Sick kids at park.

[kcha302927]

I'll probably told I'm being unreasonable but my anxiety is in over drive.

Today I took my dc to the park. Park wasn't overly busy. We live in a village so it never really gets busy there.

Ds bumps into a school friend and they start playing. Pretty close contact albeit outside. Didn't think much of it.

I then overheard the child tell dc that they had been feeling poorly today and had calpol. I mean it could have been anything - most likely not covid I guess... the kid then is lying on the bench towards the end looking exhausted (was only there half hour or so) The mum (who I know, but not well) asked her if she was feeling better or worse and said they should go home and rest. I felt like I was going to have an instant panic attack. I have major anxiety. I just think that sick kids should not be at the park covid or not. But what if it was covid and they didn't know! I know the mother has sent in the kid before when quite ill and she got sent home shortly after. She doesn't seem to care that others might catch things.

Putting covid aside. Aibu to think kids that are sick (whatever it is) shouldn't be at the park? I know germs are everywhere but I wouldn't dream of taking mine to the park if sick.

Not I've gone into overdrive thinking about what if it she had covid without knowing. It's pretty high where I live. Dh has got a week off work starting from tomorrow and the last thing I want is illness! He's worked all the way through this with little time off. I feel so shitty about it!

Parent of a child with a chronic health condition, he takes regular pain relief. Does have to stop when exhausted, does describe himself as poorly. Isn’t remotely contagious, or a risk to you or your kids. In fact it’s probably the opposite.
I think you are being a bit hysterical to be honest, most illnesses are most contagious before symptoms appear so unless you plan to keep your children inside plastic bubbles they are at risk from kids who haven’t had caliph too....

Calpol... no idea why it autocorrected

Honestly while I understand your concerns there is literally no point in worrying about this now. You can't control what other people do and there could be many different reasons why her child had calpol that day, the mother made her own judgement of the situation and in the nicest possible way selfish or not people are perfectly entitled to do so.
You were all outdoors so the chance of anything being passed on is pretty small.
It's done now so try and put it to the back of your mind and not worry about it, worrying isn't going to change anything anyway at this stage.

The kid had a cold and went out.

The exercise and fresh air probably did them good.

You know you have major anxiety so you must know you're being unreasonable.

If the kid had been dragged kicking and screaming to the park and the parent refused to take them home when they'd had enough, you'd have a valid point.

Otherwise it's just a cold.

And they are in the teeny tiny majority!! Your overwhelming anxiety is a much bigger problem.

And unless you can get help for your major anxiety, there's every chance you will pass it on to your kids.

Thankfully my two are super healthy and hardly ever get ill so I'm hoping that they won't catch whatever the child has.

Er what? Firstly you don’t know the child ’has’ anything and secondly, if you believe the above to be true, why the drama?

Poorly could mean lots of things to lots of people. You overheard a conversation and your anxiety is filing in the blanks.

A friend recently admitted to be upset that despite her cautiousness, she and her family had contacted COVID and me with (in her eyes, lax attitude) hadn’t. I reassured her that there was still time and she was angry at my flippancy.

You probably don’t want to hear it but your anxiety, will probably have a greater effect on your children than whatever you imagine this child to have. Remember, your assessment of risk is greatly influenced by your anxiety.

You need to stopover thinking it (easy for me to say I know). If your going to take the kids out then at some point you are likely to cross paths with someone who has covid as most have no symptoms so won’t be staying in feeling unwell. As long as you are double vaccinated and not high risk from covid then you need to try and push it to the back of your mind or it will just ruin your life. Covid is here to stay but luckily the vaccination is protecting a lot of people and you are unlikely to get seriously ill.

Kids get ill all the time and apparently colds are rife at the moment due to people starting to mix more.

I don’t keep my child home with coughs, colds etc. We always test for Covid, but if negative life goes on as normal.
Kids can go up and down all day, one minute bouncing off the walls and the next flat out.

Honestly impossible to say. Kids can bounce between well and feeling ill rapidly – her child might have been feeling better and they went to get fresh air, but then felt ill again or got tired. Not every episode of feeling ill requires being prone on the sofa inside - sometimes fresh air and some activity can help, depending what it is.

Kids can get ill with an almost limitless number of things that aren't Covid. We have a lovely cold at the moment that DD brought us back from nursery, she brought back HFM that I got really badly (of course she barely had any symptoms). Half the kids at nursery are snotty at the moment.

I'm pregnant, late 30s, unvaccinated and half DC2's class went down with it, including DC2. Despite isolating for 10 days with her I didn't get it, nor did my husband (double vaccinated). A few other parents caught it and even the unvaccinated ones in their 40s recovered in a week. Even IF your child catches it, you may not.. and even if you do, at 30 it shouldn't be anything you can't cope with. Hope this makes you feel better. X

You really need to chill out. I understand that covid is a scary thing but you can’t live your life having a panic attack every time a child coughs near your children. As others have said, calpol is given for a range of things and, speaking as someone who has recently had covid (and my partner and dd), we were all vomiting, legging it to the toilet, coughing our guts up and could barely move out of bed let alone run around the park.

I would never consider keeping a child at home for a virus such as a cold if they felt ok. My children went to school with common colds . Working as a nurse we are actually told to keep coming to work with colds as the nhs wouldn't function if everyone went off with mild viruses.

My child would be practically on death’s door before she’d swallow calpol so I probably wouldn’t take her to the park.

My niece seems to have calpol every other day, if she didn’t go out after it she’d never leave the house.

I hope we’re not moving towards a world where children with potentially a bit of a cold are prevented from enjoying a bit of fresh air in their summer holidays.

There are a lot of things that need to be in place before your worse case scenario of getting really ill from covid. Firstly the child in question needs to have it. Then your children would need to have caught it from them, in the fresh air with minimal contact. Then they would need to pass it to you, and you, presumably double jabbed, would need to be one of the tiny minority to get ill. The chances of all these things happening is very remote indeed. If it's any comfort, since restrictions lifted I have spent four evenings in nightclubs so packed you couldn't move, no masks, mainly young unvaccinated people in a hot spot area. I have travelled on full buses and had service users at work cough in my face. I haven't caught covid. So for every story of catching it against the odds, theres one to counteract it. Try to focus on the positive ones.

I have gone into work throughout the pandemic and have sat next to somebody who had Covid...twice! He was double jabbed too and got it bad both times. That week I was sat next to 3 people in the office who had Covid (confirmed with PCR tests). I've hugged somebody who had Covid (they didn't know it until the next day). And yet I STILL didn't get it.

I hope this relays your fears.

There are other illnesses out there. The normal flu and common cold being amongst them.

My son has had calpol for a cough and cold negative pcr so no covid but I ain't keeping him in the whole day because I've gave him some calpol.

Today we went to the zoo your being uptight. I probably would have headed home once she led down on the bench but if there playing there not that sick.

OP - not sure this will help..
My DD has serious physical disabilities and global development delay. She’s been hospitalised with pneumonia when she was 18 months and has one underdeveloped lung, as far as we know.
She attends nursery where once it was closed after a member of staff and a child had covid - she and I were both quite ill (at the time I’d had one jab) but tested negative for covid.
Just recently we’ve had to self-isolate because of another covid case in nursery.
As far as I can tell we’ve never had covid, or (much more likely) we have and even my vulnerable DD was fine.
Please do consider getting help for your anxiety- I say this as someone who has PRSD after assault (by the same DD’s former doctor).
Anxiety is life crushing.
But it’s not fair to assume irresponsiblity or something like that from another parent who might well have tested negative etc.
Covid isn’t the only upper/lower respiratory problem that children can have (my DD was taken by ambulance to hospital a couple of months ago with suspected respiratory infection and a few days later there were news reports about increased paediatric respiratory infections and hospital admission).
Try to be realistic- the figures on hospitalisation etc can make us inclined to worry or ..not!
It is getting better

PTSD

@Kanaloa

It does sound like you need some help with your anxiety. Her illness could have appeared less bad at home, and with a cold it’s sometimes better to get wrapped up and get some fresh air instead of lying in bed the whole time.

You could come into contact with Covid at any time from someone who doesn’t appear ill at all. If you were very worried you could have left the park at that time, but as I said if I was you I’d seek some help if you’re really petrified.

I did leave the park right after this point.. after they had played for half hour!

@Blue4YOU

OP - not sure this will help.. My DD has serious physical disabilities and global development delay. She’s been hospitalised with pneumonia when she was 18 months and has one underdeveloped lung, as far as we know. She attends nursery where once it was closed after a member of staff and a child had covid - she and I were both quite ill (at the time I’d had one jab) but tested negative for covid. Just recently we’ve had to self-isolate because of another covid case in nursery. As far as I can tell we’ve never had covid, or (much more likely) we have and even my vulnerable DD was fine. Please do consider getting help for your anxiety- I say this as someone who has PRSD after assault (by the same DD’s former doctor). Anxiety is life crushing. But it’s not fair to assume irresponsiblity or something like that from another parent who might well have tested negative etc. Covid isn’t the only upper/lower respiratory problem that children can have (my DD was taken by ambulance to hospital a couple of months ago with suspected respiratory infection and a few days later there were news reports about increased paediatric respiratory infections and hospital admission). Try to be realistic- the figures on hospitalisation etc can make us inclined to worry or ..not! It is getting better

Thank you! My eldest has additional needs too. Also every time he gets a cold he gets so poorly with nasty chest infection due to mild asthma and living in a damp house for a few has made him prone to chest infections so I'm just so worried he will get it! It also means holding him down for a covid test as he hates that too! I am so stressed! I know it's my anxiety but I also know the mhm has happily sent her kids with sickness (she openly admitted it) so I am worried she would just ignore illness. I am beating myself up now thinking j shouldn't have took them to the park at all. I am recovering from a minor op too and have been stuck in for the best part of 2 weeks. Thought I was doing good taking them to the park but wish I didn't. I also care (pre op) for my grandmother who is vulnerable to covid and has recently become a widow. My mind is in overdrive 😩😩

Like others I think you need some help with your anxiety. My child had calpol today. Did we go to the park? Yes! There are other illnesses out there! Before this year we wouldn’t have thought twice about a child going to the park with a cold or after having calpol. I don’t kept my child confined to the house if they had a cold!

You also have no idea if the mum had them tested.

I think you need to rationalise this. Even if they did have Covid you are outside and the risk is minimal. The risk of serious illness is even more minimal if you did happen to catch it.

You can’t live you life in this state of fear from a few comments you heard.

@SW1amp

To put it in perspective, the government (ie not travel companies, offices etc) is doing between 600-700k PCR tests per day, and the vast majority of those will be people who think they have symptoms - the tier 2 testing data

They are reporting around 30k cases per day for all testing types

So even if you assume most of those positive cases are coming from people with symptoms, that’s 30/600 - 0.05%
That’s a LOT of people with covid-symptoms who don’t have covid

We can’t assume that ever snuffle means covid - there is a 99.95% chance it isn’t

30k/600k isn't 0.05%, it's 5%... (but yes, the vast majority of people taking pcr tests don't have covid)

@Wolframhart

Sick enough for calpol is sick enough to stay home.

It’s not your anxiety, that parent was way out of line.

Sick enough for capol? My dc has needed calpol plenty of times for earache headache sore knee does not mean they have to stay at home! Just as an adult might need paracetamol from time to time should they not go out either?

Echo what others say about getting help, this would totally freak me out too but I know that’s not right. I went to the drs recently to speak about my emetophobia (fear of s**k) and I’m already trying to be conscious of the obsessive behaviour around this.

The chances of catching anything will be quite small as long as you are practicing good hygiene. Giving you a germ free virtual hug, I know how horrible it is to feel like that x