Parents of 6/7 year olds - do you test your children weekly?

[knittingaddict]

Just that really. I vaguely knew that it was a recommendation, but I thought it was mainly for 11 year olds plus. Are the majority of the parents of younger children testing 2 or 3 times a week? Someone has suggested that they should be.

I don't test them myself but ds2 (5 year old) has picked up a lot of colds and illness past couple of months that I did pcr tests for. I only do pcr if he develops a new cough or fever.

No, I thought regular LFTs were just for age 11+. I would not be able to. I did a LFT on my then 6 year old a month ago, because she had been in close contact (same room for a couple of hours) as someone who we were informed the next day tested positive and it was DH's funeral so she would be in contact with a lot of people. It was incredibly traumatic. She screamed and cried for a long time, not just the few seconds it took to do it, despite me explaining it gently and being as patient as possible. I would expect that I would have to hold her down to do it again, which would be horrendous and probably impossible when I am the only adult.
I have taken her for PCR tests when she was symptomatic. I do regular LFTs

No way.

No.
I test myself daily.
DC get PCRs as soon as any symptoms, but no lateral flow.

I have started testing weekly as infections have increased at school and our childminder has asked us to do it as she’s had a case too. Did it on my 6 and 3 yo. Don’t have a problem with doing it at all. They’re both really good about it.

Nope, DD6 has only had tests when she's had symptoms.

Yes as we have a lot of cases and the school blanket tested all the children with PCR (every child sent home with one - infant school) and over 40 cases of asymptomatic children came back. We do lft twice a week as most children seem to be asymptomatic

I don't test my 6 year old with LFTs.

Not routinely.

I have done it when:

-they have sniffles etc that don’t meet the requirements for a PCR test
-before seeing elderly/vulnerable relatives
-daily for the one who was in school when other was isolating with covid.

I have a 4 and 5 year old so slightly younger but eldest in primary school. When there is an active outbreak at school, we have used regular LFT but she swabs herself to make it less traumatic. If there is no communication from school about an outbreak, we assume all is fine and are not testing them. PCRs only when symptoms or school advise

Both DH and I do LFTs on alternate days plus additional before socialising/going into office so we hope we would catch anything that way

No. DS has ASD and it is extremely traumatic for him. I don’t know what we’ll do if he ever had to have a pcr test, I suspect it will take both DH and I to pin him down and a test centre worker to administer, which will be hideous all round. Hoping we can avoid it.

No, my husband and I test fairly regularly despite me being a SAHM and him working from home.
We test our son if he has symptoms with a pcr and occasionally he'll do a lft if we are.
Though he got a positive lft and negative pcr so I've lost faith a bit.

I don’t think you’re supposed to with very young children, ie under 11s

I have done one for ds7 before but not sure how brilliant it was

No I only test ds who is 5 when he has been a close contact or if he’s symptomatic and always with a pcr. Me and my husband have to lft test 2 times a week and he does a pcr every week too due to work.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I have done one for ds7 before but not sure how brilliant it was

When DS tested positive I was very doubtful at how successful my attempts to get the swab up his nose were with him fussing and wriggling, but it obviously worked!

Thank you so much for all the responses. It's helped my daughter to see that she wasn't neglectful or a bad parent for not doing lfts twice a week. She does do them when it seems sensible though.