Today I have a sick child home from school.
Yuk.
I am really not very good at the whole sympathy thing. For me, caring goes about as far as a pat on the head and a ‘you’ll feel better soon’ before I turn back to something far more important on my computer screen. Like Twitter.
I do believe that she is ill, (I sent her to school yesterday with what turned out to be quite a high temperature), but I don’t believe that staying home from school should be fun. In fact, the duller the better in my experience if you want to keep that attendance record looking half decent.
Whenever I was allowed to stay home from school as a child, (which was quite often to be honest as my mum liked the company), I was allowed to watch Richard & Judy on the sofa under a duvet and was given tomato soup with grated cheese on top for lunch. Sometimes my mum would even buy me a bun from the bakers. I suspect she was trying a little too hard to make home a fun place to be, but you get my point.
When my kids are sick then, they have to stay in bed.
“Can’t I come downstairs and watch TV?” they will ask in a pitiful whiny voice.
“Oooh no,” I will say seriously, “with your terrible headache it’s absolutely the worst thing you could do. You’re ill,” I will add dramatically, “you need to stay in bed all day.”
Funnily enough, a headache soon passes when confronted with the prospect of eight hours of lying staring at the ceiling.
Yuk.
I am really not very good at the whole sympathy thing. For me, caring goes about as far as a pat on the head and a ‘you’ll feel better soon’ before I turn back to something far more important on my computer screen. Like Twitter.
I do believe that she is ill, (I sent her to school yesterday with what turned out to be quite a high temperature), but I don’t believe that staying home from school should be fun. In fact, the duller the better in my experience if you want to keep that attendance record looking half decent.
Whenever I was allowed to stay home from school as a child, (which was quite often to be honest as my mum liked the company), I was allowed to watch Richard & Judy on the sofa under a duvet and was given tomato soup with grated cheese on top for lunch. Sometimes my mum would even buy me a bun from the bakers. I suspect she was trying a little too hard to make home a fun place to be, but you get my point.
When my kids are sick then, they have to stay in bed.
“Can’t I come downstairs and watch TV?” they will ask in a pitiful whiny voice.
“Oooh no,” I will say seriously, “with your terrible headache it’s absolutely the worst thing you could do. You’re ill,” I will add dramatically, “you need to stay in bed all day.”
Funnily enough, a headache soon passes when confronted with the prospect of eight hours of lying staring at the ceiling.
Tags: jo middleton, school, sick child, slummy single mummy, sympathy
