty virus everywhere is something else to entirely. They’re dick heads.

Oh, your poor son. Mine is starting secondary school this week too and I can imagine how upsetting this is on top of the nerves and excitement he was already feeling. Sending hugs. Is the school arranging a trip for Year 7? Mine is going on a short camping trip later in September which will be great for bonding/making friends so I wonder if there's something like that for him to look forward to?

Remind him there are usually at least one or two children who join later in the year as well and within a very short time the kids barely remember who joined later, year 7 especially is a time when everyone is finding their feet and finding friendships and that doesn't get set in stone in the first week at all! Within a few days of starting he'll be so busy and enjoying it all (and will have found lots of friendly people) that he won't give this another thought.

I'd be so furious with those other parents at the camp site though, just absolute selfish arses.

not only that it is not recommended because risks outweigh benefit for chickenpox. Personally I remember when I m had chickenpox and it was not a big deal. My friend who got vaccinated and never had it had suffered from internal shingles so bad she was hospitalized and suffered from lingering nerve pain for years.

only found out recently there’s a vaccine against chicken pox, not usual here in Ireland and of course she feels strongly after her son got it! Saying that op you do need to calm down because part of your son being this upset will be him getting from you that he shouldn’t have got it

I hope your son is not too poorly with CO@littleredbumblebee and is able to start high school ASAP. The timing sucks, but it's a done deal now. When he does start school (next week?) i bet someone will be put in charge of buddying him, and he'll have personal guide round school for a few days, and fit right in.

The family on the caravan site were selfish twats

Vaccine or no vaccine, ‘better now than later’ or not, it isn’t OK to take your pox ridden kid into a social situation like a caravan site, and especially not to then warn people.

And the smug complacent victim blaming that has derailed this thread may well have the effect of giving other selfish twats the idea that they have no responsibility for keeping their own infected child at home because people should be vaccinated.

Your poor Ds , OP. He will be ok at school very quickly but of course this is upsetting for him.

My friend paid out for CP vaccine and both hers still caught it - really nasty dose of it too.£300 down drain. I don't think CP vaccine guarantees they won't get it. Hope your son is OK and settles well.

Oh, @littleredbumblebee— that’s crap.

Besides having chicken pox, is your boy okay? I mean, is it serious?
We all three got it at the same time decades ago, but my older sister got it the worst. In her ears, up her nose, in her mouth & throat, all over her face — even the bottoms of her feet. I was little, but I remember she had to walk on her heels. She also got them around her eyes.
I sincerely hope your son breezes through this with a minimum amount of discomfort.
And I hope he makes loads of friends once he’s back at school.
Sending love and good thoughts.

Oh and yes to hunt them down makes you sound unhinged tbh

The older they are the worse it is. He is latte to have it at 11. Imagine him having it at 16 Much worse.

@littleredbumblebee
In case you are still reading this, my DS missed the first week of secondary school as he came down with covid in 2021.

He is about to go into year 10 and really really happy.

But at the time I felt wretched for him, he is ASD and struggled with friends anyway. The teaching staff made a huge lovely fuss of him when he arrived and the only problem was that he couldn't find his way to art once, but an older child showed him.

I hope your DC is OK and not too poorly. (FWIW I didn't know there even was a chicken pox vaccine!!)

Hopefully, your son having got at least half of the chicken pox vaccination before his bad reaction will get a very mild dose. I can understand how anxious he must be to crack on with high school and get a friendship group.

Oh how to scream ' I'm very uninformed'.
You can get chicken pox of you've had the vax, bright spark.

The problem with chicken pox and why it is so effective at spreading is you are most contagious before the spots appear.

I remember when my kids got it. Got ds1 age 3 dressed in the morning and nothing on him. Went to a soft play and he ran around like a loon all fine. Got him undressed that eve and there were a couple of spots. Next day he was covered. Dread to think how many people he infected that week but we didn't know he was ill. My youngest who was 6 months old got it from him and that was us done.

At a guess when they went on holiday they didn't know and the spots appeared while they were there. Really he should have then stayed in his room but by then the damage was likely already done

Yep, it’s a pretty rubbish thing to do…intentionally expose your chickenpox child to other children. However, your reaction is pretty strong.

Your child is feeling pretty rubbish at the moment about missing his first week of school, and he’s going to need you to be calm and reassuring. This will be difficult for you to do if you want to ‘hunt down the bastards’.

Although it’s 90% likely that ‘shirtless boy’ gave your son chickenpox, it’s not completely definite. So instead of getting cross about something that more than likely happened, start looking for the positives. Thank goodness he’s got it before he’s an adult. At least it’s not his GCSEs.

Although massively inconvenient, this is one of those things that you need to teach your son to laugh about.

They shouldn't have brought their child away knowing they had chicken pox. But realistically it is contagious before the spots appear so could have happened any time.

But I agree I do not understand why some people don't follow the isolation guidelines.

£150 per child is not cheap. Might not be affordable for all especially if you have more than one child!

YABU - it’s only chicken pox! People used to have chicken pox parties to get it out of the way! No vaccine given as standard here in the UK as far as I know, there certainly wasn’t when my children were young.

On a side note - to all those for vaccines and paying I recommend paying to see if your children have immunity against measles etc we recently had daughters done due to a local outbreak she had all her MMR and she was weirdly immune to mumps but not measles. We rescheduled her in for a another one and re tested and now she is.

It’s not cost effective. Most children are fine and need no treatment so it the cost isn’t beneficial. I am glad they are rolling out RSV vaccines to pregnant women to protect babies ! Now RSV causes so much pressure on the peads wards every year.

I think it's really poor behaviour to take a child on holiday with chicken pox and totally understand why you're upset OP. What a total pain in the neck.

Incubation period for chicken pox is 14-21 days.

If it was last week your son was with these people he probably didn’t catch it from them.

i hope he is ok with it