Should parents be allowed to use sick days when their kids are sick?

[MM27]

reading the Mental Health Day thread, something else popped into my head. My school is not strict about sick days. I don't have kids myself, but I know that plenty of teachers use sick days for when their kids are sick. We are allowed to be out 3 days and on the 4th day are required to bring in a doctor's note. So it's not really a big deal.

My sister is also a teacher, in another district, and their contract states that sick days are for the employee only. I guess you can lie and say that you're sick, but isn't that the same as lying and saying that your sick when it's a mental health reason?

 

[jrmasm]

reading the Mental Health Day thread, something else popped into my head. My school is not strict about sick days. I don't have kids myself, but I know that plenty of teachers use sick days for when their kids are sick. We are allowed to be out 3 days and on the 4th day are required to bring in a doctor's note. So it's not really a big deal.

My sister is also a teacher, in another district, and their contract states that sick days are for the employee only. I guess you can lie and say that you're sick, but isn't that the same as lying and saying that your sick when it's a mental health reason?

We are allowed to use 5 days per year to care for sick family members. So I'd say yes.

But if you don't have a deal like that, I'd say no.

 

[RichNKatHolly]

Yes and I've done it. I don't know how else you would work it if your child was sick and both parents were working.

 

[jrmasm]

The way I read the question is that you should use vacation or personal days. Or get grandma to come over.

 

[Robmom]

My company allows it. You may use a sick day for either yourself or children. We can also use it for dr appointments for yourself or children.

 

[shellybaxter]

We are allowed to use sick days for our sick family members. I can take a sick day to take my husband to the doctor or to take care of my sick mother. That being said, I think whether it "should" be allowed is really up to the employer. Sick days are a benefit offered by the employer, not a right or a privledge.

 

[RichNKatHolly]

The way I read the question is that you should use vacation or personal days. Or get grandma to come over.

Ahhh, we were never allowed to use vacation days without notice - it would have to be a sick day. We didn't have a set number of personal days either.

We don't all have a grandma or other person available though (especially someone who wants to come a sit with my puking kid, ya know).

Seriously, I took a few days unpaid at my last job because of sick children. I also think alot of kids go to school when they should be home sick because the parents can't take off. I think it's pretty awful but that just my opinion.

 

[mickeyboat]

We are specifically allowed to use them when members of our immediate families are sick.

 

[HsvTeacher]

In our school system, the teachers and support staff are allowed to use sick days if their children are sick. To me, that's just common sense. I mean, if you have the sick days, then why wouldn't you be able to use them.

What ticks me off is when people use sick days they don't have, and then act surprised when their pay is docked. We have a teacher's assistant that has only been here three days out of the past two weeks. That, to me, is unacceptable.

 

[suzannen]

In my company, a sick day for your child counts the same as a sick day for yourself. As does a day if you need to take off because your spouse or elder parent is having a medical procedure and must have someone else take them home. We are allowed 15 sick days per year.

 

[Nette]

I've never worked anywhere that wouldn't allow me to take a sick day if my child were ill. (of course, these days, you're sort of expected to work from home if you're sick... unless you're dying or something)

In fact, every place I've worked has also said, that if I or my child get sick when I'm taking vacation days, that the vacation days are put back in my account and sick days are used for the days I or my child is sick.

For example, when my daughter had a surgery, it was scheduled on fairly short notice and I had already planned on taking 2 weeks off at Christmas. My boss said that I should drop the day of the surgery and the number of days that it was supposed to take for recovery (outpatient surgery) from my planned vacation and take sick days those days instead.

 

[Jestocost]

We have no sick days and no vacation days, just paid time off days. I can use them for whatever reason.

 

[okeydokey]

Yes we are allowed to use sick days for caring for sick family members and we do.

 

[MusiqChic99]

The company I work for gives everyone a week of sick pay. We can take it by the hour or day. For example if I need to be gone 2 hours and I can't make up my time I can just use 2 hours of sick pay.

We can use our sick pay for whatever reason we choose. I never seemed to get around to taking mine. And in that case we can just carry over our unused hours. So right now I have 80 hours of sick pay for this year. Now I just need to be sick for 2 weeks. *wink*

 

[Pigeon]

Yes, they should. What else are you realistically going to expect parents to do? In our case "grandma" is in her late 80s, and not up to dealing with sick kids. Other people have no close relatives. When the child is sick, they need to be with a parent.

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

Yes they should.

We are lucky in that I am a SAHM, so if DS gets sick we don't have to worry about DH taking time off of work. He has taken sick days though, before, when he needed to care for DS or I.

Recently, I had my gallbladder out and DH needed to drive me home, so of course he took a sick day for that. The next day, he took DS to school and went into work for a few hours before returning to pick him up. His boss was like, "Uh..what about your wife?". DH informed him that I was probably going to sleep most of the day thanks to the meds I was on and he didn't need to be there to watch me sleep. Which is true. I did sleep most of the day that day and only ate soup, so I didn't really need nursing. The next day was DH's scheduled day off anyway and by the end of the weekend I felt up to taking care of DS myself, driving him to school, etc.

 

[C.Ann]

I guess you can lie and say that you're sick, but isn't that the same as lying and saying that your sick when it's a mental health reason?

------------------------------------
If you're dealing with a mental health issue, you are sick.. Mental health problems are illnesses..

As for using sick days when your kids are sick, if you have them, I suppose you should be able to use them.. However, kids get sick so often, you could go through them pretty quickly and have none left for if you were sick yourself.. Tough situation to be in..

 

[golfgal]

We have no sick days and no vacation days, just paid time off days. I can use them for whatever reason.

It would be easier on everyone if all companies did this. It would take away a lot of the complaining by other employees that "so and so got more time off" or "so and so isn't REALLY sick" and it saves HR time documenting what the absence is for.

 

[bicker]

Each employer needs to make this policy for themselves. A national policy in this regard would represent an undue burden on some businesses.

I like the system where employers allocate all employees a certain number of personal days, and once they're gone, folks would be expected to take days off without pay.

 

[Christine]

I work for the federal government and, at least in my agency, the policy is that you can use your sick leave to care for immediate family members illnesses. This includes doctor's appointments that you have to take them to. It sort of stems from the Family Medical Leave Act where 12 weeks of unpaid leave can be granted to care for a family member. While this policy of using your sick leave is not really part of it, I guess they figured that it logically goes hand-in-hand with it.