Runny nose, stomach ache, cold….When is a child too sick to go to school? On one hand you don’t want them to miss too much school but on the other hand you don’t want your child to spread the disease or illness to the other children at school and they may need rest to get better. If your child has any of these symptoms, he or she should miss school:
- Tired, Irritability, Persistent Crying, and/or difficulty breathing
- Fever
- Severe Cough
- Unusually yellow color to skin and eyes
- Skin or eye lesions or rashes that are severe, weeping, or pus-filled
- Rash with fever or behavior change(Physician needs to determine that this is not a contagious illness BEFORE sending your child back to school)
- Vomiting more than two times in 24 hours
- Mouth Sores with drooling(Physician needs to determine that this is not a contagious illness BEFORE sending your child back to school
- Diarrhea or stool that contains blood or mucus
- Severe pain
- Stiff Neck or Headache with any of the above symptoms
Its never a bad thing to take your child to the doctor, even if the doctor says “they are fine, its just a simple cold”, its better to be safe than sorry. Please make sure and call your doctor/nurse for advice if you feel something serious is wrong, don’t ignore those parental intuitions. WebMD has a great symptom checker and information on just about anything you can think of.