Poorly kids and no WFH options, aibu to be frustrated that my manager says I'm taking too much short notice leave?

[TrixieTrix]

I have 2 kiddos;

The eldest is 6 and she has Autism and ADHD (diagnosed) and has pica behaviours, so despite our best efforts this kid gets sick because although we are on it at home if she plays outside at school she will probably eat something she shouldn't.

She also just seems super prone to every cough/cold/bug going.

The youngest is 16 months and also gets every bug going since starting nursery.

It means I have to use a lot of A/L to cover sickness because my husband leaves for work at 6am so if they wake up with something it falls to me. (If it's multiple days or starts at a weekend etc my husband will organise to WFH or take the day off equally)

My manager pulled me in to say I was having too much short notice leave but what can I do? If my kids are sick and can't go to school/nursery and they won't let me WFH, I'll either have to take it off unpaid or use A/L.

My job can be done from home but my manager doesn't like WFH in general so doesn't allow it and I've never pushed back on it because I've always managed.

It's normally only a day at a time because I organise childcare with my husband/mum/sister so I can get back to work asap.

I don't know what more I can do? Am I missing some magical solution here?

I'm anxious and on edge all the time anyway because I have a disabled kid now I have to worry about work as well.

Is there any advice people can give for solutions that you have found?

@TrixieTrix put this back on your manager

I have small children - they will get sick i will need AL at short notice
My solve would be I wfh where possible to minimise disruption , up until it hasnt been an option - do you want to review that? If not, what solution do you propose?

we so often dosed them up on calpol and hoped for the best in these years. If you can get them in, you might get away with not getting the dreaded phone call and if they do call, your dh can respond half the time.

I think it’s normal to go to school with a cold, just not a temperature or an upset tummy

I've taken 7 days since January of emergency annual leave for the 2 kids.

It's normally only a day then I get cover for the rest of it with Husband/Mum/Sister.

I'm looking into other jobs that are flexible but I don't want to take the piss with them either, I feel like working parents just get absolutely shafted, especially ones more prone to catching bugs

That is loads. 7 different instances of absence!? I can see why your manager is questioning it.

My kid is disabled and has pica behaviours, if you don't watch her like a hawk (like when she is at school in the playground) she will eat leaves/grass etc and get stomach bugs.

She is more prone to illnesses and temps than normal kids.

Also it's not just one kid, it's 2 they don't get sick at the same time for our convenience.

We've only had 12 weeks, I know it's hard and I don't know what the solution but that's every other week or 10% of time so far. I can see why you're employer is frustrated.

It was easier when I compressed my hours because I could swap days about if one of them was sick but I can't do that now because I've changed my daughters nursery hours

How many meetings do you have? Might it be possible to do compressed hours so you have 1 day "off" every fortnight or drop to 4 days a week? If you have flexibility in schedule (and budget, I appreciate that), maybe that day off could move as needed.

Edit: sorry, cross posted with you

More wfh seems to me an option as a reasonable adjustment, so to speak. Won’t stop all short notice instances but will help.

WFH would not be appropriate in your situation. When your children are ill they need you there with them, not shut away in a home office focusing on work. What you need is not a WFH arrangement but a flexitime arrangement where you work full-length days when your children are both well and you have no medical appointments, EHCP meetings or other important non-work things, and can flexibly take days off as and when needed, at not notice if necessary, averaging the required number of days per week over a few weeks if you maybe need. Many jobs can be done with an hours pattern like this, but not all. If having you on an hours pattern like this does not meet the needs of your employers business then they aren't obliged to agree it - a "reasonable adjustment" is only reasonable if it leads to the job being done in full and fully meeting the business needs. You are protected from discrimination on the protected characteristic of being the carer for a disabled child but you need to negotiate with either this employer (or if that fails, any future employer) to agree a pattern of work that meets their needs and that you are confident you can stick to.

This will of course mean that you have to increase your nursery hours again. You are trying to run a life with no flexibility in a situation that absolutely requires flexibility and for that to work you have to be paying for more nursery hours than your expected work hours in order to create some flexibility. You not being able to afford something is not the employers' problem, and it is not appropriate to keep using Annual Leave for a situation that is about your responsibilities as a carer. Annual Leave is something that every employee is entitled to in order to help maintain a reasonable work-life balance and if you are converting all your AL to emergency carer's leave in order to save money you will become burned out and an ineffective employee who isn't managing to meet the requirements of the job, so it is quite correct for your manager to put a stop to you using it in this way.

Possibly a side-track but I hope you and DH have fully pooled finances with no suggestion of whose money is paying for what - that can lead to women saying they "can't afford" nursery because they are comparing the nursery fees to their own solo earnings. However, the requirement for these extra nursery hours is really a direct result of DH's inflexibility - you have to approach this as a team and use both salaries as a pooled resource to meet the family's needs.

If your kids are all so often and you don’t have family/friends who can step in to help (like generations before did) then I don’t think you can mess employers around like this. They’re employing you to be there to do a job, else why employ you?

Get your children on D3 and Vit C and wait for the colds to stop.

I'm going to be truthful, as a small business owner with an employee who has a child with SEN - it's tough trying to fit around the demands that their family place on them. The meetings are really disruptive, they also have SS involvement that involves a lot of meetings too. And the short notice leave is really tough to arrange their workload around - I can't ring my customers and explain that the person doing their work is off looking after a poorly/excluded child instead of doing the work this person has paid for.

I don't want to kick you when you're down, but you are expecting your employer to embrace the chaos that life with young children brings. I just want my staff to come in, do their job and go home again so we can all pay our bills at the end of the month...

Wfh is no good in these circumstances as you would have to look after your child

Oh love, you're not missing anything magical, you're just doing your best in an impossible situation with no flexibility from your employer. The fact your job can be done from home but your manager just doesn't like WFH is the actual problem here, not you or your poorly kids.
A few thoughts. First, you may have grounds to request flexible working formally, specifically WFH on short notice when children are ill. Put it in writing citing your eldest's disability as this gives you some protection under the Equality Act since you're a carer for a disabled child. They have to consider it properly and give business reasons if they refuse.
Second, have you looked into whether your daughter's school has any additional support that might reduce the pica incidents during the day? Worth a conversation with the SENCO if you haven't already.
Third, for the short term, could you and your husband alternate who takes the first morning so it's not always falling to you by default? Even if he leaves at 6am, could he go in late occasionally rather than it always being your leave that takes the hit?
Fourth, check your contract and company policy on dependants leave as you're legally entitled to reasonable unpaid time off for emergencies involving dependants, and what counts as reasonable is flexible.
You're juggling so much and doing brilliantly. Your manager needs to understand that life happens and a bit of flexibility costs them nothing compared to losing a good employee. Would it help to keep a log of all this in case you need it later?

But you could still swap and do full days when your DH or other family is looking after the sick child. So let's say you are at home on the Monday since you didn't know one of the kids were going to be sick, then DH is home Tuesday, you can then work 8 hours on the Tuesday instead and he will look after the nursery aged child too.

I don't want to kick you when you're down, but you are expecting your employer to embrace the chaos that life with young children brings. I just want my staff to come in, do their job and go home again so we can all pay our bills at the end of the month...

This is pretty much every employer out there, even public sector would call you in for 7 days off in a little over two months.

You and your DH will have to come up with some other solutions because this is not working. As I’ve said so many of us with children with AN are faced with this tough reality and that is why so many of us have to rejig our working life to reduce the stress of dealing with this aspect of our reality.

Parental
leave can also only be taken in weeks which isn’t that helpful.

your boss is being unreasonable. You can’t do much else!!

OP make sure you have a paperwork trail of informing your manager or HR of your DD’s disability as if they try to discipline/exit you because of the absences you would have some protection as it would be associative discrimination.

New job with better manager

I am a manager with a disabled kid, so sort of see both sides of this coin.

In this situation I’d be asking you to WFH for your 4hrs when your partner gets in - but then I work in an industry where at least some of the tasks aren’t time sensitive.

My immediate question as a parent would be why someone at school doesn’t have eyes on your child at all times if she has PICA - they’re putting her at risk.

I think you should go back to your employer in an open and fair manner. You were not unreasonable and made changes at their request but in practice is isn't working.

The change to 4 hrs per day is not working for them because kids get sick and you have no choice in the matter for the first day [point out that your spouse/family is doing the other half].

Then the choices are to ride it out to Easter and then either change back the nursery hours or hope for less illness until next winter. The toddler years are the absolute worst though.

If swapping your days with a colleague in the event of illness prior to this wasn't working for them either then I suspect that you are going to find yourself managed out. I would look for a role that is not public facing but no employer is going to entertain you WFH with two small and sick kids unless you can catch up in the evening.

I find this very sad. You are employing 'humans' not bots. People come with fully dimensional lives outside work. It's not realistic to think otherwise. It's this attitude that holds women in particular back- expecting workers to have no domestic responsibilities at all. It's designed for an age when women weee at home doing ALL the domestic stuff leaving men free to do ast the please.

This poster is not skiving when she takes a day off to look after her sick child. What is ahe or her husband supposed to do in that situation? Nursery wont have them and presumably there is no one else.

i don't think she's been well managed at all. In fact there is no management or effort on the employer. I have a wonderful boss who sees us all as people. She would never pull me up for being at home with sick kids. She'd ask if theee was anything we could do to make it work better. Support working parents don't fire them.