I am sickened by the trend of parents who can't wait to get their kids out the door. Some of them have put their life on hold until the magical birthday that is the transition to adulthood arrives. Others let the child run feral through the neighborhood, happy to see the door shut behind them. While you always have the right to raise your child the way you want to, please at least take the time to nurse your own child back to health rather than allowing him or her to return to school while still contagious. The warm fuzzy feeling you're going to get as you help your child get well is far better than whatever you had planned for the day.
Understand and follow the 24 hour rule. If your child is throwing up, has a fever or has diarrhea when he goes to bed at night, do not send him to school the next day, regardless of whether or not his fever is gone. Count 24 hours from the last incident before you send him to school to spread that illness to all his friends and teachers.
Be motivated enough to teach some actual hygiene. Hand sanitizer is no replacement for washing hands. In fact, it only teaches your kids to be lazy about their hygiene. Kids who rely on hand sanitizer to kill germs will was their hands less frequently as it takes less time to put on hand sanitizer than it does to wash their hands.
Accept the fact that you might have to sacrifice money for health. So you want to go to work instead of taking care of your sick child. You're thinking about the money, but the other parents are just as worried about their bills as you are. They might actually be the ones who take a day off work to tend to their child who got sick after being exposed to your infected one.
Stop relying on everyone else to take care of your sick child. You think that's what you pay daycare for or that if it's really that serious the school nurse will send your child home. In the meantime, your child is infecting every person around them because you thought a lack of a fever this morning was a good enough sign to send him to school or daycare. The school nurse can't see the fever your daughter had last night and the daycare provider is going to have her hands full with the infant who suddenly started vomiting because he or she doesn't have a fully developed immune system and reacts violently to the illness your thoughtlessness just exposed him or her to.
Be a parent. Kids get sick. As a parent, it's your job to take care of them. Use a little common sense so the rest of us don't have to be penalized.
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Source: Personal Experience
