Kids " sick" days

[RubySquid]

I read on so many threads about sharing of parenting and who has to look after kids on " sick" days as though it's a regular thing.

But in reality how much time do kids actually have off sick to make it a big deal to worry about. For example DS had 2 days off nursery with conjunctivitis, a couple of weeks off school with chickenpox in ks1 and 2 days with a sickness bug at about 8. He's visited the GP 3 times in his life and hands now graduated from uni

Similar stories with DDs, id say apart from the pox less than a week off for other sickness during school time

Yet the way people go on about covering sick days it seems that it's scents happening every couple of weeks. So we're my kids unusual in not getting constantly ill

Luck my deary. Are you really that surprised some children have more sick days than others. Mine both get tonsillitis frequently (8 times since April for one of them, awaiting an ent appointment). She gets a temp of 40 and vomits. One of us has to either wfh or be off work. Tie in our other child and yes it impacts if not shared out. If your kids are grown up now I’m not sure why you care though.

OK. What’s the point of the thread then?

Because throughout your replies, you seem disbelieving of the fact that some children (and adults) genuinely need to take more time off due to illness than your children did.

Yep, shock horror OP, all DC are different when it comes to immune systems and being prone to different illnesses, even down to individuals in the same family.

My DD9 has always been extremely prone to sickness bugs, went through a period a few years ago (bounce back of germs post-Covid lockdowns) of having one every five bloody weeks for five bloody months. Younger DS7 however hadn't had a sickness bug until last year. That year she was also off with chicken pox followed by Covid, so her attendance was pretty dire.

DS had a pretty tough time of it in nursery (HFM, viral rash, impetigo, cold with temperature, chicken pox), but since he started school (touch wood), his attendance has been around 98-99%.

This year (touch wood!) so far, DS has not had a day off and DD one from illness (stomach ache and feeling sick, though thankfully did not turn into full on sickness bug).

I keep thinking surely we will be hit with something soon though as I've had more Teams calls in the past couple of weeks with other people's ill children in the background than not!

I think one of the reasons is that with more two working parent families, children are more likely to be sent in poorly than 20-30 years ago, increasing spread.

I believe norovirus in particular is also more endemic than it was previously due to new strains (24-25 was a particularly bad year - 5 times higher the rate than average).

Think that’s you being lucky. There’s been a few bugs most years. Some we get some we don’t. Depends on how they spread and people’s immune systems

you seem to be suggesting that people are lying or fabricating illness??

every family/school/workplace will be different. Will depend on jobs in the family too and probably transport - if you work within a hospital and use public transport you could be more likely to pick up bugs (or maybe the opposite and build a good immune system?!)

Mine went through a spell at about 2 of getting really bad coughs. Thankfully this lasted about a year and since then she's rarely sick, thankfully.

So because my kids are grown up I'm not allowed to ask a question? I have grandchildren also and they don't seem to need time off constantly either .

Surely it depends on your luck and your number of kids? When ours got chicken pox one after another it was a nightmare to sort out (we're both teachers, WFH is not an option! ). If we hadn't had grandparents nearby to babysit once they were past the feeling rubbish bit and just needed to wait out scabs drying it would have been disastrous. Likewise we had a tummy bug go through that they caught from each other so 24hours after one got it the next did.... which with 4 DC meant there was a week that needed covering. This was the same academic year as the chicken pox fiasco.

However, nobody has been ill requiring a parent at home in the last year, none of them have had a day off for any reason.

It's just the way it goes. I remeber being really annoyed as a child that I got all the sorts of illnesses thay require time off school during the holidays and never during term time! Was really pissed off at a bad bout of flu that meant I slept through almost all of half term but was back on my feet (just about) to be back when school restarted.

Again NOWHERE have I said people are lying? Fabrication on your part I'm afraid

My DD has had 6 days off since starting school. She is Year 9. My DS has had 1 day off since starting school. He is Year 6. “Sick days” aren’t really a thing in our house.

No - I said you seem to be suggesting it. I hadn’t caught up with the other replies.

Your replies feel a little aggressive and you appear to not understand that some kids get ill more than others. You’ve been lucky with yours it seems

From growing out of my own childhood tendency for sickness bugs to pre-children adulthood, I had zero sickness bugs (unless you count one incidence of food poisoning whilst travelling in Asia plus one incidence of campylobacter from a shall-not-be-named chain restaurant).

Post-children, I am averaging one a year!

My replies are getting frustrated with people who can't read what is written and accusing me of all sorts

Seems my own daughters are also " lucky" with their own kids also then.

Maybe your family has super powered immune system?!

It’s a bloody nightmare isn’t it?!

I don’t even remember having one as a child, and only had what I suspect was food poisoning once in my 20s. I always thought I just had a rock solid gut. Apparently not 🤢

What do the quotation marks around “lucky” mean?

Why don't you just say what you clearly want to say then?

You don't think it's down to luck, otherwise it wouldn't be ''luck''.

My DD started nursery 3 days a week at nine months old in September last year due to me returning to work after mat leave. After the first two days she had a sickness bug and the diarrhoea lasted two weeks! Then she was hospitalised 12 times between September 24 and May 25 requiring at the very least oxygen therapy due to recurring bronchiolitis and four bouts of pneumonia. However, on several of these admissions she required much more invasive treatments. She was definitely off nursery more than she was in and it was extremely difficult managing this with both parents working. However, we split it 50/50 and both our work places were very understanding. She is now on a steroid inhaler twice a day and a prophylactic antibiotic for the winter and since her last hospitalisation in May has only had one day off nursery due to a high temperature and being extremely lethargic. It really does depend on the child/children as these viruses she was getting were just your average cold viruses, except the one time she got influenza A, so most children would have just had a mild illness but this was very much not the case for her. This is with no underlying conditions. I think quite a few PPs are getting annoyed because there seems to be some kind of accusation that parents that are having to take time off work to look after their sick child are just keeping them off for a mild cold when for the most part this probably isn’t the case!

It's your tone, and in particular your use of inverted commas that is upsetting people OP - in modern parlance, writing "sick" or "lucky" implies that you don't believe this to be the case at all. The implication in your posts is that people are keeping their kids off school for a tiny sniffle, whereas your kids/parenting were somehow better or more resilient.

The vast majority of parents need to work to provide for their kids, which means that using up precious annual leave for a sick child is a huge issue when you have to somehow cover 13 weeks of school holidays between you, not to mention the endless nativity plays, school performances, class assembled etc. People don't keep their kids off for no reason at all, it's a massive pain in the proverbial, but since most parents love their kids, if they deem the child too sick to go to school they'll keep them at home. Surely you realise this?

Your posts are also really disparaging towards parents whose kids have poor immune systems, chronic health conditions, or disabilities. All families are different, with different needs, which you don't seem to recognise.

Quotation marks are because people saying it's lucky . But the fact my daughters kids aren't sickly either. Is that also luck or something else? Maybe it's good genetics. . So if that's the case then chooseing not to breed with someone with an unhealthy family isn't luck

Wow… you are getting more and more offensive

To be fair, it doesn't really matter how often the child gets sick. Even if it's one day, it's infuriating that some men just assume that it's our job to look after them, heaven forbid their Very Important Job gets interrupted (even when it's not the higher paying one!)

It's more about attitudes than the actual physical issue of who looks after the child.

Of course it's luck.

Some children have chronic medical conditions
Some children are disabled and need to attend lots of medical appointments
Some children get serious illnesses such as cancer etc
Some children have weaker immune systems and seem to pick everything up

Well then stop trying to accuse me of saying stuff I didn't. What's offensive about truth anyway. Surely if you want healthy kids you don't pick unhealthy genes on purpose for them

Were they breastfed op ? I really struggled to bf and moved to formula about 6m onwards. My ds had a lot of nursery bugs, had chicken pox twice, tonsilitis, conjunctivitis, hand foot and mouth and impetigo. Literally everything you can think of and I sometimes feel guilty, wondering if it was because he was not breast fed for long ( sorry if this offends anyone) x

@RubySquid of course it’s genetics and socioeconomic factors and one suspects as well personality you strike me as your child needs to be practically dying and very anti a duvet day!

sinus issues hit DD from me and enlarged tonsils for DS

Both have had Covid and both have had flu (DS just coming out of it)

You are exactly why attendance awards are a shit idea