whats unreasonable sick child and work

[ghostspirit]

hi all just thinking really. i'm a single parent do not have any support. I work part time. sometimes my kids are ill ie sickness/belly bugs. there has been a couple times i have not been able to go to work or have been called away from work. Area manager told me i have to sort out better childcare. I kind of have managed to do that. my daughter will have them if they are ill. but i am stuck on the mon/tues.

is it reasonable for them to tell me to find childcare, the covers me 100% if the kids are ill. cant ask daughter to take time of college that's just wrong and i don't have anyone else. I'm thinking even if there was a childminder/nanny or who ever surely they cant be expected to look after a sick child anyway.

Pregnancy related absences are a different issue and you shouldn't experience disadvantage or discrimination due to those.

I'm pretty sure pregnancy related illness doesn't count towards your sick days. Make sure they don't ignore that it was for pregnancy.

Sounds like quite a bit off but the pregnancy related parts can't be counted. If you have worked for them for a good number of years then they will see its a bad period and not normally like that. If a fairly new job, then you need to do everything you can to get into work. If it's part time, sort housing etc out in your own time.

extravolume fingers crossed you will be ok. if you only have the one child hopefully u will be ok. its madness my 12 year old has had the sick.tummy bug 3 times since September. he started secondary in september. in prinmary his attendence was really good. was 100% quite a few times. i don't get why he is suddenly picking up bugs all the time. he stays home on his own when he is ill. but then it gets passed to the younger 2 and that's when i get the childcare issues.

I often wondered about this as well. Even though I've got DH, I dread the kids getting, say, chicken pox one after the other. We've got very understanding employers and can work from home for a bit, but still, it means quite a lot of time off. How do people with no family support manage?

Ghost I think most of us muddle through with a combination of the strategies described by previous posters! No back up plan can be 100% reliable, you just need to make reassuring noises to your boss!

yeah maybe if i removed any lateness/days due to pregnancy issues its probably not as bad.

the housing issue has been sorted now but it still had to be done.

this was what i wondered mrspiggy, i guess its what coffee says. muddloe through and try our best and hope boss sees we are trying. and keep fingers crosses

Is the father of the children on the acne and willing to do his share?

no carriemac just me and the kids

you have no one else and as it's usually women who look after children, too much action against you could be seen as unreasonable and discrimination. I have had a bit of time off with mine this term but can make the time up. Just say that your daughter will do it if possible. If your child is puking then generally no one else can/will have them anyway.

When mine were young I had two near neighbours with children about the same age as mine who all went to the same school. We all worked parttime and helped each other out, one mum took them all up to school, my mum had them three afternoons a week another mum had them two afternoons. I used to take the two children in one family to swimming on a Saturday and cubs with mine. Their mum worked Saturday morning.

One summer we even coordinated summer holidays and the kids were away for six weeks, getting back from a fortnight with one family and going off with another family. They went camping with one family, static caravan with another family and a touring caravan plus tent with another family. Talk about chaos but it got us through.

My old work supplied a 20 day per year emergency childcare service for free - you just called up and could choose what childcare you wanted - so if nursery or childminder you could find an emergency replacement or if you preferred or child was sick you could have a nanny - if you used all your days you could still use the service but had to pay. So the first day of sickness /loss of service was just parental leave and by then you would have a replacement free (I doubt many have more than 20 days sickness for dc) and some couple's both worked there and got effectively 40days free cover if they needed it.

Ps I posted that to say that there are companies who supply emergency nannies so if it were desperate then it could be a possibility - I think if /when ds has the chickenpox then we will use that as long as ds isn't needing us (eg if v poorly)

Oh i dont like that im bit jealous. so if there are 2 parents they would get 40 days a year but a single parent 20 although its more likely the single parent would struggle that much more. but anyway they dont do anything like that where i work

. still confuses me though because i dont see a childminder/nursery or what ever taking on a sick child. and i dont like the thought of emergency care just in general.

concerns me a bit say dd is not very well but emergency childcare has be come available just seems odd to say to dd i know your not well you will be ok though mummy needs to go to work. your staying with this person you have never seen in your life. have a good day :/

maddening that is fantastic. Your employer must be great to work for.

Granny my company offer that too but are an absolute shower in terms of all things HR!

This is something that worries me. I'm self employed and work from home but have been looking for jobs. My DS is 14 months and has had a sickness bug 3 times in the last 3 months! He has obviously picked them up from nursery - makes me think that people aren't practising good hygeine or 48 hour rule.

We don't have any family support in term time. My Mum and sister both work in schools so could probably help out in school holidays but other than than 90% of the childcare would fall to me as it is very difficult for my husband to take time off at short notice due to the nature of his work. He often works away.

What am I meant to do, not work because my child might get ill? I suppose depending on the work and whether flexible working is available I could work from home and try to get it done whilst he is sleeping during the daytime or once in bed at night.

To make matters worse, a couple of days after he has been sick, I have ended up being sick myself so would then be off work ill!

If you're pregnant, can your dp pick the others up sometimes? Share the load?

Nerf the OP has said her partner isn't on the scene now.

If your Area Manager has mentioned the amount of time you have off, I must admit I was surprised that it was just down to children being ill. I'm a single Mum with no support, other than a child minder and have always worked full time. I can count on one hand the amount of days I have had to take off due to him being ill in the last 8 years.

Reading the rest of the thread it sounds like there has been an issue with you being late/taking time off due to housing issues, pregnancy and children being ill. Hopefully this is just a short term thing, but if I was your Area Manager, I would probably have had a chat with you about your absence levels too.

I know as much as everyone else that being a working Mum with very little support is difficult.

For those posters who are talking about looking for a job, but are worried about time off when your children are ill - don't look for problems where they don't exist. Your negative outlook will come across at an interview. If all working single parents thought like this, none of us would work. Keep positive thoughts in your head.

We're I work we are allowed 2 hrs to sort childcare and then have to come in. People have had warnings for taking time off due to their DC being ill and them not coming in. Its such a hard one if you have no one else, I'd say unpaid leave might be the best option if your allowed

lucyccfc i had a sort of warning before there was a housing issue and before i was preg so at that time it was just due to the kids being ill. they said they were keeping an eye on things till july. others on the thread have said they cant go aganist me for pregnancy related things. still feels like it ads up though.... i think the housing thing has been sorted now signed a new tenency today :)

ans yeah i agree everyone should be posiitve when going for a job and not put things in the way that may never be there. my situation has probably been because one thing after another happend i could have a good couple of years now without an issues... although i do think there should be more support for working parents .