Period pain proof required for school sick days

I have endometriosis which developed when I was a teen. Would they like to see the contents of my underwear, tampon and pad?

Sickening.

@mitogoshigg you sound a bit basic. Can you not see anyone else’s point of view, hear their experiences? Ever? It’s very weird

Then maybe they should look at why more girls are struggling with period pain??

There's no point in poorly kids being at school. Some parents keep their kids off school for pretty much anything, but I think it's more common for them to be sent in when really they would be better off at home. Kids with a cold can feel horrible- they learn very little of they feel lethargic, have a fever, a headache, a streaming nose and are coughing and sneezing excessively. The number of times I've had to chivvy up kids who are crying, wingeing, falling asleep, have flushed faces or shivering and clearly unwell. The headteacher hates sending kids home too- they have to be at deaths door before parents are called. It's ridiculous!

I mean I was kind of joking too but now I'm thinking if the girls are brave enough why not.

There's always one who thinks they're the default human body and all illnesses and health conditions can be measured by their experiences.

It's because of the amount of school days missed because of period pain etc has greatly increased in recent years. It seems now that some parents will let their children stay off school for things that in the past, wouldn't have been a reason to stay off. Head Teachers and teachers know that sometimes a cold or period pains can be bad enough to mean staying off school, but because of so many staying off when they don't really need to there are having to come down hard.

Well if they want proof I guess they won't object to used sanitary towels being slammed down on teachers desks will they.

I'm joking but it actually is ridiculous. No absence due to periods but also no kids allowed to use the loo in lesson times. What kind of a world do we live in?

Whoop de doo.

What's with this thread?
Has no one got an imagination and no one can maybe see that your normal isnt everyone's normal.

Some women have really really bad period pains.
Some people are ill when they get a cold, see nearly every man alive.

Going to a GP for proof of these things is beyond mental and a huge waste of resources.

My poor mum had such bad periods when I was younger that I have memories of family days out where she’d have to leave to go and lay across the back seats of the car whilst we walked around with our dad because she literally couldn’t bare to keep standing. Sorry but the mindset that women and girls should be expected to be in school and work, or as one poster has suggested, a swimming pool, in those conditions is inhumane. It can be completely debilitating when it’s bad.

Parents and girls have every right to decide what goes into their bodies. If they don't want to use tampons that is their right.

No one should be forced into wearing tampons so they don't miss swimming/PE.

They shouldn't be penalised over the methods they use to manage something natural that they havnt chosen to have.

The world won't stop if they have to miss those things once a month at school.

I'd be happy to help my child sit those out at those times if that's what they wanted.

Exactly! The vast majority of parents don’t WANT their child to be off school. When my child is off it’s an absolute pain. Any parent who works will know that ringing a child in sick is not something we do lightly!

How are they even expecting that to work? Would all the girls need to get a doctors note on the off-chance that ne month they might bleed more heavily and their pad not last? Or are they expecting them to see a doctor exactly when their period starts and have a doctor perform some intimate examination to confirm its heavy and receive a note?

What a complete waste of NHS resources. You don't need to be a doctor to know girls who have been through puberty have periods and at some point will need to change their pad/tampon/period pants.

Maybe they want the sanitary towels..sickos

I would write to your MP about this. The gov rules on attendance are causing it. It’s not really an excuse because the school has totally misinterpreted it but it’s clearly not helping!
Id also ask your local Gp to write a general letter to the school to say they won’t be doing it. I mean it doesn’t even makes sense. Do they want a new letter every month? So several hundred Gp appts every month? And hundreds of letters?

When I was at school we had stools in Maths and Science lessons. I had such bad period pain, during a Maths lesson, that I fainted and fell off the stool. When I came too I remember the teacher telling me I’d need to learn to cope with it because I wouldn’t be able to take time off work every month. Not every woman’s periods are the same.

At the beginning of this year I had a horrible cold that went on for over 3 weeks. I felt quite unwell, but it was just a cold. I kept saying to DH that I hated feeling so ill with a cold. Sometimes you get a sniffle but sometimes you get a heavy cold. The other point is, DS2 is a severe asthmatic. When children go into school suffering from nasty colds they pass them around, which can be awful for asthmatics. DS2 would often end up in hospital because of someone else’s cold.

If a parent thinks their child is too sick for school that should be enough . The school will know if they’re taking the piss or not from their attendance record.

Yep. It's quite conceivable that a girl who's experiencing problem periods has already sought medical advice. We all know how often female anatomy problems get fobbed off and minimised.

Forcing anyone, let alone a teenage girl to wear a tampon or swim in a public swimming pool when on period is sick. Lots of grown women avoid either tampons or swimming for various reasons, including medical recommendations.

Its very warped, how on earth does a parent prove their child has a period pain ? They must have to see a GP and get a fit note which will put up GP waiting times for appointments. Other than kids screaming in agony and being in school in a state like that no learning would get done.

Its boardroom bandits making these decisions, I think it must be motivated over money, or lack of funds when kids are off school or something like that, they value money more than the wellbeing of the kids, and adults.

Its cruel, inhumane and unethical in my opinion

I can just imagine the disruption to the learning of not only the sufferer but the entire class if one of the students spends the whole lesson on all fours on the floor rocking backwards and forwards and moaning with pain. And the doctors who just said 'everyone gets period pain, you need to just deal with it' and 'you'll grow out of it' wouldn't have been much help with medical notes either, because their diagnosis for over a decade was just 'normal period pain'.

Ffs sake, it takes years and years to even get to looking for whats wrong.
You are put off for actual years with
Oh it's normal
It will pass in a while
Shes only just started periods, they will settle down.
It's not really that painful
The very useful one I got " just go be a woman"
And on and on and on.

If there was a simple way of getting seen and diagnosed after say two years of debilitating painful periods, that would help. But as we all know, women dont matter.

@Ozanj I can't believe you think girls should be forced to use tampons just so they can take part in a swimming lesson.
I used to use tampons and for years had dreadful internal itching. After I had my daughter I didn't go back to tampons and amazingly - no more itching.

This is all getting idiotic though- adults are expecting to self certify to relieve pressure on GPs and the NHS because it is an absolute waste of time to take a gp appointment when you know you’ve got a bug and just can’t go to work. Expecting children to get gp sign off for school absence is an absolute waste of time and money and I would like to see heads fined for suggesting this quite frankly.

The government guidance actually says that schools must not ask for evidence of illnesses like this.
GPs also do not want to waste time.
Parents at these schools should not pander to it and simply give the school the GPs number and send them the gov website link which states this quite clearly!

How many painful periods has Graham ever had? Has he ever tried getting period pain taken seriously by a doctor? Does he even know any women?