My son has missed 40+ days of school.
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Anonymous
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I am writing this after cleaning up vomit and diarrhea from my 7-year-old.
When my son started Pre-K, I was told that the first year or two of school would come with a lot of illnesses as his immune system adjusted. But here we are in first grade, and it feels like nothing has changed. In kindergarten, he had more than 40 absences. This year has been much of the same. He is sick about 4–5 days every month. Like clockwork, every couple of weeks it's another cold, fever, stomach bug, or bout of diarrhea. The stomach flu has been going around his school, and of course he caught it. I have no vacation leave left at work. Every hour of vacation and sick time I earn goes toward caring for him. We can't take family vacations because all of my leave is spent staying home with a sick child. My husband works a union job and is prone to layoffs. He doesn't accrue vacation time, only sick leave, so he generally stays home only when our son is seriously ill. I've done everything I know to do. I took immunosuppressants during pregnancy, but otherwise he's had a normal childhood. He didn't attend daycare, but he has attended Pre-K, kindergarten, and now first grade. He's seen his pediatrician and a gastroenterologist about the frequent illnesses and diarrhea. The response is always the same: some kids take years to build immunity. His teachers regularly comment on how much school he misses, and I constantly hear that missing more than 10 days can impact academic success. They're not wrong. We hired a tutor twice a week to help keep him on track, and thankfully he's still at grade level in reading and math, but only barely. At this point, I don't know what else to do. I'm exhausted. I'm constantly worried about the next illness, the next call from school, the next time I have to miss work. I'm worried about attendance issues and whether a BECCA petition could eventually be filed, even though these absences are legitimate illnesses. What makes it harder is seeing other families whose kids seem completely unaffected. I have a friend with an 8-year-old who missed one week of school all year because of a fever. Meanwhile, we deal with at least one stomach bug every year plus every cold, cough, and flu that comes through the classroom. I give him vitamins and probiotics when he'll take them, wash his hands, change his clothes after school, and do everything I can think of. If anyone has experienced something similar, I'd love to hear whether it eventually got better. Right now, it feels endless. |
Anonymous
| Not being in daycare delayed his immunity. |
Anonymous
| Get bloodwork done. |
Anonymous
| That seems very abnormal. Id consult more doctors |
Anonymous
That’s what I thought. This must be something else. |
Anonymous
| It happens. Most kids the first few years get sick a lot. They don't clean the classrooms regularly, kids touch everything and don't wash their hands and parents send their kids in sick. Work with him on academics at home. |
Anonymous
+1 you need to keep trying to figure out what's going on medically. Maybe see an allergist? Could it be an autoimmune issue? |
Anonymous
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My sister was a bit sickly when she was a kid. Her kids take after her. But she is fine as a grownup.
Keep experimenting with foods with probiotics such as yogurt to find more than just supplements. Some people swear by adjusting the microbiome. Have gluten and dairy allergies been ruled out? Have you tried filtering your tap water if it's full of minerals? (My aunt had tap water that you could smell when mixed into juice...but it was potable.) Regarding catching your kid up, work on reading first. Encourage a love of real, physical books. Continue to read at bedtime. On illness days...don't allow extra screens. Have "rest time" with books in bed. Take your kid to the public library...especially at booksale time. Reading exposure and book ownership is pretty inexpensive and will help your child improve. With regard to math...find fun games that drill elementary math. Sleeping Queens is a fun game that doesn't seem like a math game. Use Xtramath (xtramath.org) to help teach math facts. If your kid is diligent and/or can be bribed, try IXL.com or paper workbooks to keep them practicing outside of tutoring sessions. |
Anonymous
| Definitely not normal. My kids missed more school in early elementary but not that much. Neither had a single sick day this whole school year (5th and 6th grade). |
Anonymous
STFU. It is fake news. |
Anonymous
| Are you sure the stomach bugs aren't some sort of food intolerance? |
Anonymous
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Your son could have an auto-immune disease.
My second child, who was diagnosed with lupus at 13, was exposed to all her older sibling's germs as a baby, and attended preschool, so she didn't have that many absences in early elementary. However, she's been sick MORE OFTEN at 16 than when she was a baby. This winter and early spring, it was non-stop, practically. Her bloodwork is permanently abnormal because of her disease, and she's just prone to catching every opportunistic illness out there. Unfortunately, now she's in high school, every school day counts. I commend you for hiring a tutor, OP. Please keep that up. Also, sorry to bring it up, but is he full-on sick when you keep him home? Not just sniffles and feeling OK? If the former, it's true he has to stay home. If the latter, he goes to school. Does he have good hand-washing hygiene and knows to wash his hands before eating? Please insist on more extensive bloodwork, including markers of inflammation. Tell the pediatrician you suspect he is immuno-compromised and worry he may have some sort of auto-immune disease. Be ready to get 5 vials of blood drawn, at least. If it's more than that, you can always tell the phlebotomist you'll come back another day for the rest. Your kid need to be well hydrated for the blood draws. Give him all his favorite drinks at least an hour before. We have crappy insurance and the last full panel cost us more than 1K - I hope yours is cheaper. |
Anonymous
Yes, that needs to be ruled out. |
Anonymous
| We did bloodwork for my daughter when she had repeated infections and discovered that she hadn't acquired the expected immunity from one of the pneomococcal vaccines. She got a booster. Subsequent blood work showed the expected immunity and the infections stopped. |
Anonymous
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So haven’t read all this but have your kid get a work up please. We were missed for years because our pediatrician didn’t bother to think beyond each individual illness. It got to the point we never planned for Christmas, Easter, new years etc because we always knew we’d be sick. Turns out we were immunocompromised.
CBC Lymphocyte subset panel IgM, igg, igA levels Pneumococcal 23 panel ( do not skip this one) Check titers to things like mmr and varicella assuming you did vaccines to see if they even worked. This would have saved us years of misery. |