Poll: Do you send your mildly ill child to school?

[Barb D]

Inspired by my situation today:

Assume you have a mildly ill child (runny nose, cough, temp between 99 and 100) and s/he is too young to stay home alone. Do you send them to school, or keep them home?

Poll coming...

 

[daisyduck123]

NO, I never send my kids when they are not feeling up to par.

I'm a teacher & I know firsthand that any child not feeling up to par is not getting anything out of my lessons anyway. All they do is sit there sneezing, coughing, or sitting there with their heads down on their desks.

 

[gr8ful4Him]

yes I send my "mildly ill" child to school. When he wakes up and says he doesn't feel good, I send him and tell him if he doesn't get any better to go to the nurse's office and I will pick him up. He usually feels better within an hour or so and I think in the last year and a half, I've only had to pick him up twice
In our district, if you miss 3 days in a row, you have to get a doctor's excuse when you come back!

 

[KelNottAt]

I keep my kids home with any fever. It might be "nothing" or it might be strep (which they get about 4-5 times per year each).

Knock on wood - DS has perfect attendance so far this year and DD only has one absence (yup, strep).

Oh, ETA: I can get off work pretty easily and DH works at home 1 - 2 days a week. So, we can usually swing it.

 

[golfgal]

If it is just a basic cold where they are still functioning ok, then yes, they got to school. If they wake up and look horrible, they stay home. My kids don't tend to run fevers so that isn't a good indicator for us. It really comes down to how they feel. If I can't be sure if they are sick enough to stay home I do the TV test. If they want to stay home they have to stay in their room, no tv all day, if they agree to that then they are sick enough to stay home (then they usually get to watch tv). Usually if I say this though, they usually come back with "well, I GUESS I can go to school". I am a SAHM so having to work doesn't factor into the decision for me.

 

[Pooh Crew]

If one of mine has fever, I do keep them home. My son usually feels terrible with even a mild fever--he gets very cranky and I am sure the teacher would rather not have to deal with him. For my girls, while they do not typically feel as bad as their brother, I figure if it's fever, it's probably something contagious and I would just hate to spread whatever it is. Of course, mine are still in kindergarten and I am home anyway, so it is an easy decision for us.

 

[disykat]

I send them with coughs and runny noses all the time. You can't stay home every time your nose runs or you cough or you'd never be at school. However, fevers are usually low in the AM, so any elevation and they stay home.

Usually I'm home so it's not a big deal. DH can stay home if I'm working. There have been a couple times we've had a hard time rearranging, but we've managed. Now my oldest can be home for a bit by himself so I'm looking for more permanent employment. He gets ill a lot so it would have been problematic for me to have a regular job previously. A bout of pneumonia can keep him home for two weeks at a time.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Inspired by my situation today:

Assume you have a mildly ill child (runny nose, cough, temp between 99 and 100) and s/he is too young to stay home alone. Do you send them to school, or keep them home?

Poll coming...

I voted something else entirely as we homeschool. So if child isn't feeling well and is crabby and a fever (and for our family 99 is a fever as we do run low body temps to begin with) we don't do school.

At a temp of 99--we wouldn't go to co-op or other activities either.

If we they went to regular school, we still would keep them home b/c when they run a low grade 99 fever...something is amiss and they are sick. It is a rarity when they are sick to begin with.

 

[JVL1018]

I don't even own a thermometer, but if they are warm I would keep them home.
I voted send them anyway, even though I am home with them, but that is not for a fever.

I would and do send them with a little runny nose(clear only)-sometimes they have a runny nose for a week, but feel otherwise totally fine. I can't see keeping a child home for that for that length of time. Same for a slight cough.

Of course if they are sneezing and hacking all over the place, they stay home.
If they feel fine and just have minor runny nose and a cough that goes away with some cold med, than they get the cold med and go to school.

 

[stacy347]

In the case you describe, mine would be home for the day. The schools here go by the health department guidelines and that states any sick child should not be back in school until they are fever-free for 24 hours.
If they notice the kids are feeling ill, they will take the temperature and call you anyway so there's really no point in sending them.

BUT, if there is no fever and it's just your average sniffles & cough (such as 2 of my DDs have right now ), they will go to school once I give them some Triaminic or Tylenol Cold or something.

BTW, I hope your child feels better soon!

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I base it on the child and how sick they feel. If it's a mild cold or cough I send them to school. BTW, I am a SAHM so am here to watch a child, but I don't keep them home for a mild cold.

 

[N.Bailey]

I voted something else because it would really depend on how much school they might have missed to that point. If it's mid Feb and they've not missed a day yet, of course I'd keep them home. If however, it's mid Feb and they had the flu in November that kept them out of school for a week, I'd probably send them with instructions to see the nurse if they got worse.

 

[Planogirl]

Mine has had a lot of problems with allergies over the years. Generally a dose of Tylenol for allergies and a little time will make him feel OK.

 

[golfgal]

Mine has had a lot of problems with allergies over the years. Generally a dose of Tylenol for allergies and a little time will make him feel OK.

Allergies are a totally different thing, they aren't contagious.

 

[Colleen456]

I have done what I thought best in each situation and it came back to bite me in the butt.

DS was out sick with a few illnesses this year. Last week he was out with a fever, head congestion and drippy nose. Well we got a really nasty letter from the school district calling my 7 year old truant and threatening to send the truant officer out to my house. FOR A SEVEN YEAR OLD!

I called him in every time he was ill and thought we were good. Well I guess not. So for every head cold/virus he gets I have to now take him to the doctor according to the school. The Doctor thinks this is INSANE so they said if I call and they think its just a virus then they will give me a note stating that he doesn't need to be seen and its ok that he's home.

DH said to send him in when he sick, per their instructions and let them deal with the consequences but then again that's not fair to my son. Its hard to know what to do sometimes. Today he's got a sore throat, I don't see anything going on in there and he doesn't have a fever so off he goes. He knows he can call and someone will come get him.

 

[AmazingGrace]

As I type this, my dd is coughing and wheezing. She sounds like she's fixing to cough up a lung. I had start her on an oral steroid. She's having an allergy asthma flareup. The cedar is extremely high and all of my kids are snotty and coughing. Not one of them is sick though in the contagious sense of the word.
So, yes, I do send my kids to school mildly ill. Now if it's a viral/contagious thing, then I keep them home, but if i kept them home every time they sneezed or coughed, I might as well homeschool them.

 

[aprilgail2]

I try to keep her home as much as possible if she is sick...last year she missed 30+ days of school due to illnesses...my problem is the people that send their kids to school and say "its only a cold"...yea, well to your kid its only a cold..to my kid a cold becomes 105 fever, breathing trouble and all sorts of fun things like ER visits!...so just a cold to one persons kid is hell to us! Any kind of fever I certainly keep her home too...I work full time but if Grandma can't watch her I can usually dig up someone that can and if they can't then I call off sick to work.

 

[delilah]

If my child felt excessively tired, and I didn't feel he could keep up with the class work, I definitely would not send him to school. I am in a special situation, though. I am a family physician, and my patients would not be appreciative if I would cancel office hours because my son has the sniffles. So, I sometimes will take him to the office with me, and let him work at my desk on a variety of projects I have there to amuse him in that situation. If he is really sick, I will bundle him up with some pillows and blankets I have there for that reason. I am fortunate that he has been blessed so far with good health. I think he has missed a total of 5 days of school since preschool because he was sick (compared to probable 15 or so for Disney vacations and two more for oral surgery). On snow days, or the dreaded, two hour delays, I will also keep him with me at work. Usually, there is already office staff by the time I arrive for rounds, and somebody will watch him while I see patients at the hospital. (He is in second grade now).

On the other hand, if he has a high energy level, and doesn't act sick, I will let him go to school with a runny nose. I have been called by the school to pick him up for vomiting, when all he did for the rest of the day was play at my office. He was no sicker than I was--the school secretary has gotten smart, though. If my son runs around too much and gets hot after lunch, he will vomit. She lets him lie down in the office for a few minutes. If he gets up and is more interested in the fish tank, then he is sent back to class.

Incidentally, I only rarely take his temperature. I rely more on his clinical appearance, and only take his temperature if he is acting sick. Having a runny nose, but otherwise acting normal is not acting sick.

 

[va32h]

In our district, children are allowed 7 absences without a drs. note. More than 7, and the school could refuse to pass the child to the next grade.

If he is not sick enough to see a doctor (and get a note), I would probably make him go to school.

 

[aprilgail2]

In our district, children are allowed 7 absences without a drs. note. More than 7, and the school could refuse to pass the child to the next grade.

If he is not sick enough to see a doctor (and get a note), I would probably make him go to school.

LOL...my daughter would be left back every year!! She will be the only 12 year old left in kindergarten!! Our school has a 30 day policy..if you miss more than 30 days they have the option to leave the kid back..my daughter was above grade level in her work so they were not even considering leaving her back last year.