Hands up if you already have a child off school with a cough?

[AlohaMolly]

👋🏼 👋🏼

DS is 4, started reception on Thursday. In Thursday Friday, developed a cough at bedtime last night and was up with it every half hour until I gave him some calpol.

No temp, just a cough and a runny nose. I think I’d probably have sent him under normal circumstances but called the school to check and he said to keep him home today and see how he is tomorrow.

I shouldn’t have to say it, but THIS IS NOT A TEACHER/SCHOOL BASHING THREAD. I used to be a teacher and support the school fully with their approach. Luckily, I ‘only’ work 2.5 days a week, one of them a weekend day, so I’m fine to be off with DS, but it’s 90% of the reason I haven’t taken more hours on like I’d planned to originally.

It’s going to be a long winter, isn’t it??

There was a child psychologist at my test centre who came to the window and told me not to force DS to do it and to try and talk him down I would have loved to but it was never going to work with DS.

Try bribery with sweets or chocolate.

By the end, I was using the Holy Grail that is the McFlurry, and telling daddy what a brave boy he is, and the promise of a Brave Boy sticker, and another ice lolly when we got home.

He wasn’t having any of it and was becoming more and more upset. He’s not a screamer, he’s not prone to tantrums, he’s fairly reasonable and we have an excellent relationship. He was just really scared, to the point of sweating and it suddenly dawned on me that I was doing that to him. So I stopped. I’ve never seen him that distressed, even when he broke his collarbone last year, when he cried a little bit at nursery apparently, and then didn’t whimper.

It wasn’t fair of me to ask him as many times as I did and it was incredibly unreasonable of me to persist for over an hour and I’m pretty ashamed of myself, actually. I wouldn’t have treated an adult like that. He’s got a cough, he’s four, there were three new cases of covid in my county yesterday.

I won’t send him to school tomorrow obviously and we’ll stick to the rules, but there’s no way I’m doing that to him again.

Doing what to him?

@AlohaMolly we never could have done it alone (non-UK, they do it for you here). I wasn’t there but DD was very distressed and exH even called me because they weren’t having any luck, she kept dodging the swab and she was distraught. In any other circumstances we would have left it and just quarantined, but I’m about to start chemotherapy... it simply had to be done. They basically held her down. Poor DD was fine afterwards, her parents took a while to recover

(She got the all-clear today, so I can go to hospital appointments etc.)

@Nomnomarrgh

Doing what to him?

Forcing him to have the swab.

Not even the actual swab, just putting him in that position where he’s stuck in a car with me basically trying to assault him and coerce him into it. The swab itself is neither here nor there, it was the position I put him in. It felt completely different to holding him still for a second for vaccinations for example

It sounds horrible @AlohaMolly. Try not to beat yourself up about it.

Oh fgs let’s not be dramatic. It’s a necessary medical procedure with a big cotton bud, you’re not stabbing him with a carving fork to get blood.

@AlohaMolly

I think we need to be careful not to put off other parents getting their kids tested.

Yes it’s not a pleasant experience but come on it’s 20sec

Ds is older and has had 3 now for various reasons - the one in the car was the toughest due to space. At home ages ago was a doddle compared to it.

It's uncomfortable but not the sort of traumatic event that you're making it out to be.

If people have symptoms they need testing. What we don't need is dozens of people deciding they don't need to get their children tested and just hoping for the best.
What would you rather OP, schools start closing again and localised outbrei because a few overdramatic parents have decided the rules don't apply to them?

I had to do everyone in the car including myself. DS 7 was actually fine... I did the tonsils and the back of the throat and the nose with no complaints. I did however take in my own ice lolly sticks to hold his tongue down which was super helpful.
DH however has no ability to suppress his gag reflex and I gave up after being almost thrown up on and my hand almost bitten!!
I did think DS got top bravery marks because he unfortunately went after DH but no complaints.

👋 and I’m
Off work too. NHS.

[quote TeddyIsaHe]@HerLadySheep

Even if you test negative now you all still need to isolate for 14 days, as that is the incubation period.[/quote]
err no - that's not the fucking rules

I wish people would stop making up their own rules and then demanding others follow them

@LolaSmiles I think you’re being completely unfair to the OP. If she’d been able to do it in 20 seconds she clearly would have.

I’d like to think that most Mumsnetters are sensible people who know their own children and are not going to automatically assume that it cannot be done simply because the OP’s child wasn’t having any of it . She has every right to discuss her own experiences.

@RealityExistsInTheHumanMind I think you'll find that getting a negative test in the absence of symptoms means you cannot come out of isolation earlier than 14 days. It is you that is incorrect

@RealityExistsInTheHumanMind

Even if you test negative now you all still need to isolate for 14 days, as that is the incubation period.
err no - that's not the fucking rules

In this case it is, if you read it. They’ve been in contact with someone with covid so it’s isolation during incubation time.
Not a negative test for symptoms and then isolation over.

Totally different scenarios

Wouldn’t it be delightful if someone could invent a pregnancy style test? Maybe that you spit on instead of pee on, and then they could be tested instantly rather than all of this. Two of my DC pick up bugs like they are going out of fashion and always get temps, sore throats and coughs! It is going to be a never ending cycle of school-no-school!

@AlohaMolly
What are you on about?? Read the thing I was actually replying to before you get a bee in your bonnet.

The poster said they’d been in contact with a confirmed covid case. In that instance you DO need to isolate for 14 days, and only test if you have symptoms.

Sorry that was to @RealityExistsInTheHumanMind not the op!

@IHateCoronavirus they have. The spit test is undergoing another lot of piloting in Southampton.

Still couldn’t get my four year old to do it as he’s been told too many times that spitting is disgusting.

And my eight year old watched my husband and I take the swab test for a study (where we didn’t make a scene about doing it at all) and was not impressed at all...

I clearly stated that it was not the swab in and of itself that I was talking about. I talked about the situation we ended up in due to my poor handling of it. Unfortunately for us, it did end up being incredibly unpleasant and ultimately, unsuccessful. There are plenty of other posters here saying that they and their DC managed it fine with little to no fuss.

I have also said that as a result of not completing the swab, we will follow the self isolation rules Lolasmiles so hardly about to be responsible for any localised outbreaks and our school shutting down. Not deciding the rules don’t apply to us either - I followed the rules? DS showed symptoms, went for a test. Short of getting him out of the car and pinning him to the floor with my knees and using one arm to pin his head, how else would you recommend I have carried it out?

As I’ve said before, DS is usually a pretty tough kid. He broke his collarbone aged 3 at nursery and was poked and prodded and x-rayed twice in A&E after a five hour wait with barely any complaints. He had a raging ear infection that saw him in hospital ages 2, again without much fuss. This situation was too much for him, while being fine for others his age or similar.

No rules broken, all rules followed.

Not a cough but a temperature - my 8 year old had a test done at a drive through centre. We practised are home first so she knew what it was going to be like, and bribed her with promise of a toy after which seemed to work. She had to miss first day back at school but luckily test came back negative less than 24hrs later so was in the next day (temp had gone before we even did the test!). I really feel for all of you with younger children, she was old enough to understand a bit and even then I expected her to not be happy but she was surprisingly calm. I must admit I didn’t try for the tonsils though, just both nostrils which was an alternative option in our instructions.

Sorry you had a rough time OP. Mine is old enough to suck it up but my youngest would have been a challenge.
I am still as to why in my case tonsils weren't used just nasal swabs. Maybe they had had loads of kids throwing up, God knows. I would have preferred them to have done the sample so I could feel confident in the result - I am hoping for a clear negative result tomorrow and not an undetermined one.
If it comes back negative in theory both kids can go in straight away. I do not want DD to be a pariah/coronakid with her still coughing a bit though (in March some kids were merciless in another school, verging on bullying, I had to have a word).
As to your experience today OP your DC will forget in time - I had to hold down my eldest twice for procedures, one in hospital, one dental and I cried doing it but she wasn't permanently traumatised, just me so I do get it.