Is your kid trying to guilt you into a sick day?

My kid hates school. I don’t mean he dislikes it with a passion, he HATES it. It is a fight to get him out of bed more often than it isn’t.

He has started in already with the old, “I don’t feel good routine”. Last year we gave him the benefit of the doubt. In previous years, suggesting a trip to the doctor typically helped us see through any rouses. Then he started calling our bluff. He is a diabolical little kid. He KNOWS gas is expensive, he knows the nearest ER is twenty miles away, and he knows a sick call visit to his primary care physician typically wont happen on the same day.

This morning we got the full treatment!  His back hurt, his throat hurt, his legs hurt.  He cried until he coughed up all the gross stuff his tantrum sent down his throat from the back of his nose,  He begged, he pleaded, he bargained.  But did he need to stay home?

When I was a kid, if I was sick, I was home in bed. No TV, no radio, no wandering the house in my pajamas. If I was well enough to do those things, I was well enough to go to school. My step father had to quit school, and help support his family after his father died. He never got sick, and he was always pretty sure I was “putting on the dog”.

While an effective way to determine if I was really sick, it always made being sick seem like something I needed to be punished for. I mean there are so many hours in the day you can spend counting the swirls on the ceiling before you start to go insane, sick or not. I’ve had some bouts with the flu that have lasted a full week!

So how DO you tell if your child is too sick for school? Well, it boils down to three things. Does your child have a fever? Does your child have diarrhea? Is your child vomiting?

If you can answer one or more of those questions, your child should most certainly stay home. All three of these symptoms are your body’s way of trying to get rid of something that is not supposed to be there.

If your body has something in it, that needs to be gone, you are sick. You may not be contagious, and a high school aged child or an adult may be able to go about their daily routine with these symptoms. If you send a child to school with these symptoms, you may be asking for trouble.

All three conditions can bring about dehydration pretty quickly, and school staff are too busy to monitor your child’s intake compared to what is being forcefully ejected, if you catch my drift!

Otherwise? Send those kids to school! Maybe they are contagious! But so was the kid who passed the germs on to your kid! Besides… exposure to germs is how our bodies build an immunity to them in the future!

Sure, runny noses, upset tummies, and body aches aren’t a lot of fun, but my step dad wasn’t too far off! If your child is interested in watching, TV, or playing video games, and they don’t want to sleep the day away??? They can probably go to school! (But a day off is OK sometimes too! Sometimes we just keep our son out of school to do something fun, and hopefully educational!)

Now bear in mind, I am just a mean old dad! Don’t take my word for it! If you think your kid is sick… CALL A DOCTOR!!! They have been to school for this kind of stuff… see what they tell you! I’m just a guy with a blog!

Doug Alley

About Doug Alley

I grew up in Bath, Maine in an upper lower class family with 3 step sisters, a step brother, and a little sister. After high school I spent 3 years serving in the USAF at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage AK. I've competed in, and won, demolition derbies. I've competed in, and never won, stock car races. I am the 47-year-old father of an 11-year-old boy who is pretty sure he is smarter than I ever was. We live on a little less than an acre of land in a 1973 mobile home in Stetson with my wife Jen, some cats, a few chickens, and rabbits, and a couple of goats. I hunt, fish, camp out, dabble in photography, gardening, and I cook in variable degrees of near success.