To make my children stay in bed all day when they are ill?

[heQet]

Or more specifically, when they claim to be so ill that they can't go to school, groan and moan and flop about but miraculously summon the energy to jump about after 10am?

So I have implemented a new policy - if you are Too Ill to go to school you are Too Ill to get out of bed.

ds1 is the first victim of the new policy and is most put out. Every time I go up to check on him, he gives me big puppy dog eyes. I fear I am in danger of crumbling under the pressure!

go on, sock it to me, I can take it.

Hulababy, oh I do agree that when recuperating from a debilitating illness then you can spend time out of bed. It's often too much to jump right back in.

As if that isn't how your lil darlin's got it in the first place! As a working mum you can't take time off unless you're dying and you wouldn't dream of even mentioning that sonny is ill so you need to be there.

It's one of the main reasons illness goes round schools/nursery so quickly in the first place!

Those of you who believe in making life as unpleasant for your offspring as possible when they are ill- you do follow the same rules yourself, I take it, if you ever have to take time off work? No time on the settee, no nice drinks in bed- and certainly no Mumsnetting!

figroll she gets around a bit then

of course, cory

I have the other side of the story...I have a (mildly) immune compromised DS (due to meds), and it only takes one parent to send their DC in with a cough for my son to get VERY ill and need 2 weeks off school in hospital. I get REALLY with parents who are thoughtless enough to send their DC's in to spread germs when their DC may only need 1-2 days off, and then my DS ends up missing 2 WEEKS of school. So there are 2 sides to every story....

You stay in bed until I am sure that you are illthen when I decide that yes you really are ill,I will let you watch the telly

Mine would often rather stay at home.

Last year dd1 was off school, only to be found doing cartwheels in the sunshine.I sent her back to school.Found out that she did not want to compete in the swimming gala.She went,she competed and won evey race and recieved a medal at asembly.A good leson learned by all

I don't make mine stay in bed if they are ill. For a start I don't want to be running up and down the stairs all day. And it isn't fair to leave them alone all the time - they are ill after all.

Secondly I agree with whoever said being in bed can make you feel worse. It certainly can do. If you have a temperature the last thing you need is to be wrapped up in a duvet. Makes me feel hot and headachey. DS1 is particularly bad for that. If you let him go to bed with a temperature he pulls the duvet up round himself and ends up so hot he throws up. He doesn't have the sense to listen when I tell him not to get so wrapped up.

They can watch a bit of telly to pass the time too. If you are feeling ill why make yourself feel worse by having no distractions?

And no my children don't miss school for a sniffle and no I didn't miss school much either. No days off at secondary school although I did have a day off in 6th form.

maybe schools should have an open meeting at start of term and come up with policy guidelines in consultation with parents? - I think I know when mine should stay home (luckily they love school so skiving not an issue (yet!)), but this is a really ineteresting debate. Do think it's tough on working parents (parental leave should give some protection here?), but agree that it's upsetting when a virus sweeps through school due to ill children attending.
We have a pass the bug round our household game when kids go back in september - they were off for 5 days each (consecutively), husband off work for 3 weeks with asthma complication and me (immune problems from steroids), prostate for 1 month. Heigh ho. Sympathy to parents with seriously unwell children - very brave leting them go to school at all.
Just to answer post - do what works for you, I cosset mine on sofa with videos etc - refuse to take out though.

Loudlass, I couldn't agree more! Dd is much sturdier now, but I used to get very annoyed when other parents said, 'Oh, I just dosed him up with calpol and he'll be fine...' Meanwhile, I braced myself for dd to catch it and then waited for the absence letter to come home from school...

But to answer the OP, if that works for you, then I don't see why not. I let mine potter about when off ill, but that suits me and them and they are still quite little.

er I don't just send mine to bed for a punishment to prevent malingering.. that's strange to allow them up once "you know they're really ill".. I don't really get that

if they are ill, they need to be in bed anyway, if not ill well THEN it's a deterrent .. but really what's the point in determining they are ill, then making them feel better (not be better) with paracetamol and then letting them use up all their energy running around? I don't get that at all

No, YANBU. That was my mothers rule, and mine as well. Don't want those germs being spread all around the house either.
My mom did allow me to lay on the living room couch when I was recovering from having my tonsils out and when I had a foot injury. But anything germy, confined to bed/bedroom it was!
I did let my sons watch tv in their room, and read.

surprised no-one has mentioned making them do work at home. My children are rarely ill but if they were home and I thought they were faking they would be doing some work with me/ on the bbc bitesize website. It's also appropriate for broken limbs/ chicken-pox and ensures they are glad to return to school.

If children are faking illness to stay home it is time to check if they are being bullied.

What peacocks said. If you think they are faking it, why are you letting them stay at home? Once you have accepted that they are ill by keeping them off, punishing them for it, smacks to me of fence sitting.

It's a tough call sometimes, though, isn't it. DS (6) woke up saying he didn't feel well, had tummy ache and was balking into a sick bowl (nothing came up). The last time he did that a few months back I kept him off because the time prior to THAT I'd tried to send him in and he virtually collapsed at the school entrance then threw up everywhere in the car on the way to other DS's nursery. He was vomiting for a couple of days.

so anyway, last time I didn't take the chance, and by 10am he was eating normally and seemed fine and I was fuming because he'd managed to pull a fast one. So yesterday when he woke up complaining of being ill I was wondernig what to do but couldn't risk him pulling a fast one again so just made him go armed with a sick bowl . He was fine when I picked him up at the end of the day.

Re: working adults, it's all very well saying you should be a martyr and go in, but with some apparently "minor" things like sore throats, then with me it's more of a throat infection than just a scratchy throat. ie. more tonsillitis and I feel really really rough - temperature, no appetite, just bad generally. I work in a secondary school and it is very hard to drag yourself into work feeling like that, knowing you are going to have to face hours of face-to-face contact with unruly teenage boys (not all of them!). Very different if you work in an office and sit at a desk all day - when I've had those types of jobs in the past it's much easier to sit there quietly getting on with work at your computer and getting regular lemsips or whatever to get you through the day. So Hula, I know what it's like for you teachers - you have to be fighting fit and you deserve a medal to struggle in when you're feeling even a bit off-colour!

Cory - I agree.

How many of you feel better half way through the day and then worse again towards evening? I know I do. Mine potter around as rubytwokids children do.

I let my children watch tv in the front room. We only have one tv so there's no chance of them watching it in bed.

Seems a bit mean to make them feel even more crap by confining them to their beds all day on their own.

'Oh, I just dosed him up with calpol and he'll be fine...'

My mum, who's a kindergarten teacher (different country) regularly complains about parents with an attitude like that. They make their children come in no matter what (usually due to being a working parent and not being able or not wanting to take time off) and the next thing that happens is, that they are sick all over the carpet, another child etc. And it's not the parents cleaning the mess up then...

And this is not a dig at working mums btw. My mum went back to work full-time when I was 12 weeks because her husband left her but she always made sure was well looked after by my grandparents ot later on a childminder. I don't ever remember having been send too school when I was too ill.

Tbh, she sometimes let me stay at home for a day when she was ill herself and I was only feeling a bit unwell so we could have some time together cuddled up on the sofa. It has not resulted in me taking loads of time off work, not more than the average person anyway...

It might make them feel bored but it will in most cases help to make them better.

I hate it when people bring their little ones into school when ill. It beefits no one - well, maybe the parent who doesn't have to deal with said child during the day.

I returned to work in scools a year ago and have picked up so many bugs and infections over the past 12 months. It's unbelievable how many little niggly bugs I have dealt with. And never truely getting better between them.

Ended up so run down this Christmas that my immunity was rock bottom, and ended up with pneumonia! I am still off ill with it, having not yet gone back after Christmas. I am hoping I am more immune to the bugs for this coming year now.

Please keep your ill children at home!

tis not punishing your children to keep them in bed.. unless you never go to them.. but who would do that?

Mine get told there will be nobody to look after them if they stay at home as mummy has to go to work, so they have to go to school. They usually "get better" quickly!

no time to read all, but another one with an immune compromised dd here, so she is really susceptible to all bugs. Winter times she often has 6 weeks or so off school. She always REALLY wants to go to school. It's always really clear to me whether she can or not. This is wildly inconvenient for me, because I work freelance so no benefits or holiday allowance or sick allowance. And I've lost a lot of work due to her ill health. But I would never send her in when she's clearly ill, and although I understand the temptation for working parents and there's a wider issue about a lack of cheap, good quality childcare for older children, it royally pisses me off when people send quasi puking/shitting/febrile kids into school.

upandrunning, it's not keeping them in bed that's the punishment; it's not letting them have things like television or a comfy lie down on the sofa (surely just as good as bed for resting and recuperating purposes) or anything else that might keep them from being bored: some posters seem to think that making sure a sick child is bored is in itself beneficial

there is no medical evidence that being bored helps you get better quicker

but I have seen that adopting an inconsistent approach- letting a child stay at home but treating them as if you suspected malingering- can actually leave the child so insecure that they never dare to trust what their own body tells them and become afraid to ask for help or admit that they have a problem

I am glad to say that my mother never did that: once she had decided I was ill enough to stay in bed, she treated me with the same sympathy that she would have wanted for herself

and I am very rarely off sick

What happened to convalescence? Little ones depend on you to decide how ill they are. Cuddles, sofa and stories (books or telly)are good medicine. I used to do voluntary service at Great Ormond St with really sick kids - and they didn't spend all day in bed as a rule. Depends on the illness and mood.

My mum was young in the 30's and was sent to rural convalescence homes twice. Once aged 2 (!) and once age 8. Had country air, nourishing soup and early nights. Not advocating this but I my GP is very irritated with people returning to work/school the moment symptoms subside and believes a couple of days rest on the end of an illness would save more working hours in the end. Otherwise your poor little immune system will just get the next sniff going.