To think school sickness policy is a ludicrous?

[Pinkvoid]

The same school that have ‘attendance awards’, are always hammering hard to parents about attendance and leave a comment in every school report about your child’s attendance, despite the fact they were off for things that couldn’t be helped such as chicken pox .

I missed a days work yesterday because DS (7) had been sick once the evening before, most likely caused by overeating but I erred on the side of caution. Explained this to the school when I called. He was fine all day yesterday so I sent him in today because why wouldn’t I.

I was already half way to work when I got a phone call telling me to collect him because it was ‘school policy’ that it had to be 48 hours from the last time they vomited. I was pretty furious tbh. Explained that I was two miles away on my way to work which I was due to start in fifteen minutes, I didn’t have anyone else to collect him and that he was absolutely fine/it wasn’t a stomach bug because he’d only been sick once and wasn’t unwell after- it was clearly either overeating or he’d probably been jumping around too much after eating. They weren’t accepting it, insisted I had to collect him and that he couldn’t be in school. So I had to turn around, call in sick at work last minute which they obviously weren’t pleased about and take him home. DS was also upset because he actually loves school and would much prefer to be there than at home bored with me...

AIBU to think they’re being ludicrously over cautious there and common sense should surely prevail? He’s now missed two days of education and I’ve missed two days pay because he vomited once, two nights ago . Also worth noting, I had no idea the school even had a policy, this is the first I’ve heard of it.

Three schools here closed yesterday.
My nephews was one, all this week they’ve had letters stating children need to be at home 48 hours after the last case of sickness or shits.

Text home said a significant number of children have been sent to to school ill on top of many absences, all children need collecting asap as school needs to be deep cleaned.

Brother said loads of pissed off parents on Facebook moaning that they should be allowed back as soon as they stop being sick that they will just say they had headache as they think 48 hours to be clear is ridiculous.

. His mil works at the school and said the amount of children who had either been sent in ill after being sick and having shits during night or who had been if the day before with d and v and ignored policy were almost in triple digits. She said some classes had more ill children in the healthy ones and every class had at least one child vomiting in it.

The thing is (as MANY people have said) thete is no way from looking to tell why someone has vomited. If you havr that power then you better sell your skills to medical research

Parents can absolutely know why their own children vomited. My son vomits very often due to his medical condition. He is not contagious in any way, he is no harm to anyone else. But according to posters here I should keep him home for 48 hours every time anyway, because that is the rule (and they are too dim to understand that it cannot apply to everyone).

Mum DD vomits when she gets a cough. At this time of year she would never attended school if I kept her off for 48 hours each time!

Parents can absolutely know why their own children vomited. My son vomits very often due to his medical condition. He is not contagious in any way, he is no harm to anyone else.
There's always one who chips in with 'but my child and their condition'.
If there is an ongoing medical reason then school would surely be aware and have things in place for it. I know ours does. It doesn't change the fact guidelines exist for a reason. (But as this thread shows lots and lots of people think they can decide if another human s contagious or not so they'll just chance everyone else's health out of yheir own arrogance).

It still doesn't change the fact that not you nor any othet parent (whatever condition a child has) has the superpower to identify whether vomiting is caused by a bug or not. If you have that skill then modern medicine desperately needs your secret.

Tinysparklyshoes, PP have clearly said, many times, that if there is an ongoing medical condition causing vomiting then most schools acknowledge this and the child does not have to follow the 48hr rule. A friend's DS has migraine and vomits once with that. She has a doctors letter explaining his migraine and so the school are aware that if he vomits when suffering that he is most likely not ill.

If you have decided not to advise your school of your child's condition then more fool you. For everyone else, just keep your child home and stop being a selfish twat.

Some parents do know that's it's likely not D&V.
Most parents do not know for certain, and many parents do not care ayway but send their sick kids to school because it's convenient for them - or so they think, because the bug will come back, some schools had to close so ultimately there will be many more days of "inconvenience" for them (and poor kids sent to school when they are feeling poorly)

Even if your kids has a condition that makes him vomit, he's unlikely to be immune to the D&V bug anyway!

Sorry op, I'm on the side of the school- here's why.
Last week, ds2 vomited. Bloody disgusting, had to throw some bedding away. No other symptoms, no fever, nothing. Figured what I'd fed him was a miss next time (he's never eaten it before) since ds1 was absolutely fine. No more sickness.
Next night, about 24hours later to the dot, ds1 does the exact same. Chucks up. No other symptoms again. Didn't happen again either. He was off for the required 48hours after. Son was bored stiff, wanted to be at school like yours. But what I thought was 'obviously not a bug' (my words) clearly was. Fortunately I didn't get it.

I get that you're different in that you have work relying on and putting pressure on you to be in, but the rule is there for a reason.

Tinysparklyshoes, PP have clearly said, many times, that if there is an ongoing medical condition causing vomiting then most schools acknowledge this and the child does not have to follow the 48hr rule

Well since I was responding to a poster that specifically said the opposite, I'll disagree.

t still doesn't change the fact that not you nor any othet parent (whatever condition a child has) has the superpower to identify whether vomiting is caused by a bug or not. If you have that skill then modern medicine desperately needs your secret

Modern medicine can already do that, and so can parents with half a brain. Not our fault if you can't.

Bollocks. Disagree all you want, it doesn't change the fact that you are being deliberately obtuse and a GF.

Even if your kids has a condition that makes him vomit, he's unlikely to be immune to the D&V bug anyway!
That's my point.

Most people I know can't look at a person and say 'D&V bug'. Obviously on MN there are people who are so enlightened that thry can
Modern medicine can already do that, and so can parents with half a brain. Not our fault if you can't.
Modern medicine can by swabs etc and can make eductated judgemebts by looking at a range of symptoms but even then they can't look at a child ahd say "I am certain that this child who has been sick has no virus/bacteria and is not contagious at all".
I'd argue the people who believe they can identify the presence/absence of bacteria/viruses which are invisible to the naked eye are the ones with half a brain (and probably the ones who send their kids to school after throwing up)

Last time I was at the Dr with some awful symptoms they said do x y z for 5 days and if it clears up it's probably a virus but if it staus then it's probably bacterial and we'll get antibiotics. I ended up needing antibiotics but my Dr sure could have done with thr MN superpower of identifying bacteria/viruses/other reasons to vomit just by looking at me. The NHS could save millions if us mere mortals had your talent.

If ds vomits straight after a coughing fit or eating I know I can be 99% sure that it is asthma/reflux.

If he vomited and it wasn’t after coughing/eating I would treat it as a bug even if it is still most likely asthma/reflux related.

If he vomited more than once I would treat as a bug.

If there is a medical cause for vomiting then in most cases parents will know that cause like the back of their hand and be able to make a pretty accurate judgement call as to
If it is due to the condition.

Even if your kids has a condition that makes him vomit, he's unlikely to be immune to the D&V bug anyway!

Right, so what do you want parents like me to do? Some of you are saying "any vomit, keep him home for 2 days," some of you are saying "obviously you're exempt" but then" well he might have a bug and you wouldn't know".

So what do you want exactly? Keep him home or not? Do tell.

Sirzy
I would agree that where is a medical condition parents need to make the best call they can with the information available. E.g. lots of bugs in school probably keep off for 48 hours. But middle of spring, not bug season then send to school (because school should be informed of the condition anyway and home could say when thr child last vomited in order for an appropriate response should it be an issue in school).

My issue is with people suggesting thry can send their child in sick because they have a condition as if somehow they (because they have more than half a brain) can obviously say something isn't a bug. Nobody has that power.

My DGD's school has the same policy. My DGD (11) suffers from migraines and has occasionally had one whilst at school. About a year ago,my DD had a call early afternoon asking her to collect DGD from school as she had a migraine and had been sick once because of it. DD took DGD home,gave her some painkillers and put her to bed for the rest of the afternoon. By 7pm that evening she was as right as rain. DD sent her to school the next day and the teacher started quizzing her about why she was in school as she had been sick the day before?! DGD told her it was because of the migraine,it wasn't a sickness bug but this wasn't good enough for the teacher and my DD got a call from the school office,saying that she had to come and get her DD. My DD was furious and said that it had been a migraine,and had she never heard of someone being sick from a migraine? And it's therefore not contagious! The woman in the school office took some convincing. I can understand totally insisting they stay off for 48 hours after a stomach bug,but after a migraine?

My issue is with people suggesting thry can send their child in sick because they have a condition as if somehow they (because they have more than half a brain) can obviously say something isn't a bug. Nobody has that power

You don't directly answer my question but you appear to be saying my child should never go to school because there is the possibility that I can't tell the difference between the vomiting from his condition and a sickness bug, despite 10 years experience with it?
Surely not? You wouldn't be that disabilist would you?

you appear to be saying my child should never go to school because there is the possibility that I can't tell the difference between the vomiting from his condition and a sickness bug, despite 10 years experience with it?
Except I'm not saying they should never go to school. Don't exaggerate.

you wouldn't be that disabilist would you?
Oh here we go.
Person suggests that there's a reason for the guidelines and that no parent can say their child doesn't have a bug so that's disabilist?

I've already outlined what should happen if a child has a long term condition. Amd funnily enough it doesnt mean saying a child shouldnt attend school.

Are you saying that my child should stay at home for 2 days every time he vomits, yes or no? It's a simple question.

If it's sickness season and there's a lot of sickness going around then yes. You don't have the ability to say whether it's a bug going round school or not.

If it's not sickness season then I would send him in (assuming school are aware of his condition) and inform them when he was last sick so that should he become unwell at school they can send him home.

(Which is pretty much what I said earlier on in the thread)

A single unexplained vomit in a young child has for adults turned out to be full blown norovirus in our family 48 hours later more than once!!

My daughter has a sensitive gag reflex and can be sick from crying or coughing however - I don’t even mention this to school as it would be ridiculous! I know the difference to a suspicious puke though.

By the way, who lets their child eat so much they might be sick?! Can’t say that’s ever happened to me! Unless they were doing trampolining or somersaults straight after I’d say it sounds like a bug!

Put it this way if a student has a condition severe enough and long term enough to be an issue then school should be aware and school/home should have met and discussed the way it is managed, any extenuating circumstanves etc (which is wjat happens in every school I have worked in)

I work in a school, nearly every year we have to go through the rigmarole of closing the school (so all pupils out) having a specialist team come in and do a deep clean because some parent decided to ignore the guidelines and send their child to school with S&D, giving it to numerous children who then spread it by being sick at school, the rules are there for a reason!!

The rules regarding sickness are there for a reason. The rule is 48 hours after last vomiting episode and YABU not to stick to that.

Having said that, I agree about attendance awards, they're bonkers IMO. It's just rewarding a child for having good health, nothing more than that. I don't even comment on them when DDs bring them home. (They get praised for behavioural awards I hasten to add!)

They get praised for behavioural awards I hasten to add!
I'm with you on attendanve awards but you're brave for saying you praise behaviour awards. Often it's only time before someone will tell you that it's awful to celebrate good behaviour because it might upset someone.

If you can't tell the difference between parents who send sick children to school and parents who know their children are not ill, there is no help for you

I’m currently watching 3 small children one is flaked out on the sofa pale and ill looking and near tears has been sick on average hourly.

The other one is projectile vomiting constantly and is likely to be admitted to hospital after he sees the ooh doctor.

The third was sick once last night and has spent the day almost bouncing off the walls playing happily.

All 3 have a virus that is highly contagious and causes D&V and lasts for around 6/7 days I know this for a fact. If I had followed the they are fine School of thought with the third (who incidentally got sick first) then chances are my village school would be closed next week.