The best place for a sick child is at home

In today's world,  many parents work during the time their child is in care or at school, and the making the decision about who should mind/care for a sick child is always difficult. I wrote this article for the newsletter sent home to parents by a child care centre in Ausralia, and thought some Minti members mind find it interesting.   In Australia, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recommends that children who are physically unwell be excluded from attending school, preschool and child care centres to minimise disease outbreaks. It also publishes The NHLRC also publishes guidelines to assist staff at these settings to determine exclusion periods for children with infectious diseases. These Guidelines also ask that the service notify the Public Health Unit whenever a child with an illness necessitating exclusion is presented.  An additional publication, Staying Healthy in Child Care, is available from the Australian Government Publishing Service, and contains more detail of each of these diseases.   It is a very difficult task for teachers and child care staff is to inform a parent that their child is not well enough to remain, or to ring a parent to collect a their child. Staff empathize only too well with the chain of events such a phonecall will set in motion. Initially, the parent would be concerned that the child is unwell, a doctor's appointment may be necessary, and last, but certainly not the easiest to address, is the parent's responsibility to their employer, if the phonecall is directed to their workplace. Teachers and child care staff therefore give a great deal of consideration before placing such a phonecall.   Most parents accept the best place for their child at times like this is at home. They know such occasions are rare and it will not be long before life returns to normal.   From time to time, misunderstandings arise because parents have gathered their information about their child's disease from less informed or outdated sources. These are easy to overcome by providing parents with the latest information and contact numbers for them to correctly evaluate the information they have been given.   Occasionally, some parents seem to lack the understanding of the seriousness of placing other children at risk at times such as these. Such parents might make statements like: "He/she got it here" or "They only have a mild case of ..." or "It's not a full blown case of . . . “. This creates difficulty for teachers and child care workers because they are obligated to follow the Guidelines which consider the needs of all children in their care. This results in exclusion - irrespective of the parent's belief that the child is well enough to remain. A medical opinion stating that the child's condition poses no threat to others would need be obtained in writing before the child returns. Thinking parents applaud the protection this stance provides for all children.   Aside from the issue of minimising the spread of disease, an unwell child who can manage to play quietly with toys at home with one or two siblings finds it a big ask to interact with other children, share toys, take part in routines, cope with the noise level etc. The child may not able to take part in or even manage the day-to-day activity of the class/play room. Clearly, the best place for an unwell child is at home which is the ideal situation for recovery. Copyright © 2007, username: Childcare-by-Design@ www.minti.com  All rights in all media reserved. The content of this article may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given.