home education and bugs

[pinkkoala]

please can anyone that home eds tell me if your child still gets as many bugs and illnesses as much as children in school,

my dd was at nursey but was constantly ill with colds, coughs chest infections, nits, bugs, impetigo you name it the nursey had it.

what is it like with home schooled children.

Hardly hardly ever for us TBH. We've never yet had nits or anything like that; hardly ever suffer from colds, coughs, infections- in fact, running a fever is so rare that I am always convinced it is meningitis

We get our share of colds, but nothing like the constant streaming noses I often see in the nursery-frequenting children of friends.

but I don't know whether that's because we're not there in the thick of things or whether we are just blessed with fantastic immune systems and [smug]

thanks for the message,

i'm so fed up with dd getting things, we have now took her out of nursey as i gave up work in june, i was constantly taking time off to look after her, then i would be the next one to get it and then go to work ill or take more time off.

will they still build up an immune system though if they aren't at school mixing with the other kids.

she is supposed to start school next sept but am tempted to try home ed for different reasons as well, like schools are too big, overcrowding in the classroom, and i don't like the schools in our area, these new fangled schools don't do nothing for me.

the one at home rarely gets ill, unlike the ones at school in our house

Ours don't get ill very often at all - the odd cold/snotty nose but nothing else really. And what they do get they get very mildly - they've got strong immune systems.

My son gets the odd infection but it doesn't cause the angst it used to when he was at school and I had to decide whether to allow him to stay at home or force him in. He might be on the sofa for a few hours then be fine again!

thanx for the messages, i'm fed up with my dd getting things all the time, she now has another cold but at the mo it doesn't seem to be as bad as they were when she was at nursery.

i really like the idea of home ed, partly because of the size of the schools, and i don't think she will get enough one to one attention. She was at playgroup after nursery but we have taken her out of there as the staff told me they weren't allowed to teach them too much as when they go to school the ones that are more advanced are the ones that become disruptive, that doesn't sound right to me.

and i don't want her getting things all the time, she has had her fair share.

no mine get sick all te time in the winter, sorry

but it is not usually bad enough to need to stop everything for the day

there is generally less of a rush, so if we are ill in the morning we can often still get on and do things in the afternoon.

Also, when they are sick, things can be slowed down to their pace.

I think I am saying that they ARE sick but it is not very disruptive. Except today when they are ALL sick.

oh..hope they aren't too poorly, is it the d anv bug or the coldy bug. my dd has the coldy bug at mo.

its the chesty cough bug. it has knocked everyone out in the HE group family by family . Not hugely fun but...ok really.

but its ok really, there is no pressure to do anything, they are not missing anything...it just means a day in the house really.

I guess you are always socialising anyway with other children and adults if you HE.

Also some people think it is great to bring their sick child round to see your lot when they are not at school

(tis FA)

hi FA! Yes we have that. What we also have occasionally is friends suggesting that we might like to look after their sick kids for them while they go to work . Because we are of course doing bugger all here and furthermore I'd really like my kids to get sick too

Its a tricky question for me actually PK because I don't KNOW how many bugs kids get in school! Ds has been in kindergarten and he got about the same amount of bugs, iirc. Sorry.

I don't think we are sick here very much, thats the best I can say. And when we are, learning still goes on much as usual really, but with more duvets.

Last year the whole HE community here constantly fought off recurring chest infections it seemed.

My dd1 doesn't get ill very often at all. Even when she was at Nursery and for the one term at school she did, she came down with Chicken Pox, relatively mildly, and one cold. If she was to be ill it would be more likely to be her stomach.

Ds1 is also pretty good, but I can guarantee if there is a cold and he gets it, it will go to his chest causing croup. Everytime. MIL says Dh was exactly the same.

Ds2 is unvaccinated as yet and hasn't caught anything I can remember, except some weird virus which caused a non-blanching rash last year...bit scary but he was over it in 3 days.

My sisters kids (schooled) are always ill!

Tbh I half expected us to be prone to all sorts of illness, mixing with the community as a whole rather than just school, but apparently not.

My DS did a few weeks at school in Reception and was sick for pretty much the entire time, including catching chickenpox (which was fine because wanted him to have that). He has just started back at school after two years HE and has had the chesty cold and the very nasty d n' v bug which went round the entire family.

So we definitely had less bugs while HEing but still caught coughs and colds, which build up immunity, but seemed to miss out on the really horrid stomach bugs, (don't know if they build up immunity or not but would rather just not have them anyway).

I miss home educating for lots of reasons and this is definitely one of them!

I always find my dd is stronger after illness

Like my mama always tol' me-what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.