Too Sick For Everything But Daycare

Okay. This is a little rant that I have in me this morning. It's about bringing sick kids to day care.

I honestly feel like I have a very reasonable policy when it comes to sick children. If they have a cold or flu bug the chances that the kids have picked it up here or it has already spread before we knew the child was contagious. So I really don't have a problem with the kids coming here when they aren't feeling up to par.

Even when the chicken pox made their rounds, it was the same thinking. Chicken pox is most contagious before you know your child has it. So to quarantine that child when everyone has already been exposed doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

When it comes to stomach flu symptoms and children are throwing up and not able to make it to the bathroom ... I prefer for children to stay home until their stomach settles down. I once had a 7 yr old who would sit up, look around and then throw up where he sat. I told him that only he knew when he was going to be sick, so to run to the bathroom if he thought he was going to throw up. Well, he tried that. He not only threw up as he ran down the hallway, but he threw up on a child who was in his path. Gross. I keep a pail beside those with queasy stomachs. But personally I feel better if that child stays home. I think the child feels better too.

There are simply times when both the parent and child feel better to stay at home and give and get the special nurturing that only a parent does best. If you bring a sick child to daycare, they aren't going to get that same attention.

Which brings me to yesterday. I got a call from a parent. She had just got confirmation from the doctor that her child had strep throat. This was the mom's regularly scheduled day off of work. And she called me. She wanted to go and see a friend that was having a baby in the hospital (a non-emergency ... she simply wanted to be there). She said she was keeping her child home from school because she was sick and she was contagious. And since she was certain her child picked up this bug from school, she was going to call the school and complain. But ... she wanted to bring her child here for the afternoon so that she could go and visit her friend. I asked her if strep throat was contagious (it is considered contagious until 24 hours after the medication is administered) and all of a sudden she wasn't sure. She wanted her daughter to come here and sleep so that she would be feeling up to going trick or treating last night. Her daughter wanted to go to her grandma's, but "grandma doesn't want you" is what this child was told.

I was flabbergasted. If the parent was asking because she really needed to be at work, I would have felt completely different about the situation. But why would she bring this sick, contagious child here if it was anything less than an emergency? And why would you be considering taking a sick child out trick or treating?

I know that there your child doesn't come with a tailor-made manual for them. But doesn't common sense prevail in cases like this?