When to Allow a Sick Child to Stay Home

Cold and flu are very common in childhood. Children start falling sick more frequently when they start going to school. Parents and caretakers often get confused and find it difficult to decide whether they should send their sick child to school or allow him/her to stay back at home.

Health experts from Mayo Clinic put forward a solution for this problem. According to them, cold, stomach flu, pink eye and strep throat are the four most common infectious illnesses that affect school-going children. In their opinion, children who become inactive and show lack of interest in learning and alertness should be allowed to stay at home.

"Young children's immune systems haven't learned to recognize and resist most common viruses. That's why, until they're 8 or so, kids seem to bring home everything that's making the rounds at school. Children can typically have six to 10 colds per year," Robert Key, family physician at Mayo Clinic Health System in Prairie du Chien, said in a news release. "In general, children should stay home when they don't feel well enough to participate in normal daily activities and lack sufficient alertness to learn or play."

According to Dr. Key, parents should not send their kids to school when they notice the following symptoms:

* When the kid gets a temperature equal to or above 101

* When the child cannot eat or drink normally and vomits twice or more during a day

* When the kid has severe diarrhea

* When the child shows difficulty in breathing or experiences continuous coughing

* When the child experiences abdominal pain for more than two hours

* When the kid gets an unexplained skin rash

* When the child gets head lice or scabies

* When the kid gets contagious diseases like chicken pox, impetigo and strep throat