Keeping child from school......

[BellaVictoria]

I would like your opinion......
We have a 5 year old daughter that has asthma. In the last month she's had flu like symptoms (fever, vomiting, diarreah)three times and her asthma has been very active. We're in the US and we usually don't have these issues until January/February.
One of my husbands co-workers sons came down with H1N1 last week.
Our daughter was given the first H1N1 shot 2 weeks ago and will get the second one Friday of next week, if available.
We spoke with the American CDC who advised it takes for 2 weeks for the shot to begin working.
So, we are keeping her from school until 2 weeks after she gets the second shot.
We feel she needs to get the immunity we can give her right now before continuing to expose her to the unknown.
When I contacted the school principal, he sounded confused and was more concerned with ther academics than anything.
It was obvious that we are the only ones doing this....which shocks us, because all over the news all we see is pandemic!

I think you are very wise to take her out of school, especially with her health problems.

She's still very little and I don't honestly think it'll do her future acedemic career any harm to be away for a few weeks.

If the school is that concerned, could they send her some work home?

Yes. I e-mailed with her teacher....luckily I volunteer for her all the time, so she knows I mean business !
She was very pleasant and willing to send lesson plans home

Tell the head teacher you are concerned about her health and it is your job to make sure she is well for school so by keeping her of for two weeks will mean in the long term she will be off school for much less - as she will be protected against the flu and not have reacuring flu or astham which could lead to weeks and weeks aways from the class room.

The more people in your situation do this the more the teachers will get used to it and see it as reasonable.

I think people without underlying health problems like asthma are often just hearing an "it's mild, don't worry" message and not really thinking about what it means for people who do have asthma.

I think you're doing the right thing.

I think its a really sensible plan of yours. It is pretty rife there at the moment isn't it, and much better to keep your dd away from this until the vaccine kicks in.

I know that school districts can be really hot on attendance in the states, so it might be worth finding out how much time she can have off before there are repercussions. At the same time, when flu gets into your district properly, there are going to be an awful lot of people wondering the same thing!