To send to school or stay home sick?

Working parents of the world, unite!  I think this is one of the hardest parts of having a job, especially when it’s an inflexible job that you can’t stay home with.  How do you know you should all lay low at home, or if you can send your little sweetie to school?

I’m going to go over some of the more common childhood problems and give you some good hard and fast rules, as well as some grey area.  🙂

FYI, this post was orginally written in July 2016, and was updated in Feb 2018.

Fever

Here’s the good hard and fast rule.  Take their temp  with a GOOD thermometer (that you can trust – and I do recommend an axillary thermometer to be sure you’re getting an accurate result.  Kids shouldn’t return to school until the fever has been gone for 24 hours.  Fever, being anything over 100, basically.  We don’t actually call anything in the hospital a fever until their temp is over 100.4 – especially here in the later afternoon if they’ve had a nap and it’s already warm outside kids can hit 100 without any illness pretty easily. You can read lots more about children’s fevers in that post.

Rash

This is a grey area.  If it’s an allergic rash, or – obviously, bug bites you can still dope them up on Benedryl and send them to school.  BUT if you’re not sure of the reason it’s important that you keep them home.  It could be something big and you don’t want to get other people sick.  You can read lots more about rashes in this post.

Vomiting

There are a few reasons that kids might throw up.  If you know it’s food poisoning then they would not be contagious.  They are still fine to head to school once they feel up to it.  BUT, if they’ve had a fever or if the vomiting continues for quite a while I’d wait until 24 hours until the last episode.  You can read lots more about the how to treat the stomach flu here (which isn’t actually a flu, but I digress).

Related post: Christian Health Share

Diarrhea

Again, this one can happen for several reasons.  My PERSONAL rule is that they need to go a few hours without needing to RUN to the bathroom then they’re good to go.  I mainly want to eliminate the possibility of poor outcomes at school.  Just because their poop is a little runny there’s no reason they can’t head to school.  That can happen for plenty of reasons.  I love to use digest Zen oil when stomach problems are prominent at our house.  Check out my post about essential oils here.

Sore Throat

I’d take a peek down their throat. If you see white patches you’d want to take them to the doctor for a strep swab (or swab your own like I did in this post on  strep throat symptoms).  If it’s just red I usually have them eat breakfast and then see how they feel.  Did you know you can get your own strep swabs on Amazon (you can get urinary track infections strips as well).  I have plenty more about how to tell if it’s strep throat in this post.

Lice

Keep them home, keep them home, keep them home. {trying some Lamaze breathing} – but you really should keep them home until they’ve had the full treatment and all the nits are gone.  Learn more about how to treat lice here.

Pink Eye

If they have either conjunctivitis or pink eye they do need to stay home. Both are extremely contagious.  You can read more about pink eye in this super informative post.

“My arm hurts”

Unless it’s broken or badly sprained, scoot them out the door.   A lot of time these bone pains are growing pains.  You can read more about broken bones here.

Cough /Colds

If no fever is present it’s really dependent on how your child is feeling. I usually keep home for a few days and then send them back.

Obviously, there are a LOT more things than this, but you’d likely see your doctor and be sure to ask them when they think they should return to school. Things like Seizures, concussions, etc all have different time frames depending on the severity.

**I think the REAL key to this is keeping kids as miserable as possible once you keep them home:

1. It’s not a full day of TV and electronics.  I usually let them borrow my game-free tablet for a couple of hours to watch a movie in their bed, but otherwise, it’s reading and sleeping.
2. I give them a water bottle that they have requirements in drink a certain amount every couple of hours. In order to get more fluids in them I do alternate between Kool-aid and regular water in the bottle
3. If they suddenly start to feel better, there’s no reason you can’t haul them back to school a little later in the day.

That way they don’t WANT to stay home, getting back to school as soon as they can.  I think there’s a fine line of comfort vs making home too enjoyable for them (and frankly, if my kids are actually sicker I provide more comfort then if it was questionable if they stay home).

It’s often a tough call and I hope you have an employer who understands that kids get sick and it’s important for all of our kids that they have someone caring at home to take care of them when that happens.

**Don’t take any advice on Pulling Curls over the advice of your physician.  If you think something is really wrong, please see your physician.**

If school is something you’d like to get a better handle on — check out my book Supporting Success.

If you liked this post, don’t miss what I recommend you keep in your first aid kit (also awesome when kids wake up sick) and check out my other children’s health posts below that.

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