To not pick my teen up from school when they’re ‘ill’

[scaredfriend]

I have recently started a new job that’s an hour away from home and my kids go to schools that are half an hour from home, but in the other direction. They’re teens - 15 and 13.

So far this term (a month in!) each child’s school has called to say my child is feeling unwell and could I collect. I questioned if they were really ill
and was told that the school can’t make that call but I needed to attend and collect them. So I had to excuse myself from work, undertake a 90 min drive to get them (from work to school) and a further 30 mins to get them home, followed by another 60 mins drive to return to work for a couple of hours. And I had to make 1/2 day up by working late for the rest of the week (fair enough).

I picked up DC2 because ‘they were feeling really sick’ only to get home and watch them raid the fridge and put the telly on. DC1 (different day) had a heavy cold but could’ve soldiered on as no temp, just snotty and coughing. They have paracetamol etc in their bag. Again I had to take hours away from my desk and make the time up for the second time in as many weeks. Not great.

School phoned again today. DC1 ‘is feeling dizzy’. I responded by saying that I really can’t leave work and so could school allow my DC to sit in the medical room / office until the end of the school day if they’re not well enough to go to the lesson. The reply was no - I need to collect.

I really don’t remember ever leaving school unwell when I was a similar age. Probably because it was pre mobile phones and difficult to contact my parents to collect during the day. But I do remember sitting on the sofas in the medical room with a blanket when I felt really rough. Lots of us did that.

School won’t allow children to leave without being collected - so even if I said ok, send them home, they can’t walk to the bus and get themselves home (as they would otherwise do at the end of the day). I have to leave work to collect.

AIBU? I’d understand for small children but I think my teens would be fine to stay in school.

This is on your kids not the school!
I can just imagine the Mumsnet post of they didn't phone and something was seriously wrong

"AIBU to think school should have phoned when my DS said he was feeling dizzy and unwell and shouldn't have waited until he passed out??"

And I'm not sure how old you are but kids have been going home from school sick for years!
I went home sick most Wednesday afternoons during year 8 because I hated music and drama!

And what would happen if you just didn’t turn up? School is being irrational if there is no high temp or actual sickness.

And of course talk to your kids and tell them you can’t pick them up for every niggle unless they want you to lose your job and then there’ll be no money for anything.

@JudgeJdont be a dick. Massive difference between DC feeling dizzy from period pains V needed an operation

I work in a primary school not secondary but completely agree with the post above. When it comes to calling home, we're damned if we do, damned if we don't: chances are a parent will call and complain about something regardless. We made a decision yesterday that we did not need to make a call home about a particular minor medical issue (really not serious and easily managed in school, child was fine, mother informed about it at pick up). The mother rang ranting down the phone half an hour later. Outraged that 'this bloody school hadn't called me at the time' and 'how dare you make that decision when it's my child' etc etc.

Had we called her, she would almost certainly have ranted about being called!

OP I do get that it's frustrating and to be fair I do also agree that teachers and support staff should be trying to encourage children to get through the day unless obviously unwell (vomiting, high temp etc). Equally it is also fine for a parent to say to the school staff member calling that they cannot collect and please can their not-feeling-100%-but-not-obviously-unwell child go back to class and just see how they go. We do that on a regular basis - sometimes it is just not possible for a parent to come.

You do also need to have a strong word with your DC though and try and encourage a bit more resilience. Some children are definitely prone to pulling the 'ill' card at the drop of a hat.

THANK YOU! 100% this. I was reading the responses and thought I’m going crazy…

I think the issue is your children. Sorry!

I dont think a school can say 'you arent well enough to be here so walk home alone' what if they fainted mid journey or collapsed in a heap. There'd be a huge outcry at how this shit school just let thier child walk home and it was obvious it was flu developing not a cold.

They also cant really be doctors and know that your child who is incessantly moaning about stomach pain etc is just putting in a show to go home.

You need to sort this with your kids - it’s on them, not the school!
Also, don’t pick up the phone. They’ll keep them in the medical room til they get bored and go back to class.
If your child
went off to school okay then don’t answer the phone, let it go to voicemail - if it’s a broken arm or something serious they’ll say.
I would also
make it clear to your teens that being ‘sick’ at home means going to bed and no tv, phone or screens and only toast or something healthy to eat. That should help them decide if they really are ill or not.

I'm going to echo the people saying that your kids are the ones who really need to cut the crap here and you need to help them do that. If you've called me out of my working day and you're so poorly that you can't possibly carry on with your school day then off we go home... to lie in bed with no food and no screens. If you're well enough for either of those things then you were well enough to stay in class. We need to call kids out on this behaviour and be blunt when it's not acceptable. Yes teachers and parents should just be able to tell kids if they think they're faking it or overreacting. Kids even at this age are much more black and white than grown adults. They need to be told what is expected of them.

Ridiculous. Just tell the school you can't come and collect and they have 3 options:

• Let the "ill" child make their own way home.
• Send them back to class.
• Call an ambulance or seek urgent care if they're so unwell that the school deems them incapable of making their own way home.

Thank you for this. All of it is correct.
Another example is period pain. I wasn’t allowed to give out paracetamol , hot packs got banned in case they exploded, my first aid training stated periods are not a first aid issue !! So frustrating, I really felt for the girls.
Honestly, I was a really compassionate first aid lady, I dealt with so many things, from broken bones to period pains, to looking out for repeat visitors where there was clearly something else going on. I hated calling parents when there clearly wasn’t much wrong, but there was so little I was actually able to do, I bent over backwards at times to help.

This! My DC knew that there would be consequences if they were picked up, during the school day, for inconsequential “illnesses”!
The first thing to go was pocket money and I also pointed out that the birthday/Christmas presents they’d like would not be available if I lost my job (or my salary was cut due to not being in work). Teenagers do understand that lack of finances has consequences for them because household bills come first!
Obviously, if they were seriously ill that’s a different matter.

My daughter (9) had an accident in the school playground the other week and they phoned me. She had fallen spinning on the bars and bumped her head on the concrete. They were like “look, it might be nothing, she’s probably fine, but we just wanted to let you know and decide what you want to do”. I picked her up and honest to god she was grey in the face. Took her to a&e and she had a mild concussion. I am SO glad that they phoned. I’d have hated for her to have gone back to class and sat there like that. She felt dreadful.

Well, to be fair, if they're well enough to soldier home on the bus, they are well enough to complete their school day.
It's insane how quick they are to phone parents (Mums!) over the slightest thing.

If the parent is going to collect the apparently "ill" child, dump them at home and go back to work (which is what most parents will be doing in this case), they're probably better off in class around other people in case anything does happen.

The school have quite rightly said they cannot make that call. I also recall back in the day (40 years ago) the school wouldn’t make that call. If a child said they were unwell and wanted to go home, protocol was to call the parents.

You have a teen problem, not a school problem. If my teenagers were doing this, I’d charge them for the lost time.

I'm in Ireland, not the UK. When the school rang me at work to say that ds wasn't feeling well (nothing serious) I asked if it was ok for him to take a bus home as I was working. There was no problem with him doing this. If they're old enough to make their own way to and from school and they're old enough to be home alone when they have a head cold, what's the reasoning behind making you collect them?

If you give permission for them to leave alone then surely that releases the school of any liability.

Ring your children on their mobiles and ask them what exactly is going on when the school phone you! You need to make them very clear that they had better be properly ill or they will be grounded with no tech no tv no treats no nothing - and go through with it!! for a month if they aren’t so ill they go straight to bed when they get home! This is a parenting thing imo as clearly the kids have gone to a teacher and told them they are ill and need to go home

Why won't school let them leave on their own?

If DD's school had wanted me to go and collect her, it would take at least 2.5 hours for me to even get there.

My kids need to be at deaths door for the school to call me to collect, sometimes further than that! They want the attendance mark above all else!

Which in my case is a bit worrying when communication is quite poor across the school staff and so important medical information isn’t known to the staff dealing with my child’s medical situation. I’ve had the situation where my child has had to text me because the person on first aid duty doesn’t believe him and hasn’t got the message I need to be called in certain circumstances.

And if the school left your sick child without phoning you to let you know? What would you say then? Or if a sick child is left in class with your child and your child ends up getting it? What is it you want schools to do?!

Schools are unable to diagnose illnesses so they can’t say if a child is sick or not. They also have a duty of care to ensure the wellbeing of the child. So if a child claims to be sick, given the school can’t draw a conclusion about whether they are actually unwell or not, they must call the guardian to collect the child. You need to address this with your children, there is nothing the school can do.

And if I miss judge it and let an actually ill pupil walk home and they pass out on the way home ?
I often used to pass the phone to the pupil to speak to the parent, so that they could work it out between themselves. It’s so hard to make a judgement sometimes, it’s somebody else’s child I was dealing with, I wanted to get it right.

Thank you !

"Just tell the school you can't come and collect and they have 3 options..."

I agree with the options but it's unless it's an ambulance situation it's up to the parent to decide, not the school.

Abroadbtge OP says so yeah id say further