Instinct says do not send my children back to school

[gwphillipson]

As Boris Johnson said, Dominic Cummings followed his instincts that any dad/parent would do the best for their child.

So as Dominic Cummings is allowed to follow his instinct I for one will be following mine and not sending my children back to school to be used as Guinea pigs until it is completely safe to do so following the scientific advice.

George

Nothing in life is ever 'completely safe'.

YABU to try and shoehorn DC into your decision making.

You can keep them at home if you choose but they're also a guinea pig in that situation too in another way.

My personal risk assessment of the situation is that allowing them some contact with school/peers is less risky and harmful to their mental health and development than keeping them home. Yours may well be different depending on your situation and that's ok.

You know well enough that you are not currently being legally compelled to send your child to school. So pointless post really.

until it is completely safe to do so, when do you think that will be op? It's never going to be completely safe! I'm genuinley interested (not trying to be goady!) but how much school would you find it acceptable to miss waiting for complete safety? A year? It's a bit of a nightmare on my Facebook feed regarding this subject at the moment!

Mine aren’t going back.

My point is what's good for Dominic Cummings is good for us.

If he is allowed to have his own instinct then so should the rest of us

You understand social isolation for children or indeed anyone is not safe, social isolation from peers can be particularly bad for certain age groups (although that's generally during and post puberty when parents are even more alien).

So please don't assume home is safe, virus is unsafe, both of them have risks, choosing one does not remove the other.

My point is what's good for Dominic Cummings is good for us.

Being a Boris loving Tory is also good for Dominic Cummings...

What do you define as "completely safe"?

Before the pandemic, did you send your DC to school? If so, how did you ascertain that it was "completely safe" to do so - i.e no level of risk at all? Because if you were able to do that, that must be some school! No risk even during flu season or norovirus season? No risk of accident in the playground? No risk of another Dunblane incident?

Or is it just viruses that you are particularly concerned about, and if your child is at risk of something else, that's fine?

Why follow what that twat does?!

Our school have made it clear it’s up to us parents to decide (ie trust our instincts) about whether to send the children back or not. It shouldn’t take the DC furore to make you realise this too!

Food luck waiting for Stine it is completely safe for them to leave home for however long they are children.

Only blame your instinct though when they fall far behind their education and everything else as a result.

So Dominic Cummings can do what he wants and the rest of us how to be sheep and follow the rules

Well no, it isn't against any rules to keep your dc out of school, so it's not even analogous. You can of course keep your dc home and your following your instincts wouldn't be 'bad for you'.

There was an interesting article on more or less about the statistics for children.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j949

For me there's two parts

(1) if there's COVID-19 at the school what's the chance of my kid getting it (gut feeling high because it's a small space, hard to separate kids etc)
(2) if my kids get COVID-19 what's the chance of them being very ill with it (gut feeling low)

This is ignoring the obvious scenario that they then bring it home and the rest of us get it. Not sure how I feel about that currently but we are WFH and able to isolate.

It's an interesting point I hadn't considered but yes BoJo has completely validated actions informed by instinct rather than fact and science. People could use the argument to justify doing a whole load of mad things.

You can anyway, they have said they won't be fining people who don't send their children back, so what point are you trying to proclaim you are making? They are hoping many won't so they can actually accommodate those who do within some sort of attempt at the guidance

I think the police are investigating the matter, in just the same way they presuably would with anyone else?

Youre totally welcome to remove your child from roll and homeschool them if you are concerned about safety - after all school will never be 100% safe (although neither will home).

However you would be unreasonable to expect the school to continue providing resources to help you.

What’s the point of this post?! Do what you want, I don’t care.
My kids will be going back as soon as they are able to.

If you’re going to deny your children an education then do it because you think it’s in their best interests, not because a politician broke the rules and you’re mad about it.

No one has said you have to OP. You have had the freedom to follow your parental instincts on this the whole time so not sure what your point is?

I’m not it’s an instinct is it? More of an inclination. Just like DC had an inclination to have a couple of weeks holiday with his parents. Not an instinct.

So don't then? It's your child's education at risk, if you can homeschool then do it if you cant then school is best.

You had that choice before covid you could homeschool them so what's your point?