How to reduce stress when your child is sick

BY SARAH EYKYN

It’s a fact of life: kids get sick, and they often take you down with them.

While every working mother dreads the words, “Mom, I don’t feel well”, the key to reducing the stress of sick days to create a plan A well ahead of time, and have a plan B ready if plan A falls through.  Share the plans with everyone who needs to know, including your children, so they know what to expect.

Plan A, for many fortunate women, is to call extended family for help. If daycare or school is not an option, having a grandparent or relative to call on can be a lifesaver.

For those, like me, whose family live hundreds or even thousands of miles away, Plan A looks a bit different. If you’re lucky, plan A can be as simple as working from home, but it may also mean a day of unpaid leave, a sick day, or negotiating with a partner for whose work day is the most expendable. In all of these cases, they key is to know what is possible. Make time to check in with HR/your boss to see what the official policy is at work (if you are the boss, hopefully have a family-friendly policy!) and with your partner if you have one, to see who has the most flexibility. Tag teaming for a half day each is another option to consider.

Before we had children, my husband and I decided that a nanny was essential if I was going to be able to work from home.  Thankfully we found the best nanny in the world – a real Mary Poppins – who was with us for five years and continues to be part of our family’s life to this day. If the children were ever sick, nanny NayNay was there for them.  It really was an ideal situation but of course the children eventually reached school age, and with that came the need for a new plan A and B.

Playing hooky?

To me, the most stressful part of having sick children is figuring out how ‘sick’ they really are (and whether, in fact, a day off from school is justified…).

While it may be fairly evident if a toddler or preschooler is too sick to go to daycare/needs to see a doctor (fever, throwing up, hacking cough, not eating, rash etc.), I have often found it harder to determine the same with my school age children.

Do they really have a headache that will prevent classroom time, or are they trying to pull a fast one in order to skip a test?  Is their tummy ache caused by anxiety or a stomach bug? And worse still…. are they being sick because they’ve got a stomach bug, or do they have appendicitis? (I found that one out the hard way…)

Teaching children to be resilient means not giving in to every little ache or stuffy nose – after all, as adults we have to just get on with it a lot of the time – but it’s important to do due diligence to ensure you don’t overlook something more serious…. or send them to school with something infectious that knocks out half the class. The American Academy of Pediatrics offers a handy tool to consult when your child is sick at www.healthychildren.org, but never substitute this or any other advice for the advice of your personal physician.

In the short term, if they have no concerning symptoms and they look ‘ok’, I enlist my mother’s mantra to help my older children convince me that a sick day is in order: “Only you can tell how unwell you really feel”. As it turns out, it works almost all the time. My children know how much effort it takes to catch up on a whole day of missed classwork, quizzes and homework, and it’s not fun! Plus, sick days do not result in electronic time. If you’re too sick for school, the remedy is bed and a book in our house.

Of course, the key to reducing seasonal stress is to do what you can to keep everyone healthy. Insisting on adequate sleep for the whole family, regularly eating a wide range of colorful fruits and vegetables, and consistently your washing hands are all helpful ways to boost immunity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer some helpful tips on Stopping the Spread of Germs at Home, Work & School.

Ultimately, like a good scout, the trick for sick days is always to be prepared. They’re going to happen. Often. So, if you don’t have a good plan A (and B), now is the time to put one in place.

Until next time,
Sarah