Feeling ill (in normal times) is no excuse for not going to school

If you are ill, especially with something contagious, you should not go to school or work.

On the rare occasions we were off school ill, we were not allowed to step outside in case anyone saw us, because if you were well enough to do that, you were well enough for school.

Yes I remember if your well enough to go to go out you are well enough to go to school.

Oh gosh yes. Apart from anything else we were told that 'family name' don't get colds'! We believed Dad when he told us that.

As one who had to deal with the children who were sent to school when ill, I offer another perspective.
Little Felicity, sent in to school with "a bit of a temperature, but I've given her some Calpol," suffers projectile vomiting an hour later during a maths lesson, spraying the contents of her stomach over several classmates and the floor.
Maths lesson is abandoned as my classroom assistant and I organise the cleaning up and try to stop the domino affect that the sight and smell of vomit has on small children.
Two children start retching so I usher 30 children outside for a quick PE session and try to include a bit of maths at the same time.
The following day the bug spreads through my class and I keep plastic bowls dotted around the room, "just in case."
The whole school gets affected in the end and staff start dropping like flies.
Best of all some parents blame the school for the situation and, thanks to the playground mafia, we get a series of irate letters dropped of.
Just one example. I could give you more. Remind me to tell you the story of the girl with the broken leg who needed escorting to the toilet at regular intervals, or best of all, the lady who gave her son a 5ml spoonful of Ibobrufen gel, told us what she'd done, was horrified when I told her that it was for external use only then cleared off to work and left me to deal with the aftermath!

I had the reverse problem. Although I was never allowed to have what is now known as a duvet day, my mother had strict rules to be followed if I had had any illness which might be considered contagious. The day before the proposed return to school I had to go out for a lengthy walk to ensure that I was fit enough. I used to dread this in case anyone saw me and thought I was truanting!

I was sent to school unless I had an infectious illness, verified by the doctor who did home visits, (those were the days) and kept in bed and not allowed downstairs until I was fully recovered.
No, 'he was off sick yesterday with tonsillitis so he lay on the sofa watching TV, but he's all right today so I've sent him back'.

Oh yes. In the unusual event that we were off school due to illness we had to be in bed. No coming downstairs or watching TV. If you were ill you were ill. I was even left in bed ill on Christmas day while the family all went out to grandparents for Christmas lunch. A neighbour popped in to check I was OK and gave me a toffee. Whoopee. By gum we were tough in those days. No choice!!

I was always packed off to school until one morning when I nearly fell in a heap. I'd been alright but this was a near faint, it turned out that I had tonsillitis and had to have my throat painted with a brown solution that used to make me gag.
Within a few days once I'd started eating properly again I was then bunged off to school, no argument.

Mum sent us to school no matter what---" you'll soon get over it once you're there " was her war-cry.
Her voice in my ear has carried me through life and taught me to ignore many " ill feelings " and carry on.
Tough is right Jane10.

I actually don’t remember having time off school except for when I had measles, chicken pox and mumps (not at the same time) . Like many posters on here my mum used to say if ‘you’re well enough to play out you’re well enough to go to school’. My parents instilled in us a strong work ethic. Today apart from Covid symptoms of course, some people seem to take days off for the flimsiest of reasons. How society has changed.

Wow you ladies are harsh. Keep your sick kids home! Its not rocket science nor is it coddling them. Sick people need to quarantine, not get a dose of ibuprofen to bring their temperature down....

No staying home for us, either.
If we did, we had to make sure we didn't give any hint of feeling better, or mum would have made us go in for the afternoon.

I was always trying to be off school with one ailment or another

I produced 3 children who probably had 5 days off between them from primary school to college

My son never had a day off

Very odd.

My rules regarding time off school was that my children stayed at home and had a very boring time. I did read to them, did puzzles etc. But they had friends that would be ‘off sick’ and they’d be asking friends round to play, going to MacDonalds etc. Crazy. However, in the current climate one of the symptoms in children is tiredness so if a child says they still feel tired when they wake up it’s probably bet to keep them home.

LizziesMom

Wow you ladies are harsh. Keep your sick kids home! Its not rocket science nor is it coddling them. Sick people need to quarantine, not get a dose of ibuprofen to bring their temperature down....

Very much agree- But it's a side effect of people being enslaved to their wages and as a result teach children to think the same from a very young age- Any departure a country takes from that type of martyrdom is called a nanny state- Meantime, the rich get richer-

We used to go to special parties to catch eg chicken pox. It was very odd to suddenly have to play with children we didn't know. I remember having to share a cup with another girl. We did all catch chicken pox and stayed off school till we were recovered. I suppose it was better to have it when we were young but...

I agree with Fiorentina51. If you've ever worked in a school you'll know the mayhem one vomiting child or child with a bad cold can cause. Just because children went to school feeling ill in the past doesn't make it right now.

20 years ago I had a friend who was very lax with her children. She would get very huffy if anyone commented when one of them was, yet again, off school. Then her daughter's school report arrived. 55 absences in one year. She had had NO serious illnesses. Unbelievable.

When my daughter started teaching she actually phoned me up one morning to ask my permission to stay at home sick as she felt so bad about not going into work. I did tell her that it wasn’t a good idea to go into work when infectious. It worried me at the time that I had been a bit harsh with her when she was a child.

I don't remember anyone vomiting when I was at school. Maybe it happened, but it wasn't memorable if it did, and it certainly wasn't a regular occurrence.

We were brought up much as others on this thread. If we had a verifiable disease such as chicken pox, we were bought Locozade and maybe a comic to read, and generally nursed back to health. In those days there was also a convalescent period of a few days before children were sent back to school.

If we just declared that we 'didn't feel well', we were sent to school to 'see how you get on'. If we did persuade mum that we were ill enough to have a day off, it was strictly bed, no reading, no getting up, and definitely no TV. We got 'convalescent food', such as scrambled egg or soup.

When we grew up, we all had the same attitude to illness. It is an inconvenience, but not one you inflict on others. I shared an office for years with someone who had been coddled as a child when she was 'ill'. A slight sniffle meant she was allowed to lie on the sofa watching Crown Court, fed grapes and Cocopops (a treat in those days), and generally pampered.

As an adult she would take a day off as soon as she didn't want to do something, would opt out of things she didn't enjoy by going on the sick, and regularly had 6 months off for stress. The rest of us had to cover for her, but she couldn't understand why we weren't queuing up with cards and flowers to wish her well.

Incidentally, my mum wasn't 'a slave to wages' - she was a stay-at-home mum who valued education. I also suspect that the fact that she was brought up before the NHS will have influenced her attitude to illness and how to deal with it.

MissAdventure my brother and I were off school "poorly" one day. By 9:30am we were wrestling on the hearthrug as usual.
My Mum marched me into the classroom saying in a very loud voice that I appeared to have made a miraculous recovery. My friends were in stitches!
I was mortified ?

That's just the sort of thing my mum would have done, too.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeXMKygwSco

Just saying.....

My Dad was born and brought up in a small Gaelic-speaking community in the Outer Hebrides. His father, a retired soldier, spoke good English, and (with an eye to the future) was keen that the family use that language around the house. His mother learned to get by with a limited vocabulary, but always preferred her native tongue. Dad once turned this to his advantage when his father was away from home and Dad fancied a day off school. Instead of getting out of bed at the due time, he lay there until his mother came to rouse him - whereupon he raised himself from the pillow and whispered weakly (in English) that he didn't want to go to school because he felt "terribly languid". His poor mother, assuming that this was a sign of some serious malady, let him stay in bed. Not sure if it's true, but my Dad told it well..