I hate cancelling children when my own is ill...... :(

[Alliwantisaroomsomewhere]

DS aged 7 has a temperature and has a cold and is feeling rubbish. I was due to have children til 8pm but DS is feeling too ill, so I have cancelled my after schoolers.

Argh! I hate putting parents on the spot and letting them down. Tell me it is okay to do that.....

It's ok to do whatever you think but I wouldn't cancel unless the temp wasn't coming down with paracetamol/ibuprofen. But totally upto you if he can't face the school run.

It's okay to do that!

That said, there's a world of difference in how kids of seven cope with being poorly. If it was just a cold, my eldest would probably have been fine with being confined to his room with a few books (with DH working at home, so no need to come on school run), whereas my youngest needs a lot more interaction at the best of times and would probably be feeling very sorry for himself and demanding all my attention if under the weather. It just depends.

Needless to say, DH would be completely incapacitated by a snuffle!

DS came downstairs 2 hours later than normal and flopped on the sofa. He has not moved since, aside from going to the loo.

Got 2 little ones pottering around but have cancelled the after schoolers and I am glad i did because he is not great today at all.

I always got my dh to take a day off to look after the children if they were ill and then I would spend the day at the children's centre with the mindees. It didn't happen often and like you I didn't like to let people down, to be honest I used it as a selling point to the teachers as they can't afford to be let down.

It's perfectly fine to do this and to be honest as a parent I would prefer you to. It will be worse for the parents if their children come and then end up being ill.

Great idea to get DH to take time off - but there is no ways DH would. Not an argument I care to have with him . But truth is, that I feel crap beyond belief today, too (and it is only a bloody cold!!) so I can do with the kids being thin on the ground and DS being curled up on the sofa. Fortunately my childminded kids have left now so we can chillax...... ha ha ha!

I also feel terrible about doing this, but sometimes there is simply no option. My 3 year old was very ill the other week (and I caught it too) so we ended up closing from Thursday until Tuesday. My little mindee's dad had to take 3 days holiday, and it is lucky that his employers are so understanding.

I understand that you feel awful about it, and I did too, but what can we do??