I'm too ill to take DD to school and now DH is unwell too -- can we just keep DD home for a day or two?

[SongsOfSongs]

I have COVID or the flu or something and I have been absolutely floored with fever, congestion, racing heart, etc. since Friday. I've camped out in the bedroom all weekend while DH took care of the children. Now, he says he's got it too. For me, it came on very strongly, so I worry that by the morning he is going to be very unwell. If he is, can we just keep DD home for the day? She's in Y5.

Ideas I've considered that won't work: We live a bit far from the school so no other families near us that I know of. No good enough friends that I would ask this of them either. It's tube + walking and I don't feel comfortable sending her on her own. I have an older DD but their schools are in opposite directions, so she couldn't make the primary drop and then get to her school in time and would get detention. Don't think I'd feel comfortable sending her in a taxi. Is there anything else I'm missing? Hopefully it'd just be a day - maybe two - before I was well enough to take her.

Never had one of us become ill before the other was better before!

Yes flu doesn’t always incapacitate.

So you really don't have relevant advice to give? Gotcha.

I think the bottom line is conscientious parents need to stop tying themselves in knots over one or two unavoidable days off school and concentrate on the bigger picture. We all know attendance is used as a cheap catch all for improving educational outcomes without addressing the trickier issues of poverty and social inequality which are the main causes of poor educational outcomes and behavioural issues.

Engaged, supportive parents stress themselves out unnecessarily trying to hit 100% attendance but their kids are really not the core demographic these draconian rules are aimed.

Just how much energy do you think is expanded in moving a finger or two a few centimetres here and there? 😂

Clearly you are someone who’s never been incapacitated with flu

Yes sick days can’t be helped but seems a bit wrong for a kid to miss education when they’re not even unwell just parents feeling a bit poorly

you have clearly missed it all

I must have missed it too.

You clearly haven't ever been really poorly then! On the throes of flu and Covid I could barely get to the toilet let alone drive my kid to school!

I don't think anyone missed you avoiding answering the question, that was plain as day.

How? I'm commenting on today's situation. Due to this there is most likely to be other backups put in place in case of a similar occurrence in the next year ( after that she's plenty old enough to get herself to school)

This is completely absolutely the norm for 10 year olds, including mine. The only 10 year old I know who walks himself to school lives about 120m from the school fence with no main roads in between.

Could you have wrote posts on MN etc ?

It really depends on the area, as where I am the vast majority of children start walking to school with friends/alone from the start of year 5, so at 9 years old.
Not saying that’s at all relevant to the OP’s situation though.

Reading some internet off and on and coming out with a mask for 5 minutes when my children come home from school is clearly not the same as getting up, ready, and taking them out. I couldn't even brush my teeth until 5pm today.

I'm also disabled already, so things hit me harder, and mornings are already a struggle on the best of days. However, I didn't mentioned this because it isn't really pertinent because even before being disabled I absolutely had the flu so bad I could not function on more than one occasion. Once I had to walk 5 minutes and I thought I was going to pass out.

Sometimes, I can't actually believe I've read a comment on MN.

Really?? You are REALLY putting the blame on OP because, ultimately, she chose (or was allocated, you can't know) a primary school that wasn't within a short walk of her home? (I mean, the area could be a dicey one you don't want a 10 yo girl walking alone though, or OP might have moved and kept the school place, or maybe there are 101 other reasons why she didn't end up with the geographically closest school.)

Fucksake. Some of the replies on this post beggar belief. I've been on MN 20 years this year and it's become a really brutal, thoughtless bear pit. People just don't seem able to rein in the scorn and belittling and wanton, pointless unkindness. OP has said she's really ill. ILL-ill. Yet all the posts 'surely you can drag yourself up and take her in?' If I were in the middle of a 'flu I really wouldn't have felt safe at the wheel of a car!

There's also a world of difference between keeping a 10 year old child at home where she's safe and can amuse herself (ok or do a sodding worksheet if it breaks you out in a cold sweat that a year 5 child goes a whole school day without schooling) while both parents do no more than stagger to the loo, and expect that child to make her own way to school, in London. One option is very much safer than the other.

It would be an unauthorised absence as she is not sick.

Do you live close enough that they walk to school on their own or with friends? This is allowed in my children’s school. Or, is there another parent of one of your child’s friend’s who can take her?

That sounds dangerous. I would worry about leaving my children with an incapacitated or even more seriously unwell parent.

I've texted while being in bed but not able to read/ sit up and watch telly/ get to the bathroom without falling over as I was so dizzy. Texting/MN takes no effort whatsoever and tbh phones do half the work with predictive text.

The OP posted well over 24 hours ago. The school day she was referring to is long over, and the child went to school.

If the Op and her partner have what I’ve had for 10 days they’re probably on their knees. I’m still in bed and even one hour pottering in the afternoon or in the morning knocks me sideways. I think it’s Covid.

Op, I’d keep your DD at home. Just relax and let the illness take its course. Rest it out. You’ll be all the better for it.

Some of the people on this thread are either lunatics, trolls, or both. 😂 Their Poorly Parent Martyr Medals, fashioned from solidified tears, sweat, mucus and other unmentionables, are in the kitchen post. The OP should be cackling and flipping the bird at the whole lot of them, the nutters. 😅

Yes If you have vertigo then I’m sure it is possibly to lie in bed posting on MN. But not if you have bad case of flu.

The issue here is that you’re struggling to understand that there are ranges of illness, and there are symptoms that exist in between ‘unable to function in any way’ and ‘capable of doing everything as normal, just feeling a little ill’. That’s fine, it can be tricky to imagine things if you haven’t personally experienced them and not understanding things isn’t a character flaw. But many people on this thread are saying that they have experienced illnesses where yes, they are able to type on their phone from their bed but no, they are not able to take their child across London to school and back. Refusing to believe other people’s experiences could be seen as a character flaw.

When I had a bad case of the flu and worse illnesses, I could barely get out of bed to go to the toilet, but I was browsing mumsnet occasionally, you might not be able to do that, but that’s not a universal thing, there’s a huge difference between taking your kids to a school a bit away and moving your thumb about on your phone and it’s weird that you keep doubting the op just because she was able to post.