is this what you hsve to do at work if your child is unwell?? Feel i might lose my job

[yournamepls]

Or does it depend where you work?

I have been told I have to take annual leave when dc is off sick. I’m fast running out as he’s had everything going since January and his dad does absolutely zero childcare (we are separated and he pays maintenance).

what happens when I run out? Do I take sick leave? Could I end up losing my job because of this?

For context I’m in decent pay and love my job, I am really struggling mentally with the impact this is having.

This is how it has been since I had my dd who is now 8. It is shit though. I hadn't thought of working nights as a solution and can see how that makes sense!

Unpaid parental leave cannot be used in emergencies, it needs at least 3 weeks notice and must be at least one week at a time. So you can't use it for sickness but if you run out of annual leave you can use it to get (unpaid) time off in the holidays (up to 4 weeks).

It's I think company policy what happens when kids are sick. Annual leave is the usual, our place also has a limited amount of emergency leave, which also covers bereavement, boilers going, any unforeseen circumstances not just for kids. Once that's gone it's annual leave. I now try to WFH when they're sick.

This wouldn't help the OP though as she is a single parent with no help from DC other parent.

If you can get a job that involves some WFH (mine is about 50/50 but fairly flexible) you can usually juggle quite successfully. My youngest is now 7 and will watch a film on the sofa while I work on my laptop and dip in and out of calls/meetings. Much harder if you have to be somewhere though.

To edit…

this is why I work nights from home.

Your employer is allowed to ask you to use your leave allowance like this. Emergency dependent's leave is intended to be short term, in an emergency, to allow for short term absences while you make other arrangements.

If you are employed full time, it is not up to your employer or colleagues to cover your absences above statutory leave allowances.

You say his dad doesn't do childcare. Is it possible to change this? If your DS has two parents, it is not reasonable that only one of them takes the load like this.

Only other thing I can think of is that, if your job allows it, you either make up the time flexibly, eg at home in the evenings, or by swapping shifts with colleagues. Or you negotiate some sort of 70/80% annualised hours arrangement and use the reduction in hours flexibly to cover absences like this.

Working PT while DS is young might be a good way of keeping your hand in at work rather than an all or nothing situation. But it depends a lot on your job and your employer, whether it can and will allow you to be frequently absent without notice like this.

This topic is interesting to me. I had to take unpaid days off last year, most because of child care in school holidays and child illness in term time. My child is disabled and can’t just be left with anyone because of their level of needs. The only relative that could, used to watch them at our house during school holidays, but passed away last year, which was another reason for some of the unpaid leave as the compassionate leave wasn’t enough to cover the raw grief period and all the organisation that goes with it. I didn’t ask for parental leave as I didn’t realise it was a thing. I’ve now been told that as I didn’t work the full hours of my contract last year, I lose a days paid leave from this year. That’s all I need as I’m likely to need more unpaid leave this year anyway just to cover child care when needed. Haven’t managed to have a proper holidays for years and feel exhausted as it is. Has anyone else experienced this, where you lose paid holidays because of unpaid holidays taken which means you haven’t worked the full contract hours?

In Australia you get 14 days per year personal/careers leave and it can be used if you're sick, DC sick or anyone else you care for is unwell.

Sick leave is such an outdated concept. Tbh I'm surprised Australia is ahead here.

Another Australian here. I can’t believe the UK is so backwards in this. Our sick/carers leave is for our illness or a family member’s. It’s been like this since forever! I’d have to have more than 6 weeks off before I had to resort to unpaid leave. And if you can WFH it’s not an issue at all in my company. Just stay home with sick child and work remotely.

Most places let you take unpaid carer leave. You don't get paid because you're not working. Some will allow you to use your AL in which case you do get paid from your holiday allowance. If you're lucky you might get compassionate/emergency leave (10 days is exceptional)which will be paid however, let's say your child gets chickenpox and you ring in on Monday and explain you're off with child you might be expected to arrange childcare for T-F. You can't just say I don't have anyone, you have to pay someone. If you can't do this and it happens regularly you might find they don't keep you as you're unable to fulfil your contract.
If you're sick that's different but you can't ring in sick when you're not, no more than you can go on holiday and say you're sick.

Unpaid parental leave, annual leave has to be booked in advance.

Talk to your hr about what's the best way to manage this op, in my work we get carers leave and dependents leave. We can also apply to take unpaid leave and that's all separate from our annual leave and sick leave. Do you have any family etc who would be able to look after your little one at short notice if they're unwell?

I’m assuming your dc is very small and you can’t work from home?

So, you’re suggesting that the OP (a single parent) should get a job working nights and what? Leave her child home alone overnight? Sick or not sick, just leave them alone?

Good luck finding someone willing to babysit a poxy child for four days. I suspect if it wasn’t so tough to recruit just now I’d of been sacked due to a combination of child illnesses and the teachers strikes. I live in what was a targeted constituency in Scotland so we had loads of strike days. Kids off 2/3 days a week for nearly a month.

I used sitters.co.uk They can provide daytime babysitters as well as evening childcare. Guessing other companies are available too.

You have my sympathy. Looks like Australia's where its at re family life.

I feel fortunate to get 15 paid carers days per year for looking after sick kids (well could be taken for any caring responsibility). Last year I didn’t need to take any but this year I have. Not sure what would happen if I used those all up, I have dh here too so that’s helpful, he does share the load.

It’s really crap in this country. I have a lot of family support, but if you haven’t it’s tough. I have a single parent colleague with no family support and it’s such a juggle, managing school holidays by juggling holiday clubs and annual leave is hard enough without your kid being sick and you losing more leave that way.

The Australian system sounds good. I suppose people here will have to lie and say they’re sick when it’s really their kids. Not everyone has paid sick leave though so you will still fall short.

And then I added that I work nights from home.

Give them your ex's number

Yes our 10 dependents days are in addition to annual leave and paid in full. After that I think it would be unpaid leave or at discretion of the company if you needed more time off.

we have parental leave, carers leave and special leave.

It's 10 days Ffs 🤦

I actually work in HR so that's embarassing 🤐

Not being snarky, genuine question, what kind of job is it that you do?