To find it increasingly annoying, that parents send clearly ill children into school

[Howarewealldoing]

As the title states really, why do parents continue to send clearly ill children into school . When they should
A. Be at home resting and recovering
B. Stop spreading their illness on to everyone else
It’s not fair on the child and everyone else , and I find it incredibly selfish

I’ve never had an issue when my kids take time off school when they are genuinely ill . I keep the school informed every morning before register is taken and never had an issue. And FYI if they did it would make no difference .My kids come first And I’m not sending they in to school when they need to be at home resting . Which means they will recover quicker instead of running them down into the ground .

A friend of mine works in a preschool and says the amount of children who should be at home recovering from illnesses but who come in last week of term before Christmas instead, is shocking. Fear of missing out often. While it’s nice, I guess, for little Charlie to not miss out on the party or the nativity play etc while he’s clearly really suffering from what is apparently more than a little cold, it’s not so great for everyone else including the staff. My poor friend always ends the term with at the very least a foul cold. Once it was a heavy cold, conjunctivitis and hand foot and mouth disease. All at the same time. Happy Christmas. I decided right then I never wanted to work with children and deal with their selfish parents

School have explicitly asked that we send them in with a cough or cold. Their rules, not mine.

In Germany you can take leave for sick dependents and spouses- perhaps people should fight for these rights rather than being angry at parents who may not have any other options.

Parents need to work.
Schools fine for poor attendance.
Children miss out on rewards for not having 100% attendance.

In an ideal world we would all stay at home to rest and not spread viruses, but we're not in an ideal world.

My friend got a call from her DS’s primary school about his high absence. She went ballistic at them because they had actually sent him home sick more than they had kept him off. So yeah, they do have a problem and don’t use common sense.

Because people have to work and because schools actively request you to send your sick child in and not keep them home just for a “cough or a cold”. They want to maintain their attendance because they are judged on it and because they don’t want your child to miss key learning. Plus they know many kids magically perk up once they are in school.

your job is not going to fire you for taking time off if your child is sick . So sending them in ill is selfish. If everyone Stopped standing there sick children into school and spreading it less children would catch it .

Parents do have options they are not going to get fired for taking time off because their child is ill .

Depends what you mean by ill, self limiting illnesses like colds don’t usually require absence for school or work whereas if they are so sleepy they can’t get off the sofa they need to be at home. I think we have different thresholds as to what level of illness requires absence (this applies to adults in work too, with some professions having noticeably higher sickness rates and it won’t surprise you that jobs with better sickness benefits have higher absenteeism due to sickness… just saying, seen the figures, also the kids of stay at home parents have higher sickness rates than those in work… again stats can be misleading eg some parents can’t work because of their child’s medical condition skewing the stats but I got this from a headteacher…

Presumably due to the schools forcing kids into school while poorly?

Gosh, it would be nice to live in your perfect world.

Schools do encourage parents to send their child in if they are ill.

there’s literally a national campaign being run by the DfE about it.

you personally might not have noticed but others have.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/

Schools do encourage it, our school have scrapped the 48hr rule and made it very clear that children need to be very ill not to be in, a cold, general lurgy etc doesn't cut it for attendance rules.

Same for many workplaces

Doesn't mean the actual teachers and parents agree with it

Do you work op? And how old are your children now?

What do you mean by ill? A cold, a mild cough, they should absolutely be at school. These viruses are part of life and therefore society.

The proper flu, high fever, vomiting, then yes, they should stay at home.

Mixture. Rewards depending on attendance. Grief for time off, threats for being off, wanting doctor proof of illness.

Both parents having to work to keep. Roof over the head.

There is a list, even though I agree with you. Plus it can't be pleasant for the bairns having to go through it.

My son was sick, he was y6 doing SATS they hounded me several times a day to bring him in to complete his tests. Even though he had been physically sick and running a temperature.

Maybe think yourself lucky that your children dont attend a school that is so focused on attendance or that you have had a child that hasnt been able to attend school (and there are many which dont involve holidays) and then you feel you are encouraged to send them in sick.

Love the OP denying that schools EVER give parents shit and demand off-colour kids are sent in and it's ALL parents wanting term time holidays.

Nah - I've got two kids at the same school, both being off on the same day and neither of them being able to keep their gobs shut rules termtime holiday sickies right out.

School has the rudest, most unpleasant, aggressive attendance goblin going who has rung me before to demand evidence that DD1 had been throwing up overnight (sorry I didn't keep a bucket of vomit love) and that I sent her back in the second the floodgates were no longer open. Not as if my kids are habitual poor attenders either - one or the other usually gets a full attendance award each year, both well above 96% depending on how germy the year has been.

Hahaha! You are very naïve! Many places put you on a disciplinary for absence. My work is quite generous with 5 days allowed for dependents, but between 2 children that disappears quickly, especially if you have them off for every sniffle.

Think about it from this perspective. I’m actually a teacher - I’ve been coughed on and sneezed at endlessly this last 2 months (thankfully I have quite a good immune system) and don’t really mind - what I do mind is kids missing learning over a little sniffle. If I’d taken every day my children have been a little under the weather off these kids would have had many days of substitute teachers, instead they’ve have a consistent teacher.

Of course parents get fired for unplanned time off! Yes you can take unpaid parental leave but that doesn’t stop bad employers penalising parents that aren’t in- also not everyone can afford to lose a days wage.

Do schools no longer have medical rooms or sick rooms? When I was a child, if I was taken ill at school I was sent to the medical room. Sometimes I was lying on a bed in there all day until home time. Parents were only called in exceptional circumstances - and many parents were uncontactable anyway, as they didn't have a phone. Sometimes one of the teachers would give a sick child a lift home, if they didn't seem well enough to walk home by themselves.

Nobody stayed at home if they had a cold.. But we were expected to stay away if we had an infectious disease (the most common ones that everyone had at some point during primary school were chickenpox, mumps, measles and German measles).

I have 3 children 8,16,19 so at school different times . And I have never personally had an issue with my kids having time off when sick. Do you want me to lie and say I have ? Like I said regardless either way I would not send my sick child into school because a teacher told me to .

your job is not going to fire you for taking time off if your child is sick . So sending them in ill is selfish

My friend, a teacher, has to take 2 weeks off work as her child had chicken pox. She did not get paid for those 2 weeks as her child was ill, not her - That’s half pay for a single mother of 3 kids and rent to pay.

You are so naïve OP and it shows. There have been plenty of posts even just on Mumsnet recently where parents are worried about keeping kids home when they are sick because the kids have had a lot of time off and the schools are hounding them about attendance. If your child isn't off a lot or if your school is good and doesn't worry about attendance when the child is genuinely sick, you are one of the lucky ones. "School don’t have an issue children having time of if ill" may sometimes be true, but don't act like it always is, because it isn't.