Hypothetical - but I don’t want to put my girls through the Covid test

[Elemenopeeee]

They are 5 and 3. We are in Scotland so been back at school/nursery for a few weeks now.

Usual colds etc doing the rounds. We have avoided it so far (touch wood). A few of their friends have had the Covid test (all negative) and parents have said it was horrific, distressing, an ordeal etc.

I have no qualms about having it myself but I hate the idea of putting them through it.

Does anyone else share this? Or can anyone put my mind at rest about it?

Yes I share your concerns. My DS is strong as an ox there is not a chance in hell he'd have the test he'd fight for his life unless he was knocked out, he has psychological and emotional issues with SEN . DD might as she's a little more relaxed than DS.
If there is a suspected outbreak I'll keep them off.

Problem is if you don’t do the test the school might have to assume your child is positive so burst the bubble, you won’t be popular with other parents if they find out it is because you refused to do the test.

I think sometimes kids have to know that a moment of being uncomfortable can be beneficial. Think of all the other things we have to do for the greater good, and our own good, that aren’t very nice. You can’t avoid doing some things just because you don’t like them. I don’t like fillings. Or eye tests. Or smears or mammograms.

It’s not massively unpleasant on the scale of unpleasantness so it’s not really “putting them through” anything. It’s normalising testing.

Thanks red, do it shouldn't be for longer than 14 days in total, unless you're still ill of course.

I have a 6 and 3 year old. The 6 year old will be fine with being tested but I worry about the 3 year old. He has had 8 operations and some unpleasant procedures due to a health condition and has developed a bit of a fear of medical procedures.

I will test him though.

Stealth my understanding is if you were ill on day 1, you can go out on day 11. The rest of the house can go out on day 15 UNLESS someone gets ill. So if Mr Stealth gets ill on day 10, he is in til day 21, but the rest if you are free from day 11/15 as above.

Thanks. Yes, so for those who don't develop ymptoms at all the clock starts ticking from the first symptoms in the household, not the last.

I have tested my just 4yo twice. The first time she wasn’t the one with symptoms so I just gave it a go and - as it’s an uncomfortable feeling - she pushed the swab away and I didn’t insist. I would say that was a useless test (we were both negative). I did observe when testing myself that it’s one of those sensations where it’s nearly unbearable if you focus on it but pretty much unnoticeable if you focus on something else (unlike labour pains which were unbearable both ways!). I found it much easier doing my own swab if my child counted the seconds for me so I could focus on her voice.

So the second time, when she had the symptoms, we tried focusing on something else while doing her swab and this helped a bit. But she couldn’t help pulling her head away. So I asked if I could hold her head and she said this was ok and that helped and enabled us to get a decent swab.

She was fine with this and it is literally the only time in her life I have restrained her for anything. Not for wheeze medication despite nurse insisting, not for tooth brushing despite denstist etc etc. It was done with her consent.

Both trips have been semi adventures for us and the second time it felt like an accomplishment knowing what we were doing.

All of which is to say that if you are used to taking a gentle approach to other things like brushing teeth and other areas for possible coercion of your people, you will find a way to do this.

And the whole swab kit is fairly interesting to small kids. And you can model by doing yourself first. So test test test.

It's just a nose swab for kids.

Hmm Sandyjag I understand what you’re trying to say, but with my 2yo we had to do this with small baby crying alongside, only one of us allowed to leave the car (we had to be shown a special area of the car park where I was allowed to get out), toddler with a temperature who needed to be back at home and had limited scope for understanding what was going on under the circumstances. We had to do the test for various important reasons. We were calm and gentle and explained and showed things as much as possible, but by no means could this have been turned into an “adventure” or accomplishment for him. I have also never had to “restrain” him for teeth brushing or for inhalers. I like your approach to the testing for your 4yo, but with the best will in the world we weren’t going to be able to do the test without physical restraint, and I expect others will find the same.

We weren’t allowed to leave the car and that was an absolute fucking joke as we had to fuck about with 2 adults and 3 under 5 all needing nasal swabs all inside a fucking Citroen in the hammering rain, plus I’m a bit claustrophobic so that was fun as well.

Children were fine, the toughest one was my 4 year old who wouldn’t sit as peace as “it tickled”.

Take 5000 chocolate buttons, that helps. I never want to go through it again, understand your reticence OP but if you must and can do it at home.

Ps: we have never been asked to prove our negative results once. If we were morally bankrupt we could have just made it all up to avoid having our ability to work sledgehammered yet again...

“ we had to fuck about with 2 adults and 3 under 5 all needing nasal swabs all inside a fucking Citroen in the hammering rain”

Argh this sounds so hard. I had two children in the back and I couldn’t either climb through or reach round the rear facing seat. I had to get out but fortunately they had provision for this

With a 4 year old about to start school and a baby starting nursery soon this worries me lots. That's a lot of new bugs to be exposed to.

(I have a thread about when is the saliva test going to come into play but it is still being trialled.)

So far they've had colds but no covid symptoms. It's only a matter of time

I took my 3 and 5 year old for a test last week. It's not the nicest of things but they were fine, no crying or anything.

Also I didn't have to hold either of them down. 3 yo was being a bit difficult so I said he he had the test nicely I'd buy him a dinosaur and he immediately opened his mouth really wide lol.

No way I would keep my kids in the house / off school for 2 weeks just to avoid a test.

My 2 year old DS had a test after he had a temp the other week and he didn’t bat an eyelid.
Came back negative.