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16th January 2017
09:35am GMT

The doctor says that many parents may recognise that symptoms like diarrhoea or vomiting would significantly disrupt their child's school day. However, most parents did not see common symptoms such as a runny nose or dry cough without a fever, as serious enough to keep their child at home:"Parents often have to make a judgment call about whether their child's sickness warrants staying home. We found that the major considerations were whether attending school could negatively impact a child's health or the health of classmates."
The poll found that the top factors in parents' decision to keep their child home from school included concern that the illness would get worse or spread to classmates. Symptoms were also found to make a difference with 80 percent of parents 'not likely' to send a child to school with diarrhoea. There was less agreement about vomiting (58 percent) and regarding a slight fever but acting normally (49 percent). A total of 84 percent of parents said that they would send a child with red watery eyes but no fever in to school, and 88 percent said that they wouldn't keep a child with a runny nose, dry cough and no fever at home."It can be difficult to predict if a child will feel worse after going to school or how long symptoms of minor illnesses will last, so parents are often basing decisions on their best guess."
Good old practicalities have a significant influence on parents' decisions to keep a child home from school with 11 percent of parents citing 'not wanting to miss work' as very important. Childcare also reared its ugly head with 18 percent of mums and dads stating 'not being able to find someone to stay home with their sick child' as a very important decision-making factor. This is less of an issue for parents of older children, with 32 percent of parents allowing them to stay home alone when sick. Only 6 percent of parents cited missing after-school activities as being very important.
What do YOU think? Is it irresponsible to send a child into school who is even a little bit under the weather? Is the reality of finding last-minute childcare a factor in sending sick kids in to school?
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