DD been off school sick today and wants to go to a party this evening

[Waitingfordolly]

Stomach ache (though no sickness or diarrhoea) and generally looking peaky, although she does seem a lot better now. She's 11. I have said no she can't go to the party. She is upstairs in floods of tears saying that everyone else's mum would let them go. AIBU?

"Those who say that if they rang in sick for work due to feeling ill, but then improved enough to go out that night.....calling it now:- you really werent so ill that you couldnt work. "

I suspect that the people making this kind of comment have never suffered from a chronic condition which fluctuates in terms of its severity? Or have had physical jobs where something like a bad back would render you completely useless to your employer, but wouldn't stop you from sitting at the theatre or having friends over? It's quite a narrow definition of 'too ill to work' to assume that your personal rules which work in your personal circumstances apply to everyone else.

(FWIW - I have done exactly that Think, and my boss was glad that I was feeling better. Why wouldn't he have been? I am an adult and can be trusted to assess my own ability to do my job, and to decide whether I am well enough to go out.)

Regardless of whether the child should go to the party, there is the question of how ill do you have to be to not go to school or work.
With children it is tricky as we don't know exactly how they feel. Some seem to be off frequently for a minor cold or because they feel a bit rough in the morning. I am a teacher and I know pupils are off frequently for minor ailments - often on the day work is due. It sounds harsh and I am not saying this is the case for everyone or every illness (of course there are lots of times children should be off) but some parents are a bit soft about it and children can then learn to give up a bit easily too. There is often something to be said for soldiering on, going in and 'trying' because often by 10am people feel better. I would tend to agree that if someone is genuinely too Iill to go to school or work, they won't be fully recovered by the evening and at least need rest if not recovery term illness.
At my work, if you have more than 3 periods of time off (no matter how long they are) in a year, you now need to have an interview with HR. Too many people were having duvet days, and lots of periods of short absence due to an odd cold . Again, I am NOT saying people should always go to work and never be off, but I do think that there is a lot of absence from both children and adults that isnt really necessary. Funnily enoughm since the new rules at work, absence has dropped - yes there will always be people off for a full week or 2 with full blown flu and all kinds of other things, but the numbers off for just 1 day with a bit of a cold have dropped.
Of course for children, there is a direct correlation between attendance and academic success too. I accept that most will need time off for genuine sickness - but when mine are ill, I really consider if this should be one of the perhaps 2 days they should typically be off per year, or if they should have a 'try'. I have only once had to go in to collect them on such occasions and they have probably achieved close to 50 more days in school over the years between them, by 'trying'. Probably the same for me with work.
So, back to the Q, if any of us are off school/work we really are quite ill. There's not a lot of thought required about going out in the evening, because we are still ill, or tired at least from it and need to recover and have an early night. This is where the no school means no party or activities comes from - the assumption was that you were really pretty I'll if you didn't go to school.

Plenty of adults are very far from being able to assess whether they are well enough to do their job.

Hence the very high casual sickie rates in sectors where there is no financial penalty for not showing up.

Who wants to raise their kid to be the one everyone knows swings the lead at the slightest twinge?

And before more people defend absence (which I totally accept will always happen and is sometimes necessary for both the sick person and for the other employees too - no one is saying there should be no absence, or genuinely sick people should force themselves in) I hope we can all agree that there is a lot more absence from both schools and work places than is necessary. Recognition that some absence is necessary, but rates of absence are higher than that, are both true.

I hope we can all agree that there is a lot more absence from both schools and work places than is necessary.

Based on what evidence?

Lucky you to the people that said no need to miss school / work for period pains; mine were so awful for years, that even with strongest possible prescribed medicines Id likely have couple days most months when all I was capable of was curling around a hot water bottle crying in pain. Really not a state you can work in!

Yes, it is very bad luck to suffer from such severe period pains that you need to be under the care of a doctor to deal with them and can't function for days. :(

ChocolateWombat If a pupil or teacher has a virus involving frequent sneezing or coughing, would you prefer that they come in to school, even though there is a good chance others may catch the virus and possibly feel worse than the individual who is soldiering on?

The thing with illness is that perception of discomfort and ability to continue as normal are highly individual, and pain thresholds will vary. Depending on illness type and stage, the potential for infecting others will also vary. If someone has been ill and is returning to school/work, they might well do so at a point where they feel much better but have not completely recovered. As for retrospectively deciding someone was well enough to attend, at the point in the morning where a decision is required, all you can do is make a best guess.

It is odd that the default assumption is that someone shouldn't feel well enough to do an activity on a day they were ill, and that anybody in this position is likely to be putting it on, or exaggerating their condition. There is a guideline for people who exercise and might not want to miss out because off illness - have a day off if your symptoms are below the neck, but carry on if you have e.g. a cold and your symptoms are head related. As somebody else said, illness is just not black and white.

My DS tripped over at rugby yesterday, took paracetamol etc., this morning he was trying to crank a sprain into a fracture.

I told him I needed him to hand over the controls for the X box if he had a poorly hand.

The fracture has now been downgraded to a slight niggle with a side order of possible sprain. Funny that.

Are you a SAHM OP ? In our house if you could get out if bed you went to school/work with the understanding that if you still felt awful at morning break a parent would fetch you -We both worked ft and it wasn't easy just to drop everything .Tough love I know .My Dd1never had a day off sick until second year sixth when she had flu .Dd 2 was not quite so robust but rarely had a day off either -and when she was,she stayed in bed (By then I could normally work at home if need be) Unles she was DV , doubled up with pain(Dd1andI both really suffered with period pains but co codamol usually sorted)or obviously really coughing and spluttering I don't suppose I'd have kept her off school in first place .And I most certainly would not have let her go to the party

And as I said, of course there are lots of who shouldn't be in school or work. I very clearly said that. And I salsa said they shouldn't be in school or work for their own benefit and that of the other children or colleagues. And I have clearly said upthread, that there is no suggestion that individual people are lying about being ill.

DoJo are you really saying that there are never people off work or school who could or should be there?
I think the evidence of this is huge. LEAs have staff devoted to following up persistent absence (which is often accompanied by sick notes from parents) and companies have HR spending huge amounts of time in following up sickness and disciplining those who unnecessarily take time off. Have you never heard someone refer to having a duvet day? There are statutory guidelines for producing sick notes from doctors after specific periods of sickness at work. Schools ring people up to find out how lengthy absence is likely to be and keep lists of those who are persistently ill and I form social services who might get involved.

There is loads of evidence that people are not al work or school when they could be. This is true, whilst at the same time it is true that there are people every day who DO need to be off work and off school.

At the end of the day we all make judgements about whether to go to work or to send our children. Yes we have different pain thresholds and some people have complex illnesses. All of that is acknowledged. I am not saying everyone off work is skiving or a lightweight. I'm sure though that most of us can think of times we or the kids have had a day off and by mid morning realise actually we might have managed to work.....and I know we don't have that full information at the time of decision making. It is those marginal situations where it is hard to know what to do. Some people in those marginal situations soldier on (usually correctly, sometimes incorrectly) and others decide to stay at home much more readily.

And then there is the issue of what you do in the evening. Regarding children, I think we could consider the message we send them about time off - are we consistent and do we send the message that time off is to be taken seriously, not lightly? Are we building them up to be resilient and reliable, or a bit flaky? Again, for anyone who isn't hearing me say it, of course there are times when staying at home is exactly the right thing to do, and there might be an occasional time when an evening activity is the right thing too - but we are talking about general principles here and on that basis, I think being at home in the evening after a day off for genuine significant illness is the right thing for the sick child, other children and in terms of the messages it sends to the child.

I would say no. If you are too ill for school then it's no party.

I did once stop by a work christmas night out after calling in sick. However I just went to drop off the secret santa gift, I had a quick glass of fresh orange and left after 10 mins. They could see I was ill but I didn't want to mess up the whole secret santa gift exchange. I never got in trouble for that as it was clear I was not faking it.

No school, no party.

I'd just like to join the others who have pointed out that dismissing period pains isn't very helpful.

It can be a hard slog to get anywhere with a gp to even get a referral to a gynaecologist - it's pure luck of the draw whether you get to talk to someone with any sympathy who doesn't consider it 'one of those things' or you need to present x number of times before they'll even consider it an issue.

Then it requires time and patience to find the cause and a treatment (if there is one) and the possibility of it recurring or a medication stopping working.

It might be something you've never experienced - good for you - but cramps can absolutely be debilitating. Being woken by pain in a cold clammy sweat needing to vomit and unable to move isn't fun and made much much worse by people writing it off as weak and unnecessary.

Isn't it treated as an unauthorised absence, Quite? It might focus the parents minds if it was.
I can't imagine the Head at our school seeing supposedly sick kids hanging around the school gates at home time ready to go shopping and letting it go unremarked!!!

Nope in our house it would be a no x

Quitethewoodsman, not at doesn't sound acceptable, but I can believe it happens.
I have known parents lie about childrens illness, as well as knowingly allow time off for extremely minor ailments. This week a boy didn't come in (sick note to say he was confined to bed with DV) but turned out he was at a major sporting fixture - seen by a member of staff who had taken holiday to be there. The school won't pursue it though.
I have personally known colleagues be off sick the day of the Christmas party, come out and get rat arsed at the party and then Be off again the next day. There was a disciplinary following that one.

With children and the teenagers going shopping after a day off sick, they are children and how are they going to learn that this is inappropriate in lots of ways if parents allow it?

No not a SAHM postchildren - I wish I was, I'm knackered, but also a lone parent so no chance of that! I am self employed though and so often work at home - I think I said in a previous post it is much easier to "give in" and let DD stay at home now than it was when I worked in an office. Having said that, I am usually more of the mind to say see how it goes and I'll come and get you if you need to come home and DD takes very little time off school. I come from a family where you were just sent to school unless you were really really sick - in fact my DF was once sent to school by his mum when he had diptheria! - however I do also think it's important to listen to your body and sometimes you (adults and children) need to rest and not push on through and make yourself more ill so I don't think it's always clear cut. I think we all have met people who take advantage and are off work a lot for spurious excuses, but also I don't like people who go to work and infect everyone else - when I was a manager I did sometimes send people home when they were clearly too ill and likely to be infectious.

Cornetton, I don't think people have been dismissing severe period pains. Perhaps you are overly sensitive about it and seeing criticism which isn't there.
Clearly some people have terrible problems with periods and will need time off work. Awful for them to be in that situation.
I think that posters were saying we shouldn't EXPECT periods to have those kind of consequences as a matter of course. MOST people won't need time off for period pains, so we shouldn't look at our DD who are about up start their periods and EXPECT there to be an increase in time off. There could be and that will be unfortunate, but not the norm.

I think the thing about period pains was because I gave that as an example of something that wasn't infectious and so the concern about it being passed on wouldn't be there (and also people were questioning whether it was her periods, which is unlikely). I had bad period pains at school too and remember my mum having to come in and collect me, so I hope DD doesn't suffer. I don't think we had very good drugs in those days!

DoJo are you really saying that there are never people off work or school who could or should be there?

No, I was just asking for evidence because you seemed so sure that this was a huge problem, whereas I don't think I have ever experienced it - in fact, the places I have worked always seem to have more of a problem that people who shouldn't be in work do come in (which more than outweighed those who would take time off for any reason to be honest). Most organisations which have worryingly poor sickness records look to themselves to see why their workers are unmotivated in my experience.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen at all, just that the way you worded it made it sound as though there was some national statistic or similar that you were referring to. If not, then it was a case of my misinterpretation, for which I apologise.

You're probably right chocolatewombat it was the comment of "Don't hire women - they will miss at least one day sick out of every 28." That prompted my post. I am quite sensitive to being criticised for workplace sexism over something that exists and can take years to sort out fully. It's definitely a button pusher

It was a complete digression from the original post which fwiw OP I think your stance was correct. No school, no socialising.

DoJo - after more years than I care to admit to, in teaching, we've heard it all in terms of dc not being brought in because....

"It's their birthday"
"Their Nan is poorly"
"They need new shoes"
"We went out last night"
"We've got to go shopping"
"They didn't want to come"
"I wanted their company - I don't like being on my own"

etc.,etc. ......these are all excuses that the parents have delivered to the school in a 'thinking it's entirely reasonable' type way, I'm not even starting on the things they also do, but at least have the level of understanding to know that it isn't a reason to be off school, so make up something else.
I presume the parents think these are entirely reasonable reasons to keep their dc off school, because their parents let them sty off for same reasons....although that part is just presumption on my part.

we are talking about general principles here and on that basis, I think being at home in the evening after a day off for genuine significant illness is the right thing for the sick child, other children and in terms of the messages it sends to the child.

Your views do come across as being somewhat cynical. 'Genuine' illness? Why not start from a position of trusting your child/colleague, rather than anticipating that they could be pulling a fast one? I do agree with DoJo's suggestion that high levels of absenteeism are often an indicator of issues within an organisation.