Feeling incredibly angry right now

[Opalpearl]

I work in a pre school as a TA.
Yesterday a parent brought their child in who was clearly very snotty and coughing a lot. Not unwell as such, still full of energy etc.
She said she’d tested him in the morning and it was negative so she brought him in. Obviously she was meaning an LFT test…which isn’t what you do if someone is showing symptoms, she should be getting a PCR and self isolating.
Before the teacher could say anything she rushed off saying she’d be late for work if she didn’t leave now.
So I spent the whole day in a classroom with a child coughing constantly and having to wipe said child’s nose every 10 minutes.

I’m sooooo upset and angry. Why can’t parents/people take responsibility and do the right thing?! Selfish selfish selfish.

@ayyeeeright

If you kept her off mon/tue why wouldnt you have tested on mon likely had result tuesday and you would know. Why risk others?

@Bobholll

I’d be concerned by a child with coughs & fevers ever two weeks for months on end?! Maybe at more like toddler age but not school age. My DD was ill every 5 minutes as a toddler in nursery but since she turned 3, things started improving & she’s rarely ill these days at school. We’ve had an odd fever, an odd cough & a stomach bug but she’s only missed 3 days since September.

I’d be taking her to the docs to check there is nothing underlying!

But I agree, we can’t keep them off for every cough & cold. Some colds go on for weeks! Just LFT unless it’s an obviously new illness and they are coughing constantly (not just a few coughs a day) or have a fever that lasts more than a couple hours & won’t come down with calpol.

Coughs are a lot less common with Omicron as well. Far more likely to have a fever, sore throat & a runny nose.

Just incase anyone thinks I'm neglecting DD, I did take her to the Drs twice. We had bloods done and they were quite happy that she has normal childhood bugs. It's " immune debt" I think the Dr said from not being at nursery, and being distanced & outdoorsy for too long. Hopefully it will settle.

I thought I would add that the GP did think it was appropriate to PCR with those symptoms, particularly the sore throat.

Oh, they get it sowhatifiam, they just don't care and they think nursery staff are dispensable servants.

1. Omicron is only one variant: there are others. Delta is still around; Alpha is still around. Not all strains are as mild as the naysayers are making out.

1. The rules are to get a PCR test for a continuous or new cough. End of story.

Stop berating the Op and trotting out the "in-the-wrong-job" claptrap that so many people use when they want to shut someone down. She's right.

1. The parent's imagined financial circumstances are not the Op's problem.

Parents are being given notice for this kind of irresponsible behaviour in other settings. Why should they be allowed to affect other people's work?

1. Cases in Early Years are the highest they've ever been and were still going up with the last figures from the Government.

Really sick of the lies from people who want us to be back to pre-pandemic life and couldn't give a damn about anyone else.

We're not in the wrong job. It is not too much to expect parents, in the current situation in particular, but always when their child is showing signs of being unwell, to do necessary testing and keep the child off so that their illness isn't spread. Spreading any illness to staff just means unnecessarily disrupted days of education for the children. As parents, you would soon be unhappy if the teacher was isolating every second week.

This. And this:

Oh, they get it sowhatifiam, they just don't care and they think nursery staff are dispensable servants.

The entitlement & selfishness of some parents is depressing. I know of several people who are still having to shield - advised by their doctors to do so. Because people are still not being responsible.

Whether you like it or not, your DC are vectors of transmission, and it would be responsible to your broader community to do the right thing - test, isolate etc. Your DC may not get very ill from this virus, but other people can still be quite ill, and it doesn't help that there are people who are so irresponsible about the disease spreading.

@ayyeeeright

I know it must be difficult. I'm about to do the same this morning with DD.

She has missed SO much school last year because she's one of those kids who just always seems to get every cough going and it lingers. I never wanted to be "that parent" sending their kid in anyway so kept her off so much last year.

But when does it end?

It can't go on forever. She's absolutely fine. So I kept her off Mon/ Tue to get over the worst of it but she'll be going in today despite it still lingering.

We're being told catching it is basically inevitable now, so even if it was covid, what difference does it make if people catch it from my DD today or Sophie on Friday, or Jude on Monday?

If you were keeping her off anyway, why didn't you just get a PCR?!

You would have had the results by the time you were planning to send her back in and if negative, it would be with a clear conscience, positive and you wouldn't be responsible for spreading it further!

@BrambleRoses

Oh, I don’t want to sound unsympathetic but seriously if I’d kept my DS off nursery with a snotty nose and a cough he would never have been there.

This !

I would call the parents and say they have to collect and not return until a negative pcr.

You should have raised it with your line manager.

Kids coughing in my classroom get sent to medical, I wouldn’t be in a room with them without a negative pcr

We have had plenty of children in with coughs and colds and the risk is there with working with young children as they are often unwell. It's the parents who send a child back the next day after being sent home unwell with a temperature etc that really annoy me. If your child has a 39C temp don't bring them back til they have been tested! Even if it isn't covid it's something nasty so should be at home at least a couple days.

I really don’t think we can avoid it. We have PCR tested for every cough and every high temperature since nursery restarted - 6 times in total. I totally agree this is the responsible thing to do, but I know loads of people who haven’t.

Despite this, our DD (preschool) has just tested positive on a LFT despite having no symptoms. We only tested her because we tested her baby brother as he cried all night with no obvious cause and he was positive. In hindsight she has a day when she seemed very tired (not unusual - baby can disturb our nights at the moment) and off her food (again, not unusual, she’s been very fussy since the last illness she had that wasn’t Covid). She’s not even had a runny nose. I’m not sure what we could have done differently, and she’s been at nursery all week so bound to have both caught it there and passed it on.

@Tanith

Oh, they get it sowhatifiam, they just don't care and they think nursery staff are dispensable servants.

1. Omicron is only one variant: there are others. Delta is still around; Alpha is still around. Not all strains are as mild as the naysayers are making out.

1. The rules are to get a PCR test for a continuous or new cough. End of story.

Stop berating the Op and trotting out the "in-the-wrong-job" claptrap that so many people use when they want to shut someone down. She's right.

1. The parent's imagined financial circumstances are not the Op's problem.

Parents are being given notice for this kind of irresponsible behaviour in other settings. Why should they be allowed to affect other people's work?

1. Cases in Early Years are the highest they've ever been and were still going up with the last figures from the Government.

Really sick of the lies from people who want us to be back to pre-pandemic life and couldn't give a damn about anyone else.

This is so true, and why so many nursery workers have decided to leave the profession.

OTT thread. Kids get colds, kid had negative LFT.

@BrambleRoses

Oh, I don’t want to sound unsympathetic but seriously if I’d kept my DS off nursery with a snotty nose and a cough he would never have been there.

This. I think you probably need to think about getting a different job OP. Get over it!

Given that a cough doesn't even make the top five Omicron symptoms, I'm not sure why people are so in thrall to the "official symptoms". It doesn't make sense.

1. Omicron is only one variant: there are others. Delta is still around; Alpha is still around. Not all strains are as mild as the naysayers are making out.

The vast majority of cases are now Omicron. There remain some Delta, but Alpha was out-competed months ago and is effectively extinct.

The child should not be in the setting, the manager should inform the child’s parent of this, explain the Covid testing system, and refuse to allow the child to attend. There are risk assessments for health and safety carried out daily. I would have thought a child being present with a cough such as this in a pandemic would not be a tick in this box. The nursery has to abide, I would have thought if an Ofsted inspector was to turn up to do an inspection this would be a fail. This coughing child being present causing a potential risk to children attending, staff etc and (the Ofsted inspector!) - would definitely bring a negative Ofsted report. The parent should take responsibility for her child and keep her off. That is the moral thing to do, at the very least.

You want pre schoolers to do a PCR everytime they have a cough or cold?
Really…
A LFT ok, but all isolate for a PCR ,
What will the school mark this as?
A child could be at home more than they are there, crazy!

An Ofsted ‘fail’ for a coughing child

Get a grip @penni00

You need another job OP !

@Lalalablahblahblah

If you can't cope with kids with colds you're probably in the wrong job. Yabu to expect parents to take young children for a PCR every time they get a cough or cold.

Sorry but since the law is that you need to isolate pending PCR results for a new cough OP is definitely not BU to expect people to do so. What a ridiculous thing to say!
Parents who just refuse to test their kids when symptomatic are dicks.
Pretty sure that's the reason both my DC currently are on their second isolation for testing positive in just over a month. There are a couple of very vocal parents who like to talk loudly about their 'rights' and how they 'wont be testing my child' then just send them to school with symptoms

Yep. The type of idiots on this thread. Parenting not being high on their list of skills

I'd be thankful you're in such a stable job that you don't have to worry about losing it if you're off isolating, or taking your child for yet another pcr because, surprise surprise, they have cold symptoms in January .

Maybe this mother works for the private sector in an industry that has been decimated by lockdowns; she may have previously lost a job due to lockdowns and isolations, had to have time off unpaid etc etc, without the privileges that the public sector brings with it.

Maybe you need to start thinking from other people's perspective and realise others have had it hard too over the last 2 years, and if you work with toddlers/young children there's a pretty good chance you're going to be exposed to viruses; most of which may, at worst, make you feel a big rough for a few days.

@Whistleforthechoir

I'd be thankful you're in such a stable job that you don't have to worry about losing it if you're off isolating, or taking your child for yet another pcr because, surprise surprise, they have cold symptoms in January .

Maybe this mother works for the private sector in an industry that has been decimated by lockdowns; she may have previously lost a job due to lockdowns and isolations, had to have time off unpaid etc etc, without the privileges that the public sector brings with it.

Maybe you need to start thinking from other people's perspective and realise others have had it hard too over the last 2 years, and if you work with toddlers/young children there's a pretty good chance you're going to be exposed to viruses; most of which may, at worst, make you feel a big rough for a few days.

Well said

I didn't think under 5s had to isolate or test any more, or is it just in Wales that they don't?

I work with children and I think you are overreacting. You will be in contact with the virus, that's a certainty given the prevalence and the fact that many people who pass it on are asymptomatic. The only thing in your control is being tripple jabbed so it doesn't make you very unwell.