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.

Very few schools have a medical room any more.

the ones that do will have random members of the admin team in it until the kid is collected.

schools can’t let an ill child go home on their own - imagine letting a fitting or vomiting teen out on their own to walk home. They need a parent.

you need to send in your children with paracetamol in their bag if needed and tell them not to bug you for minor things.

This - it is a very difficult balance for the schools one which IME leans towards sending them back and only ringing when they have to

Is there no other nominated adult who could collect for you? This would be a sensible option as the time constraints on your job make it really inconvenient, how long will your employer allow this to keep happening and what happens if your away for the day with work…….conference perhaps?

You really need to sit your children down and explain how hard it is to leave work and make the long journey when they're not ill. Tell them you won't be picking them up unless they have a temperature. I was going to say physically sick but they probably will tell the teacher they'd thrown up when they hadn't. S temp is a little harder to fake.

Stop blaming the school and have a word with your kids to stop being so dramatic then!
Or stop sending them in when they feel sick or got a heavy cold.

It’s a few years ago now but pre COVID we weren’t even allowed to have a thermometer, as we were not there to diagnose! Technically First Aid is there to be the first attendee if someone has had an accident, or become unconscious for some reason, not to decide if a pupil is at it.
As for vomiting, I had one throwing up because he’d swallowed a bottle of chilli sauce as a dare ! Another one it was a tea bag! Honestly the tales I could tell….

Mine knew very well that if I picked them up from school there was no TV or PS, and if I thought they’d faked it the iPhone would be removed. As yours have done this more than once you need to tell them very clearly that your job is at risk if you have to keep leaving work. If you lose your job money will be tight and the first things to go will be (insert what they most value).

I had this for years. It got worse and worse she crying and saying she is ill in the morning with various things, there would be arguments saying she can not possibly be ill this often with all different things. Done my hard work to get her out of the door when I could see it is a pattern. Managed to get her there and a few hours later the school would call saying there is something completely different wrong with her that day and needed to collect.
It was a nightmare, affected our relationship and my work having to deal with this so often. I had harsh words with the school on 1 call saying I'm going through hell each morning to get her out the door, now she has found a new way which she can get out the door by bypassing me via you. She clearly cannot be sick this often as it is not normal (had also took her to dr who confirmed nothing wrong with her). She agreed and said it is abnormal. Worked with me so that i have a call and she will do a gentle assessment on whether she believes it is genuine, if feeling sick and white for example she would say she believes it genuine because.... otherwise she would say DD saying this what would you like to do. If I said back to class then off she would have to go.
Turns out DD was getting mildly bullied at that school. Think it was more having no friends so feeling uncomfortable in certain classes. I agreed I would move her school the next school year if she stopped this behaviour for the rest of the year. Which she did for 6 months. Moved the school, she made friends and easy life for the 1st year. Then she lost friends and I was back to square 1 without school backing. In her GCSE years of all years. She didn't care about telling off or arguing with me. Didn't care when I said it will affect her future and she would never hold down a job acting like this. Didn't care when I has risk of fines. Would spend whole nights aggressively coming into my room every hour screaming and crying she can't go in the next day. Somehow she managed to get her grades with all the destruction but the damage it done to hour relationship having these daily battles has not fully repaired yet.

It is so easy as someone who has not been in this situation to say the parent has done nothing and this is on them. Sometimes you can do anything you can but if they would rather sit at home without any technology or treats all day than at school, then they really don't care about any punishment or telling off you dish out.

Our school wouldn't let a child go home alone for any reason either. Even for a dentist appointment they would make me go to collect. Adding a 45 min round journey on to this appointment in the opposite direction of the dentist so even more unnecessary time off work than there would be if she come here. Don't make sense when the child is 15 and they had a call off me to say let her go

When my dc has tried this on I get out the school books and we all have a happy revision time of what’s been covered in school that day.

There would be zero phones or tv involved in that. Also straight to bed after dinner and our fun study time to ensure wellness occurs asap. And can’t have a phone nearby as that might keep them awake during their ‘illness’

they haven’t had a day off in forever come to think of it…

A recent thread had somebody saying they were a school governor and would severely discipline/formal written warning to any member of staff that dared to suggest a child could go back to class.

There's no way for staff to get it right here, as for every parent saying 'send them back' there's as many (if not more) saying that it is cruel/abusive/ likely to result in deaths/ interfering nanny state academy trauma causing actions on the part of mere admin staff.

I'd honestly just say I'm not collecting them and hang up. At that age they can make their own way home and if they can't they need to call an ambulance for them. And if they are injured or sick to the point its an emergency like that then yes I would be able to leave work.
I work in a hospital and my DH is a nurse. We cannot just leave work at the drop of a hat unless it's a real emergency. A teenager with a cold is not a real emergency.

I remember one morning years ago my then teenage DD2 had a slight headache. I gave her some paracetamol and a tray with a few more to have in her bag should she need them later.

She managed to get a taste of the tablets while swallowing them with the glass of water I had given her. I know they taste awful, but that's the purpose of the water. She began making the most enormous fuss instead of just drinking the water and solving the problem (the sort of thing she always had form for doing). Eventually I just had to shoo her out of the door to get the school bus.

Half an hour later I had a phone call from the school nurse asking me to come and collect her because of the awful noises she was making. I told them that she was just being a drama queen over the accidental taste of the paracetamol and her own refusal to wash it away with water. I advised them to give her a cup of water and send her off to lessons after she had drunk it. I would only collect her if that didn't work.

Guess what! It worked. DD drank the water for the school nurse when she had refused at home. Problem solved and she went to lessons. I got no more phone calls.

School don’t know whether you’re:

a) the type of parent who would want them to be told to get on with it and go back to class

or

b) the type who would then send a 7-paragraph complaint email written on ChatGPT and citing lots of obscure legislation saying your children were put at risk and all the staff lacked empathy and you were going to homeschool from now on.

These are the dilemmas we face nowadays!

They could ask for an email from the parent that gives the school permission to let the child leave and go home without the parent immediately collecting them.
Then they'd have given over legal responsibility. They'd have it in writing.
Kids in secondary school should be able to just go home if they have a bad cold or whatever. They get to school by themselves! And they'd be leaving at the end of the day by themselves! So what's the difference? They could fall ill at those times... the only difference is that the school has responsibility for them once they are in there until the end of school hours.. so they just need to get written permission from the parents in my view, so the responsibility is handed back to the parents.

The school nurse called me twice to come and collect my eldest. Once when he had a fever (turned out he had Covid and he fainted when he got home) and once when he had a severe pain in his groin which required an urgent trip to A&E (testicular torsion.) These were not, however, the only two times he had visited the nurse in school. Apparently she sent him packing on several occasions because she thought he was swinging the lead. He was most put out by this, but it looks to me like she got it right. DS1 told me that she lacked empathy🤣 Same woman very kindly called me to check that he was ok after the trip to A&E. She’s great and doesn’t take any nonsense. I’m sure her job must be a bloody nightmare!

Is dc1 eating enough before and at school - raiding the fridge one day and feeling dizzy another?

Do they have phones on them in school? If so are you able to speak to them yourself first to determine how ill they are before having to leave work?

Most mobiles now when you get an answerphone message send you a text version to read. Id stop answering calls from the school and just wait for the messages to land.

How did the school get hold of the parents 40 years ago? No how phone or ivnies inmy house then

At that age, I think you can have a conversation and explain the serious consequences for you of them trying to go home when they’re not genuinely ill. Unless you’re going to be sick, or you feel so rough you really need to be tucked up in bed, you can last the day at school.

You could say I’m working at another site and I will be 3 hours to collect them, my husband is away working in another country so we just can’t get there for 3 hours today. You can let them sit in sick bay or send them back to class if you like, it sounds like they are capable of learning.

They can’t prove you’re lying and that way you don’t have to outright disagree…

schools can’t let an ill child go home on their own

I was told that by secondary school so went to pick up to find another staff member had told her to go home by herself- so had to find her on way back.

I do remember primary school having her stand on hot day in front of galss wall of windows in a heavy custume and she felt ill afterwards - so the young teacher called got arsy I couldn't get there beofre 20 minutes the when I got there DD2 wasn't keen on coming home at all - and teacher was saying she could sit in front of TV all afternoon - and I was like err likely not - 20 minutes walk home, 20 miute in front of TV then we have to get back her for other kids.

She looked very bemused - and said I should get someone to help - err I'm trying that and coming up no so far. We did get lucky and DH meeting was canceled and he lucked out with trains so just walked in when I needed to leave.

So I expect they think child at home with a parent not that parent had to pick up and get back to work.

DD2 didn't get to do much when home - as I was able to be around and next thing was school without talking to us decided it was fine for her to have a pass to leave lessons when they got too much. So she was in school but not in lessons - it was bullying and a poor teacher - just meant we had to do all the catch up at home.

We've had the conversation that went " I'm half way across the country in a meeting and dependent on a lift from a colleague. We could leave now but wouldn't get back until 3 and DH is currently in a swimming pool with y3. If you want to contact the pool you can ask him and the kids to leave but by the time they're all changed and he's driven the bus back to school, picked up his car and got to you, it's going to be at least an hour. She hasn't been sick, but can you not keep her safe for an hour and a half?"

Charming

What do you mean? Some people cannot just waltz out of their jobs because their teen kid has a mild headache.

I do agree with PP the school is in a tough spot and they have their procedures in place which here are phone you - so it will have to be laying down the law with the kids about when a pick up is reasonable or not.