What do you do when a Dc convinces you they're too sick for school....

[PrivateJourney]

and it turns out they weren't that ill after all

DS1 is 13. At 8am this morning, when he needed to get the bus he could barely raise his head off the pillow. He's not often ill and usually gets up and organised in the mornings without having to be chased. He generally enjoys school, so I took his word for it.

By 9:30am he was up and about and by lunchtime he was his usual self, eaten loads, been talkative and completely normal.

I haven't allowed any screens and this afternoon when he was clearly better I made him do some work from his maths homework text book.

I am more than a little fed up that I missed a day's work for this though!

What am I supposed to do? Be cross that he lied, accept that he wasn't fit this morning and there's been a miracle recovery, or worried that something's happened to make him avoid school?

This reminds me of me!!

Most days when i went to school i had ''tummy ache, headache, sore throat etc. All the illnesses under the sun.

i hated school and didn't want to go. My mother used to literally drag me out of bed! I went to school with no problems when my mother changed my schools after years of discussion

I'm always impressed with how fast DD recovers after extra sleep when she's ill. He could well have felt awful first thing, what was he complaining about?
If he was malingering, then a day with no screens and an early bed sounds reasonable, with a bit of a chat about why he might be avoiding school?

If he was up and about at 9.30, I'd have sent him in. Why didn't you?

I've felt like this all week. Really crappy first thing, pounding head , full of cold and really just wanted to stay in bed. But after being up and at work for a couple of hours (and a lemsip later) I gradually felt more human and by the end of the day I was like a different person. A shower and food really helped perk me up.

Maybe he genuinely did need the rest.

My mum always said "If you're too ill for school, you're too ill to do anything else either!" and made us stay in bed.

And yes ask him if there's another reason he said he felt too ill for school.

I get this sometimes, when I feel like I can barely get out of bed and feel really rough but am fine once I'm actually up and about. I still find it quite hard to know the difference between those times and the times when I'm definitely poorly.

Has he done this before or is it a first? A chat about school can't hurt.

I send them in at lunchtime for afternoon registration (mean mummy!). It's mainly dd1 so she now knows that she needs to be ill all day or she will go in (obviously not if she has been sick/fever/something objectively measurable).

Well, flogging because in the usual course of events if he's at death's door at 8am and and gets up at 9:30 for the loo/a drink he's back in bed by lunch time.

Also he told me he had an upset stomach and I'm not supposed to send him in with the runs... Don't think he's used the toilet that much but I am surely beyond the stage where I get to inspect his bowel movements.

He's very "good" at being ill. Just takes himself off to bed until it's over, no fuss or drama at all.

a) I think he's old enough to stay home on his own at 13. No need for you to take the day off

b) you could have sent him in to school at any time during the day. They'd prefer him to arrive mid morning than not at all.

I would leave him alone, normally, but when I phoned work at 8:30am, he was so poorly, I was thinking I might need to call the doctor or at least be feeding him sips of water all day. You wouldn't leave a 13yo like that, would you?

If he's got the runs, I can't send him to school, can I?

I would have left him at home with water by his bed, with instructions to sleep it off. I would call every hour or so to check up on him.

Well, maybe I should have but I've taken 3 days off work for a sick child in his 13 years so I'm not very practised. How would phoning a sleeping child, when it would take you an hour to get there if there was no response, be checking on him?

Sounds like he had a mild case of the runs, so what could go wrong, really?

I would certainly send him too school and go to work myself once I'd realised he wasn't as hill as first suspected.
Nothing like a maths lesson for taking your mind off a poorly tummy!!

I thought sending a child with the runs to school was a crime punishable by death, or that's how it seems on here? Or does that only apply when they're little?