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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to feel so angry about the kid at school with a streaming cold?

99 replies

fircone · 18/09/2007 10:06

I'm not cross with the kid - I felt sorry for her. But her mother came in yesterday with the poor child who obviously had a temperature - hot face, rheumy eyes - and said to the teacher, "Oh, she's a bit poorly - call me if she gets any worse" and then the child is there this morning with an absolutely streaming cold, crying and her mother says "She's got plenty of tissues" and waltzes out. I was puce with rage. How dare this woman leave a child who is clearly ill, and also inflict the germ on every other 4-year-old in the class?
Anyway, am I going round the bend because I'm thinking of writing a note to the headmistress to ask her to remind parents that school is not a suitable place for SICK children.

OP posts:
madness · 18/09/2007 12:12

fircone, I can't tell whether any of my dc have a temp unless I touvh them, so certainly would not have been able to tell by just looking at a child (that isn;t even mine).
Also, which neighboughs should I ask? The ones that are on holiday in Spain, working, who is a CM and already hads several other children to look after, the one with a stroke? Yes, DH has taken ds to his work and put him in his office, much better then taking him to school.

Can you see I really don't want to do my boring work on the computer

madness · 18/09/2007 12:14

removing toys thrown in toilet=dh job

duchesse · 18/09/2007 12:16

Also soggy loo paper in wads? But twas only 11am. Would have had to rush the children upstairs to the loo for the rest of the day (not easy when potty training two of them at once)**Yes, my son took 2 years to potty-train. Has anybody else had this problem? He's all potty-trained now at 14, but it was touch and go until 10...

madness · 18/09/2007 12:19

tricky, would probably have put them back in nappies

Didn't start potty training dd and ds till they were 3 y

ledodgy · 18/09/2007 12:20

Well I sent my 4 year old dd in yesterday with a streaming cold and i'm a sahm. She'd had the same thing the day before and it didn't stop her going to the park with her dad to practise riding her bike without her stabilisers so I knew that she would feel better as the day went on. I also told the teacher to ring me if she got any worse. It was the beginning of her first full day week in and I was reluctant to keep her off for having a cold especially when half the class have the same one. Sure enough she managed the whole day, the teacher didn't need to ring me and she came out smiling telling me all about words beginning with 's'. I made a judgement so shoot me. How do you know that the 4 year old was crying because she felt ill and not because she was reluctant to go because she was anxious like so many who have just started in reception? You also don't know she had a temperature.

cornsilk · 18/09/2007 12:26

If she's too poorly for school teacher will send her home.

ScottishMummy · 18/09/2007 12:28

none of your business frankly, u might not like it but the school and school nurse can assess the situation and if they are unhappy/worried will deal with it

fireflyfairy2 · 18/09/2007 12:30

My dd said she had a sore tummy this morning. But as soon as she saw my friend dropping off her baby for me to mind for a few hours, she was suddenly better... Said she wanted to go to the park with baby, walk him outsid etc.. I said "Thought you were sick" "Oh No... I'm not sick!"

Right you are then...off to school with you!

Also one time dd told the teacher at school she was sick, so teacher called me & I went to get her.. there she was, smiling from ear to ear.. she skipped down the path!!

The nrxt time the teacher called me, we agreed that she would just call me in future if dd was vomiting!!

Original poster
fircone · 18/09/2007 12:49

None of my business?! Surely it is very much my business if someone is going to inflinct their diseases on me? So if someone came in with bird flu it would be fine - 'they might have difficulty getting childcare'. Now wait for it: the humourless posters who pile in and state that actually there've only been two cases of bird flu blah blah...

OP posts:
Edmund37 · 18/09/2007 12:52

I can sympathise with this mum a bit. When I worked and as a single parent, I often used to have to put DD into school, knowing the school would ring an hour later to pick her up - just so work new I wasn't pulling a fast one. Sometimes these things have to be done, I'm sure she would have far rather kept the child with her if it had been possible.

But on the other hand, I wouldn't put the child through the stress of being left at school if they were quite obviously suffering with more than a runny nose and cough - it's a tricky one to balance, maybe her dd is an expert at playing the 'sick' card, you just don't know unfortunately.

ledodgy · 18/09/2007 12:52

The child had a streaming cold, children get colds she probably got it from another child at school in the first place.

InMyHumbleOpinion · 18/09/2007 12:54

My ds1 often looks extermely ill, especially if he has had a screaming tantrum on the way to school. He has red face, runny eyes, snotty nose, the works. But he's not ill.

HOWEVER I don't like the idea of children being sent in when clearly very ill, so will withold judgement here.

magnolia74 · 18/09/2007 12:55

But fircone this is a cold not bird flu Ok if the child was very poorly then they shouldn't have been at school but your child is going to get whats going around at some point whether it's from a very poorly child or one with just sniffles!

LyraBelacqua · 18/09/2007 12:58

If a child looks and feels ill, they're probably too ill to be in school. If a child just has a runny nose or cough but otherwise looks and feels fine, then they should be at school imo. Colds can leave you feeling pretty terrible if you get a bad one.

rosierooster · 18/09/2007 12:58

"Unless they are so ill they can't walk kids should be in school" this is what a doctor friend of mine said to me - she sent hers in with rubella!
Sometimes colds look worse than they are. I think it is parental choice and at the end of the day it is only a cold so I don't think I would dwell on it.

Hulababy · 18/09/2007 13:00

A child should only be at school if they can fully partici[ate in the day's activities, without requiring too much additional help and support (i.e. time) from the teacher. It isn't fair on the teacher, other staff or the other children otherwise, and it certainly isn't fair on the child to be there feeling rotten.

If a child was so ill he/she was crying - presumably not normally crying when left - then it seems unfair to have her there, especially at just age 4 and I assume just started school.

lulumama · 18/09/2007 13:01

fircone on Tue 18-Sep-07 12:49:17
None of my business?! Surely it is very much my business if someone is going to inflinct their diseases on me?

but if you are going to live by that rule, your children will miss a lot of school, and you shouldn;t really take them out in public, just in case.

a cold is not life threatening.it is hardly a terrible disease.

Original poster
fircone · 18/09/2007 13:08

I have now recovered my equilibrium, and yes, it is only a cold, but it was just this woman's attitude and the look of that poor child, who was definitely feeling rotten. She picked up the child at lunchtime, when I collect dd, and this child doesn't normally do half-days so I guess the teacher HAD summoned the mother to take her home.

OP posts:
Lorayn · 18/09/2007 13:17

Maybe the mother had no other choice and felt absolutely awful for leaving her there. There were times I couldnt keep my son off nursery as I had no-one else to have him and I had to go into work. When I recieved a call from the nursery saying he had been sick and could I collect him my boss was much more understanding although still not incredibly impressed.
I would just like to add I lost my job down to having time off for children's illnesses, and then as a result, lost my house.

ScottishMummy · 18/09/2007 13:29

blimey
are you okay now?

Lorayn · 18/09/2007 13:29

Yeah, I'm fine now

ScottishMummy · 18/09/2007 13:39

glad to hear that

duchesse · 18/09/2007 13:48

And as if on cue, my nephew's school has just rung me from 200 miles away to tell me he has fallen over in the playground and needs to go and have an x-ray, and they cannot get hold of my sister, and were wondering if I could go and fetch him. That is seriously how isolated she is. It is possible, even in suburban Kent.

ScottishMummy · 18/09/2007 14:01

oo duchesse hope the wee one is okay

Emprexia · 18/09/2007 14:18

Like i said Lulumama, just because a cold isn't terrible to you or your kids, doesn't mean it isn't to another child in the class.

If its just a bit of a sniffle, fine, but if your kid had a bad cold, they should be kept home.

Its the attitude ofsending sick kids to school that ends up with scenarios like the one at my school when they ended up closing the school because half of the pupils and students ended up off sick with a flu virus.

Or the one at the nursery i worked at when the "oh its just a cold" resulted in me being in the ER with suspected pneumonia and 3 other memebers of staff needing time off because they got sick and the manager needing to call in relief staff to take care of the kids who didn't come down with it aswell.