How Families Can Manage Their Children's Sick Days Home From School, Part One

Children get sick, and unfortunately their need for recovery time can seriously impact the family routine. For parents, the lightly or moderately ill child presents a frustrating choice between career and parental responsibilities.

Experts recommend planning ahead for sick days and putting the plan in writing, with contingencies and alternatives for the days when the child just has to stay home from school. Even so, there are times the best-laid protocols can hit their own hiccups and snags. That's when parents can benefit most by taking the sick day into their own hands, making it productive for themselves and their children alike.

Evaluating the need for a sick day

Some studies indicate American school children miss over 350,000 days of school each year, with causes ranging from the lightest set of sniffles to the most serious illnesses. In borderline cases, evaluating the severity of symptoms commonly feels like making a judgment call with many factors at stake.

Parents should weigh the following factors when deciding whether or not the child should be allowed to stay home.

• What's the child's temperature? - Fevers are signs of sickness in children, not a symptom themselves. A serious fever in children, one that needs a doctor's supervision, is anything over 101 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, many schools request parents keep kids with that temperature and above at home until the fever breaks.
  
• What are the child's main symptoms? - The typical first sign of a bout with the common cold or flu is a scratchy or "froggy" throat. If the child is complaining of a sore throat as well as aches and fatigue, a cold or flu infection is likely just around the corner. A preventative day of rest spent in bed may be an effective "preemptive strike" against more serious sickness.
  
• What's going on at school? - Children sometimes exaggerate or even create symptoms as a way of avoiding anxiety-causing situations at school, such as a test or report that's due. Before throwing your workday in upheaval, a little detached skepticism will sometimes reveal if the child is truly feeling or ill or just "faking it."
  
• How many sick days are left? - Children are allowed a certain number of sick days per semester. If the child is already running out of their designated allowance, a light cold or runny nose probably doesn't warrant a day at home.

Sick day policy is normally set by school district and is detailed within each school's parents and child handbook.

As a rule of thumb, If the child is feverish, sneezing uncontrollably, coughing or hacking mucus, or generally seems to be "whalloped" by a temporary illness, a day of bed rest is possibly the best cure.

Sick time is valuable time for parents and children alike.

Parents who plan ahead for sick days are much more likely to be less scrambled when the need for action arises. While taking the day off work may present its own career and office difficulties, it's nonetheless a valuable means of encouraging children's growth and learning. A 2006 study by the Center for Law and Social Policy shows that children are more successful in school when parents can afford to stay home with them on sick days. The time spent together amounts to valuable "quality time" and helps foster the child's sense of self-worth (no one likes to be alone when they're sick.) It also spares siblings the distractions of caring for their brothers and sisters - distractions that may impair their own homework or studies.

Workplace experts recommend finding out what sick day policies your company includes as part of its employment and paid-time-off structure. Taking flextime, or working from home, may also offer an alternative.

Parents may also wish to trade-off in taking care of the child, letting each parent work a half-day instead of losing the entire eight hours. Such half-days may not impact their accrued vacation time or sick time, while still allowing them to stay home. Moms and dads can also take turns staying home with the child or children on alternating sick days.

If there's no alternative to spending the whole day home with the child, cashing in favors with co-workers or delegating responsibilities to teammates may allow for a less troublesome absence. Taking phone calls and emails from work at home will also allow parents to stay in touch should an urgent need for them arise.

In part two, we'll discuss how to spend the sick day with your child for maximum educational benefit, alternatives to staying home, and looking ahead past the sick day itself.

Michael Kabel is senior staff writer for http://www.cornerstorkbabygifts.com. Stop by for parenting and baby resources, unique baby gifts, baby gift baskets and baby shower favors.