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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel really upset that a mum sent her child to school ill again

795 replies

Yesitismeagain · 05/02/2015 17:01

I work in a primary school. One boy (age 9) cried today because he felt so unwell. He was ill yesterday (temperature and feeling ill with it) and his parents were called early, but they didn't come till normal pick up.

Today he was back in, but was obviously very unwell from the start. The school phoned by 9.30am to come and get him. He was crying, shivering and just lying on the floor in the 'sick room' (a small room off the office).

By 2pm a parent still hadn't arrived. The office were told that the neither parent could come as they work.

Is it just me that this is neglect?

OP posts:
MillionToOneChances · 05/02/2015 22:37

I would imagine the emergency contacts were parents of children in the same class, knew the child had been ill the previous day and thought the parents were taking the mickey sending him to school ill and expecting them to collect him at 9:30am. It's not like he went downhill, he was properly ill from the previous day.

As a childminder, I've been called by a few parents and brought their kids back here to wait for a parent to make their way home, or in some cases I've kept the child until normal time if they perked up and were okay to be kept here but apart from the other children. I would be deeply unimpressed in this scenario and might refuse assuming the parents would be forced to leave work.

BMW6 · 05/02/2015 22:42

*Not a good idea to have both parents in jobs that can't be left in an emergency - seriously?!!

Mothers of the world, once you have procreated it is your duty to give up your hard won career in order to be available, should it be requested, at the drop of a hat (or at least within 30 minutes).

Ffs this thread is churning out some sanctimonious bullshit.*

Absolute crap. Once you have procreated it absolutely IS your responsibility to look after YOUR child - at the drop of a hat if needs be. Who else would have that prime responsibilty (and why do you assume it must be the Mother?)

Of course it may mot be easy - but these are the changes you make when you decide to have children.

MidniteScribbler · 05/02/2015 22:43

Thirty minutes is unrealistic for most people. Even the child not being picked up immediately on the first day they called the parents could be forgivable depending on the circumstances (we have a lot of parents in our schools that work in the medical and legal professions and they may be required to have their phones off for several hours or more at a time). But there is no way that child should have been sent to school on the second day, and the parents can't claim they didn't know he was sick. We have a sick bay and a lovely grandmotherly type school office lady that will keep on eye on sick kids, but it should not be seen as a childcare option.

Permanentlyexhausted · 05/02/2015 22:45

I'm sorry to hear that too MrsMot. I wasn't suggesting that it was fine to leave the child in school, just feeling frustrated at the exaggeration.

Children can go downhill very quickly. I had no idea my child was ill when I left for work that morning so I dropped her at childcare. Luckily DH was able to collect her when we were phoned a couple of hours later. She appeared to have recovered completely the following morning (although we were all at home that day so she didn't go to childcare). How wrong I was. As a result, I can see that it might well be possible for the parents not to realise the child was still ill on day 2.

fedupbutfine · 05/02/2015 22:46

Not a good idea to have both parents in jobs that can't be left in an emergency

I am a single parent in a job that can't easily be left in an emergency. What the fuck do I do? Not work?

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 05/02/2015 22:54

I have every sympathy for working parents who can't collect a child unexpectedly. However, you KNOW if you are in this situation, you know if you have a job where you can't just leave if you are called, and therefore it is your responsibility to have someone on the emergency contact list who CAN collect you child for you if something happens. It's tough, it can be a right shitter, but it IS your responsibility.

BMW6 · 05/02/2015 22:59

fedupbutfine there was a plural - Parents, not Parent......

As a single parent I assume you have emergency contacts who can collect your child and take home to look after until you can leave work.

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 05/02/2015 23:04

fedupbutfine You need to think of a solution, what can you do if your child is ill at school tomorrow and you can't collect, who can you have as back up in emergencies for you? Do you have a number of friends you could try, or neighbours, or childcare workers who could do it if it's there day off? You might need to have quite a list of people you've asked a some could be able to do it on certain days and certain circumstances etc

MidniteScribbler · 05/02/2015 23:04

As a single parent I assume you have emergency contacts who can collect your child and take home to look after until you can leave work.'

Where do you find these emergency contacts from? I have no family, and no friends who could just leave their own jobs to pick up someone else's child. It's too simplistic to say 'oh just have an emergency contact', not everyone has that luxury.

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 05/02/2015 23:06

Do you know other single parents or people who would also struggle to collect? If so, you could pool together and all be each other's emergency call outs for the times that you could do. Yes, it might be a logistical problem but, it really does need to be thought about and organised in advance.

MinceSpy · 05/02/2015 23:06

Successive governments have turned primary school into childcare.

BellsaRinging · 05/02/2015 23:09

Fed up. I totally agree. When I was a single parent I worked ft. Luckily ds was rarely ill and so I didnt have problems the rare times I needed to keep him home. But I did encounter problems at school for being the only emergency contact, and at work over 1/2 hour away. I asked them what I was supposed to do. His dad's dead. My nearest family member was over 3 hours drive away. I had to send him to school, obviously. And I had to work. Aparently I was being obstructive and there had to be someone. There wasn't.

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 05/02/2015 23:11

Midnite Did your child go to a local nursery? Could you ask their old nursery workers if they would be available to collect in an emergency on their days off, or if they could get their shift covered, or even if they could leave work? Yes, you might have to agree to cover their expenses like their shift and a return taxi if they don't drive, but, there has to be a solution that is workable for you. It is only for an emergency but, these things do come up sometimes and the tress of organising emergency cover will be less than the stress of if something terrible happens and you can't collect your child from school, and are feeling under pressure - it will be harder to think of a solution with that pressure on you than to have something planned.

PeruvianFoodLover · 05/02/2015 23:14

And whoever asked, SS are not going to do anything too terrible but they will speak to the parents and make them understand that they need to reorganise things so that this doesn’t happen again and to clarify with them that if the school tells them their son is ill and they need to come, they must come.

Really? My experience is that Soc Serv are so overworked that they often rely on schools to do aspects of their job for them (such as repeatedly asking the school to prevent a child returning home with parents while yet another a court order is sought).
I cannot for one moment envisage a situation (in my area) in which a previously unknown family would be spoken to by a social worker about this. There just aren't the resources to deal with anything other than risk of immediate, serious harm.
Just goes to show that the postcode lottery applies to child safeguarding, as well as NHS care!

Schools who have more control over their home/school agreements may be better placed to deal with this; they could deregister pupils whose parents behave in this way. But for most schools, this is presumably a fairly common occurrence - not all parents are as conscientious as MNers!

helensburgh · 05/02/2015 23:15

The fact they are in healthcare makes it even worse.

Presuming they workmformthe nhs, there is no excuse not to leave.

There are plans for this and it happens all the time.

The nhs will not stop,parents leaving in this situation.

Selfishness

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 05/02/2015 23:15

Apologies if my posts fee like an attack against people with no emergency contact. My intention is to be helpful. If you don't currently have a solution, maybe someone on here will have one that is workable for you. I recognise that it's truly a very difficult situation when you have other commitments.

McFox · 05/02/2015 23:15

BMW6, because it is the mother that the OP has decided is at fault here. Why not the dad?!

And as a parent yes of course you have responsibility for your child, but the point is that running to collect a child is only doable as soon as it is doable, and not a moment sooner. Would you suggest that a surgeon walk out of an operation, a police officer walk off duty, or a teacher walk out of a classroom without completing the task/handing over/sorting out cover etc? No you would, because it isn't in any way practical. So no, being available at the drop of a hat is not a reality for many parents. It is a luxury that only freelancers, the self employed, SAHP etc can claim to have.

306235388 · 05/02/2015 23:21

Unforgiveable but happens all the time. Ds's friend was up vomiting and hallucinating but at school the next day - wtf?

That said, 30 minutes is tight. I'm a SAHM so 9/10 I could be there but if I was working or unavailable then dh works 50 minutes away and other contact is 40 minutes away .

SoonToBeSix · 05/02/2015 23:21

My dc's school closed last winter due to noro.

MidniteScribbler · 05/02/2015 23:24

I'm lucky that I can pick up DS if need be, and if it looks like being more than a day I will call an agency babysitter. He'll be going to my school when he starts at school, so I'll beat that 30 minute time limit everyone thinks should exist lol.

But even as a teacher, I can understand that not every parent is sitting at home with a coffee in their hand just in case the school rings. There are many different scenarios, and as long as a parent is making an effort, and not expecting a free babysitting service, then I'd rather work with them, rather than throw threats of child services or other sanctions against them. A child spending an hour or so sitting in sick bay being 'nanna'd' by our school office lady while the parent , or a parent being evicted because the boss has fired them because they walked out without doing a handover or arranging another cover for their role to hit some 30 minute deadline? What is the better scenario?

Sunnysideup5883 · 05/02/2015 23:26

If you are a surgeon or other high flying NHS professional you can always afford to hire emergency child care

Permanentlyexhausted · 05/02/2015 23:30

Sunnyside - Affording emergency childcare and arranging emergency childcare are two different things. Just because you can afford it doesn't mena someone is willing to provide it.

momb · 05/02/2015 23:32

The issue of emergency contacts is an odd one here, but I think the issue is that the little boy was ill yesterday and still was sent to school today. As a working parent I completely get that it isn't always possible to drop everything to get to school within even an hour when you get the intial call, but to send them in the next day? That is inexcusable imo.
We have a sick child here at the moment. I tried to work from home today (lucky) but was foiled by technology. DH is taking the day off tomorrow (unpaid) as I have to catch up and have visitors. She is distraught at missing school: a special visit today and the school disco tomorrow 'please Mummy please let me go. C was really sick on Sunday and Monday but her mum still let her come to school.' There were at least 4 kids from that friendship group in bed today: I hope C's Mum rethinks her priorities.

2468Motorway · 05/02/2015 23:42

When I was a kid my mum was a SAHM but I can remember being in the school office fro a couple of hours as she couldn't be reached. This must have been pretty common before mobiles.

Many jobs just can't be dropped. You constantly have people on here moaning about the health service well there will have been a few less yesterday.

While I agree sending the child in on day two wasn't a good decision it also wasn't the end if the world.The child likely has a bad cold. IME it is health care profs who send sick kids in to school to tough it out because they are surrounded by very sick people and a child with a cold or a bug probably doesn't seem that poorly.

Lamourestbleu · 06/02/2015 00:19

I work pt, but if I worked ft and neither Dh or myself could pick up a sick child, I'd be in a pickle since I also have no family or friends nearby. However, that is something that would be planned on from day 1. Express my concerns to the school and find other parents in the same situation where we could back each other up and agree to pick them up even if sick!
Save up bit by bit if need be to hire emergency care if my backups failed. Hell I'd offer to pay parents if it means it's more a job than a favour.
It's got to be hard but it's not absolutely impossible.