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

DIL works in a children's nursery and often tells me of tiny little children who are brought in, early in the morning, looking clearly unwell. One such toddler was just 3 years old and he didn't look, or seem, very well at all, but his mother made it clear that she was anxious to get away and leave him as she had to go to work. As anticipated, the little lad was violently sick, and had diarrhoea, within the first hour. A hasty call was made to both of his parents to ask them to come and collect him asap but it was almost home time before his father arrived. He was informed that the boy would have to be clear of sickness and diarrhoea for 72 hours before he could come back but the next morning, the little boy was brought back to nursery as though nothing happened the day before. His mum wasn't at all happy that, for the well being of all the other children, she'd couldn't leave him.

I was kept at home in bed.
If the doctor was called, I had to get out of bed, sit on a chair, wrapped in a blanket, whilst mother changed the sheets before the doctor came.
I remember him producing some huge M&B tablets for me from his doctor's bag.

trisher

If I was ill I was kept at home, not usually in bed but on the settee with a blanket and a hottie. The living room was the warmest place-coal fire. There was no daytime TV anyway. I was allowed to read but had to rest as well. My grandmother always said "She'll sleep herself better."
Parents who sent their sick child to school really annoyed me. I've had children throw up all over my desk. Listened as they were wracked with coughing and were obviously running a temperature and tried to comfort them when they cried. They should have been at home.

Similar story to me trisher
Children who are sick should never be packed off to school, it’s cruel behaviour.
Good parenting is knowing when your children are really unwell, and being able to tell if they don’t want a double maths or PE day, so are trying to pull a fast one.
My mother had to work, but never sent us to school if we were poorly in any way.

My daughter was once sick on the floor at the National Space Centre in Leicester on a junior school trip.

"I told the teacher it was your fault Mummy, I told him you made me eat liver for tea last night even though you know I don't like it."

She'd been perfectly well when she left for school that morning...

I've seen my fair share of children vomitting in my classroom and it's not very pleasant! If it was a winter vomitting bug, it would spread around the class in days.
We once had to have the school deep cleaned over a weekend, it was so bad.

I worked in an area of high deprivation and often the child's parent was working and couldn't afford to lose wages by staying off work to look after the child, so they were sent to school, regardless of how ill they were.
If we did phone, the parent would ask us to keep the child until hometime.

We once had a parent send a child to school, suffering from German measles, because it was "only a rash". We had two pregnant teachers in the school, highly irresponsible of the parent.

I attended a parochial school where the nuns told the girls to hold out their pleated skirts in front of them and puke into the skirt instead of onto the floor!

If I was ill I was kept at home, not usually in bed but on the settee with a blanket and a hottie. The living room was the warmest place-coal fire. There was no daytime TV anyway. I was allowed to read but had to rest as well. My grandmother always said "She'll sleep herself better."
Parents who sent their sick child to school really annoyed me. I've had children throw up all over my desk. Listened as they were wracked with coughing and were obviously running a temperature and tried to comfort them when they cried. They should have been at home.

Not bl**dy 'suck'. Sick!

A dodgy school I only briefly worked at (got out as soon as I could) had such a low attendance rate, once the students were through the door, were not allowed to leave unless at death's door. If they felt suck, they were sent back to class with a sick bag. TWO students threw up in the classroom in my very brief time there. Both into their bags thankfully.

My mother used to threaten us with “the school board man”?! I imagined a monster wearing a board with the word “school” on it.
Was there really such a person?

You have to be careful with children. I was often sceptical about whether or not my children were ill but on one day in particular I was so glad I’d listened and acted on the sore side story. My daughter had surgery to have her appendix removed later that morning.

I have my father's school leaving medal which is inscribed:
'Never Absent, Never Late'

Another “if you’re not in school you’d better be in bed” child here which never bothered me as I loved school and never saw the attraction of moping about the house - no daytime tv in those days!

I was sent to school come what may, only allowed to stay at home if there were visible signs of illness e.g. measles, chickenpox etc.

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..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeXMKygwSco

Just saying.....

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

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 ?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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-

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.