parents

GROUP THERAPY: sending kids to childcare / school when they’re sick

Dear Mia,
Do other people send their kids to childcare sick?  When I first returned to work I hated my job and was very conscientious about keeping my son home when he was sick, and was very censorious about parents who sent their kids to childcare sick……

…….But now I have two kids and a new job that I love.  One or other of my kids have been constantly sick for the past two weeks.  Frankly it is painful to have to spend a day at home with them grizzling and getting stir crazy, and I would vastly prefer to be at work.  I notice everyone else is sending their kids to childcare sick – there are runny noses, coughs and crying kids lying around everywhere.  Is it so wrong to send them to childcare?
Jodi

This is too funny because the day before I received this, I sent Coco to daycare with a sniffle. This winter (and autumn!) I'm finding it hard to determine where one cold ends and another begins so I figured she was either at the start or end of something and every other kid at kindy is sick and there is literally NEVER a day in living memory when everyone in our house has been totally well.
Anyway. She had no fever and wasn't coughing and spluttering and she's had SO MANY days at home skulking bored around the house so I figured it was OK. The phone rang at lunchtime and her teacher asked "Has Coco been sick?" and I immediately felt totally guilty. "Um, well, you know, not really, well a little bit but no fever and you know….is she sick now?" and the teacher says "She's pretty miserable and she says her body hurts." Her body hurts! Oh……my heart hurt a bit when I heard that and I was straight into the car to pick her up.
Fortunately, working from home I can do that but lordy it's hard when you're working outside the house.
Over to you guys……

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