Kids are back in school, so parents might soon face decisions about when to keep them home due to illness.
“We can expect to have children become sick with upper respiratory infections with school time. It’s just common, and it’s what happens. We want to make sure that we’re recognizing those signs and symptoms early on,” explained Dr. Stephen Ferrara, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. “We’ve seen an uptick in COVID infections throughout the United States. So certainly, COVID is a concern, and we know that influenza is always a concern.”
Ferrara said kids should be current on their immunizations, eat a balanced diet and wash their hands regularly.
“Children with a fever should be kept home from school, and then it’s important to hydrate and fight fevers with the anti-fever medications,” he noted.
It gets tricky when children do not have severe symptoms.
Earlier this year, the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health found in situations where it’s unclear whether their child is sick enough to miss school, 53% of parents of middle and high school children said they are most likely to keep their child home just to be safe, 25% would send their child to school and hope for the best and 19% would let their child decide. Only 4% said they would call the child’s healthcare provider for advice.
“What you really want to do as a parent is figure out, is this something real? Or is there kind of something in the background that’s swaying the kid one way or another?” said Sarah Clark, co-director of the poll.
“One in five parents saying that they would consider a mental health day, that’s kind of a big deal. I don’t think we would have seen that 10 years ago,” she noted.
Clark said if students have mental health days, their parents should use the time at home to help solve the problem.
“Anxiety about their academics, anxiety about their social life — use that mental health day to come up with a plan, to come up with some strategies to make things better,” Clark added.
The survey also found most parents consider if their child can make it through the day and pose a risk to others when deciding to keep their child home.
As many students are still trying to catch up after missing in-person school days during the COVID-19 pandemic, some parents do consider academics as they decide.
Two in three parents said they consider whether their child has a presentation or test when deciding whether to keep them home and that their child worries about the impact on their grades if they are absent from school.
“One of the other things that we sort of stress is if somebody’s going to sneeze or cough, to do it into their elbow, into their arm,” Ferrara added. “Wiping down chairs and desks with antiseptic wipes is also going to be good practice. Throwing away tissues into the trash, not leaving them on the desk.”
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