Keep at Home or Send to School?

       If you think about it, a person makes decisions from the time you wake until you lay down to sleep at night.  Today the powers that be at NaBloPoMo are interested in any decision making I have made recently.

        Last night my daughter came home with a severe sore throat, swollen glands, and a temperature soaring to 102 degrees.  This morning when she only felt a tad better I made the executive decision to keep her home from school.  Sometimes you have to do that when you are a parent.  You have to make the decision about how sick your child is and whether they would be better served having a day home resting with medication administered every 4 hours like clockwork. 

       

    

       At the beginning of the school year the nurse at my son’s school sent home guidelines about when you should keep your child home from school.  I posted it on the refrigerator and have referred to it often since.  I wish I had this list all along because then the decision making would have been a lot easier.  I feel compelled to share this great advice here. 

         If the thermometer reads over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, you must keep your kid home from school.  The schools my children attend ask that kids be fever free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medication before returning to school.  Next if your kid has nausea or is vomiting then they should stay home.  If they are suffering from a sore throat accompanied by fever, they should also stay home.  Finally if your child has had 3 or more episodes of diarrhea in the last 24 hours, or any symptoms that would prevent them from participating in class like excessive tiredness, loss of appetite, severe headaches, body aches, earache, or sore throat you can plan on playing nurse maid at home.  If your kid had strep throat or pink eye, they have to be on antibiotics for at least 24 hours before returning to school.

         Thanks to this thoughtful school nurse’s guidelines, I have no problem figuring out whether my children are well enough to send to school or sick enough to stay home.  All I can hope is that the time at home helped steer my daughter towards the road to recovery and she feels better tomorrow.  I am the mommy who would have given anything to have a parenting owner's manual with each baby when they were born.  It would have made life a lot easier and calmed my worries over the years. The guidelines take the guesswork out and help me to feel even more confident in my ability to make the decision that is best until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.