Child Illness and School
It's no surprise that anything affecting a child's health can easily affect their performance at school. Without proper medical attention, chronic illnesses become a vicious cycle of missed class work assignments and can easily lead to a child falling farther and farther behind the rest of their class.
When Your Child's Complaints of Illness Aren't Taken Seriously
Most parents have shared the experience of having teachers deny a child's request to call home, or go to the school nurse for medical assistance when they are feeling ill. Whether the problem is a chronic serious illness, an upset stomach or migraines, because many children fake illnesses to get out of class, teacher's often feel obliged to play the dangerous game of on the spot diagnosis without the benefit of any medical expertise or case history. Many times children that are truly ill are forced to suffer at their desk until a lunch break, or until class changes before they are allowed the opportunity to seek help.
How do you get your child's complaints at school taken seriously?
Here are some suggestions that may help:
Even if it's just a fever or tummy ache, make sure you provide each of your child's teachers with written documentation of your child's current health situation and add specific instructions of how you expect them to respond if your child approaches them to be excused from class. If your child has a specific documented medical condition, your family physician or pediatrician will usually be happy to provide you with explicit instructions that you may pass along to the faculty or staff at your child's school. Provide that information to each individual teacher as well as the school nurse and the school's administrative offices. If your child's request have been repeatedly denied, don't hesitate to approach your school's administrative offices and lodge a complaint. Make sure you address class work that may be missed because of illness in your correspondence with teachers. Ask for written homework assignments, make up dates for test, and materials covered in class that your child may have missed. For recurring illnesses, make sure that these request are understood to be long term whenever illness prevents your child from being in class.