To think a child shouldn't be off sick from school but be able to go shopping with parent?

[AlexanderandPie]

Or is this acceptable?

DS has asthma, usually triggered by a mild cold or weather. The problem is he goes down hill very quickly, so whilst he's at risk of an attack or needing more of his inhaler, I do keep him off of nursery and we will go out shopping or whatever else. Mainly because I recognise the signs of how ill he is quicker than his teacher who has another 10 children to worry about.

School has the 24 hour rule after puking (or 48 they can't seem to decide). 99% of the time when mine pukes it's a too much biscuits/excitement thing not a bug. So we will sometimes go on a nice shopping trip!! Naughty us.

Pinkponiesrock .....you can pass on sick bugs in tescos unless you stop your child touching any surface that could be touched by others including the shopping trolley and conveyor belt let alone any food items. When I was going through chemo I was advised to avoid public areas like this and if I had to use them to sanitise my hands regularly around the shop or wear disposable gloves.
The 48 rule is because the bacteria and viruses are still living in your gut after you feel better but can be passed on so if a child mouths something or licks their hand, picks nose scratches self and then touches something that others touch the bug is passed on. Even older children are bad for this, and many adults (how many don't wash their hands after visiting the loo for example). So when you pop to the shop you could be making someone else pop to the hospital isn't it better to do an online or ask a friend to pick up things for you for 2 days than kill someone?

My son needed an operation resulting n 2 weeks recovery at home, in that time I took him shopping and out for a meal as he couldn't stay cooped up for that length of time. If he us off sick yes he does come shopping as I still need to feed him. When he has a hospital appointment we pop into a shop on the way home. Life does not stop just because he has a genuine reason to be home from school.

Yes. But the parent should walk in front ringing a bell and shouting 'Unclean!!' Just in case

I actually laughed out loud at this. Not just LOLed but genuine laughter.

I’m pretty strict about school attendance but if the dc do have to be off then i’d have no issue taking them out if appropriate. Sometimes it’s better to get them up and about than to leave them on the sofa - especially if they’re close to going back to school and you want to properly check energy levels.

bookmum08 - how can you be 100% sure what has caused the latest episode of vomit unless you test a sample? 25 years of working with parents who can explain that vomit by all the things you list and magically someone else's child who hasn't been over excited, eaten too much, teething, hung upside down too long, jumped on a bouncy castle, etc...is pucking their guts out the next day oh and another one oh and the teacher, but little angle wasn't the cause because they were only sick once.....sick bugs can only be a one off vomit or even just a feeling crap but never for that little fragile flower who cant eat a cake without pucking if its a work day tomorrow. I've even had the ones who's parents have been off ill with stomach bugs but no little Johnny was only sick once because it was a new yoghurt, teeth etc.

If it's your child, it's your business to judge appropriately. Otherwise, it's not. Simples.

I'm always grateful that I'm not in England when I see threads like this.

The nanny state-ing about school is insane! I couldn't handle it.

I'm my children's mother. If I think they need to be off school, they'll be off school end of story.

Obviously our Dept of Education steps in if there's a lot of school missed or whatever. But the nazi-esque approach (if school threads on here are to be believed) would do my head in!

Anyway - in the grand scheme of things, what are the detrimental consequences of a child who may or may not be sick missing one day off school, and also being out shopping with a parent?

Don't be ridiculous.

Our school has a 48 hour rule after D&V so typically you have a child who feels unwell for one day, is fine and energetic the next but not allowed at school.

Or, you have a child who is convalescing (lovely old-fashioned word for what is perhaps an old-fashioned concept), so has had a throat infection or similar, only had a temperature for one day but still has a sore throat, low energy and is generally 'feeling unwell' for much longer. They're not infectious, they're not energetic but they can wander round some shops.

why do you care though?

Have done it a couple of times with DS - when he gets ill he gets viral wheeze so if he coughs he needs a nebuliser (he is 5). The time and energy it would take for me to sort out the school having one and the teacher doing it for so far 2 days is simply not worth it. He is not contagious anymore (told by doctor) and he is fine unless he gets breathless by a coughing fit. I told the teacher and she agreed (she did not need the extra work either).

The other time he choked on food at school and threw up - 48 hour ban. Absolutely nothing wrong with him at all so precautionary. On the second day I took him to the cinema (he is prone to it he did it again but was a Friday, the third and final time the teacher let him stay at school).

If theres something you need then why would it be wrong. Sometimes you just have to go out. Obviously if its highly contagious then its a big no. But otherwise i dont see an issue. You still have to eat, wash etc although these days you can order the shopping in so dont need to go out. But not everyone wants to do that and if youve been stuck in for a few days with a poorly child, its nice to get out for a bit.

Of course, it's ok. You can't compare long day at school and quick visit to a shop to get milk, bread and paracetamol. What if you need to go to a farmacy to get prescribed medicine? What to do with a sick child in this situation?

When I worked in Education Welfare we regularly did truancy patrols with the police around the city centre.

DD2 (6) was off school yesterday because she told me she felt like she was going to be sick about 10 minutes before we’d leave in the morning. She wasn’t sick, she’s had a cold & been quite delicate over the weekend (she’s not usually delicate!), I kept her off & she perked up after a couple of hours & was her usual self after lunch.
She would have been fine going to the shops (we didn’t!), & we picked DD1 up at the end of the school day, she was running around the playground with the rest of them!

why not? With a wee one, you put them in a buggy with a blanket, they get fresh air and you get on with your day.

When they get really too big for the buggy, then it depends if they should be laying down on the sofa or are fit enough to walk. It's cruel to take them out when they are really poorly, but a bit of air if they are ok between naps is fine.

DD was sick at 8am, felt better by 9am, but had to stay off because of the 24 hour vomiting rule. We went shopping and out to lunch.

jannier I know my kid and can tell when it's the 'overexcited' puking. It usually follows an exciting day with Auntie or Granma and having too much Maccyds and ice cream etc and being over tired and pretty much it ends up with "tummy hurts I can't sleep" and around midnight comes the blurrrrrgh and then she is fine!! She is almost 10 so we are kinda used to it now!!!
(of course we could eat less Maccyds but I like them to).

When I worked in Education Welfare we regularly did truancy patrols with the police around the city centre

What has that got to do with the question here?

I assumed the child in question was with a parent. If it was a 14-year-old in the town center on a school day I’d be questioning it.

You sound like my ex-boss who raised a stink when he saw a colleague ‘shopping’ on his sick day. In actuality he was coming back from Boots & lived above a shop.
This happened to me. I had tonsilitis in my 20s when I lived alone. I went to the doctor's surgery, was signed off of work for 3 days and got a prescription for antibiotics. I had little food in the house and the prescription said to take the antiobiotics with food. After the doctor I went to the pharmacy and they said there was a 20 minutes wait so I literally dragged my sorry fever-sweating self into the M&S food next door and picked up 2 cartons of soup. Saw the HR lady from work who had me formally disciplined. When I was better I had to get a letter from the doctor (in addition to the sick note), show a copy of my prescription and the M&S receipt with the time I made the purchase vs. the doctor appointment time and the prescription label time, and involve a senior director to get the stupid HR woman's complaint off of my permanent file and I'm sure the director still thought I was some kind of skiver at the end of it rather than the HR woman was utterly insane (she showed this on several occasions, not just to me).

YABU, sometimes you need to get a bit of shopping and the children have to come along, you can't leave them at home.
Schools have that 48hr rule and sometimes if it's a single instance of sickness and they're fine for the other 47 hrs but can't go back to school.

I let my two eldest have one day off a year in June or July from school for no reason, most of the time it's separate and we do something fun just the two of us.
A lot of people would frown on it but I couldn't care less, we have so much fun on those days and I couldn't ever feel guilty or apologise for it, those are the days that help make my children's childhood memorable in a good way.

If the child is too young to be left and not vomiting, with diarrhoea, highly contagious or actually bed bound, then the parent can decide whether they will be OK to pop out for an hour of errands like food shopping. It's likely they may have been on the way back from the doctor or pharmacy.

YABU.

It makes perfect sense to keep an ill child from school and - if infectious - this avoids interaction in confined spaces and passing illness onto other children and teachers. Going out to local shops for a short while seems fine and the fresh air will likely help.

Very difficult to understand why its (a) any business of OP and (b) how OP has the audacity to form judgement about the care of somebody else's child when OP cannot possibly be in any sort of informed position to do so.

jannier
If my child has been sick once 30 hours earlier and is showing no further symptoms, is eating normally etc but is still within the schools mandatory 48 hour period I don't think they present a huge contagion risk.
DS2 does sometimes vomit if overexcited / laughing too much when eating. Never have any of us fallen sick after once of these events but technically I should keep him off school for 48 hours.