To think it’s selfish

[Hilovely]

To send your child in to school needing calpol and who is clearly poorly and tired and another feeling sick. Especially this close to Christmas as it’s likely other children will be unwell in time for Christmas Day.

Yes it is selfish.

Sick as In going to puke, then yes.

sick as in a bit of a cold / headache then no.

I had this conversation with DH the other day. I feel like because it's so close to the kids breaking up, people are thinking "I'm going to have to look after them for 2 weeks, so I need them to go in whilst they can no matter what"

I almost went as far as pulling 4yo DS out of preschool this week for this reason. He and my youngest have been so poorly and had so much time at home the past 6 weeks with various illnesses. I worry about how they'll cope if they catch any more bugs as neither of them is back to full strength yet, every time they catch something it seems to take longer to shake it. Youngest DS has also dropped weight - at least 500g. 😐

I'm really hoping they don't catch anything else and we can start building them both back up over Christmas. So I do feel it's very selfish for people to be sending poorly children into school at all, but it seems to be getting worse in the run up to finishing the term.

It's less than ideal - if a child is ill enough to need regular Calpol they should be in bed resting.

On the flip side, the pressures to send kids in from the schools/local authority/government have a lot to be answered for

Quite a few times recently, I've had to send my kid in with a dose of calpol. She was complaining of tummy pains - but no sickness/diarrhea, no headache, cough or cold - just unexplained abdominal pain which the doc put down to growing pains.

Quite frankly, she's just tired and run down and ready for a Christmas break.

My kids would often claim to be sick/ill/tummy ache if they fancied a few days off school. The arrangement was that they would go and see how it went. 99% of the time they were perfectly fine. Everything cant stop for a slight sneeze or dubious stomach, especially if you are a working mother. Some people need to get some backbone.

If the child is obviously ill and not able to cope, unreasonable.

If it's a cold and the child is ok in themselves then it's just bad timing.

Its winter and we expect germs around.

A lot of schools are already closed this week which heads off the problem. When do yours break up?

School will send them home if they're that unwell, no?

As an adult you'd be expected to go in if you could get through the day with a bit of paracetamol. Presumably some of these parents work? So no I don't think it's selfish.

Thank you for comments. this child looked very pale and was upset and the parent said hadn’t had any sleep either and said they were very grumpy this morning. Teacher said they’re all dropping like flies so it’s probably inevitable now!

On the flip side. My DC was sent home yesterday after 'sicking up a bit in his mouth' due to PE straight after lunch.

He is completely fine and at home with me right now. I have taken the day off work as supposed to be wrapping today! 😠

The problem is "colds" can be anything from mild symptoms such as a runny nose, a bit of a sniffle and really awful flu-like symptoms - such fever, aching body, very painful sore throat, swollen glands etc. My son often has the latter type of cold and there's no way I'd send him in with a fever and with the terrible symptoms he gets. He can barely stay conscious when he has those types of colds. He just wants to sleep all day.