Just wondering what people do? Do you ship them off to childcare even though they're sick ? Or do you call in sick to work and fake a doctor's certificate?
Do You Take a Sick Day When Your Kids Are Sick?
Odin on 07/12/2022 - 11:22
Last edited 07/12/2022 - 11:32 by 1 other user
Last edited 07/12/2022 - 11:32 by 1 other user
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This
Family/carers leave is sick leave too, it's just called carers leave, it comes out of your sick leave
Everywhere I have worked it's not called sick leave, it's just Personal Leave, covers sick/caring for someone/etc.
how many days total u get?
Some organisations bundle them, some differentiate.
Any org that follows the award system does not differentiate. They are one and the same there.
It's the same thing.
Although could be a contractor I guess
Or do you call in sick to work and fake a doctor's certificate?
fraud is smart <—that's sarcasm
< fraud is smart <—that's sarcasm
What is worse is committing fraud when you were entitled to the thing already.
when you were entitled to the thing already.
not everyone is entitled to it…
Any reference to the relevant law? What sector allows for sick leave but not carers leave?
Why is nothing in bold
Family/carer leave is what you apply for from work, it is taken out of your personal leave bank. No need to fake being sick.
Yep pretty much this. Have 400 hours of accumulated paid personal sick leave sitting there that cannot be used for normal annual leave or any other purpose… So makes sense to do so.
Man dad had the same, hardly took a sick day in his life
Then he got old and had a few serious medical issues, suddenly those months and months of accumulated sick leave all came in very handy.
i thought personal leave/sickies reset every year?
someone correct me@capslock janitor: Since 2010 minimums are covered by the National Employment Standards. They accumulate.
https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-e…
Don't think you can leave your kids in child care if sick as it may infect other kids.
All the child cares are breeding grounds, new strain of Gastro and the likes every other day.
Child care centres are strange beasts on this topic. You go in and there are snot monsters walking around everywhere. Kid gets a fever and it's like there's been an Ebola outbreak.
Yes - if you try to they will just call you as soon as the child sneezes or coughs to come and pick them up
Who's parents in right mind that will send their sick kids to daycare.
I feel sorry for Who and their siblings.
Poor old Who, he's never been laid because he's forever stuck on first base.
Poor old Who, he's never been laid because he's forever stuck on first base.
It's ok , they will probably spend their time studying and become a Dr.
Unfortunately, quite a few of them. Why be your problem when they can be someone else's.
Thank you for the name of my next new born.
WhoTang
Who R. Yew
Enough. I ended up pulling my daughter out of daycare because I couldn't do it anymore. We were constantly getting sick from the place.
Certainly can understand that. It seems like it took 1.5 years for my son to get sick much less often - after being exposed to every virus and bacteria under the sun several times over. In the first 6 months his attendance rate was around 33%.
Yep, 1 year of sending my healthy boy to daycare with sick kids, and then keeping him home for the next week with the new virus he had caught. Now in 2nd year daycare he is immune to everything.
@Darkheartz: Just wrapping up Year 1 of daycare for my youngest and it's been like this. Here's to hoping the 2nd year follows this same path!
So many parents send their kids to school and daycare sick.
They’ll dose them up on paracetamol, cough medicine and ibuprofen, send them off to school or daycare and then turn their phones off for the day.
My mum used to deal with this so much as a early childhood educator, eventually it got to the point she was sick every week and just had to leave the job.
The parents would just say “oh sorry, I was in meetings all day and had no idea you were trying to reach me.” She found the worst offenders were parents who didn’t work at all…they’d go out shopping etc instead of looking after their sick kids.
Yes my wife is a childcare worker and has to use much more than her sick leave entitlement. Sad for your mum that she had to quit. Another reason it's a rough job - low pay and hazardous to health.
Parents will never change, though in theory if they all stopped sending their kids in sick then their kids would rarely get sick.
Our daycare has a blanket policy for paracetamol/ibuprofen - 24 hour exclusion. I found this out because I disclosed one morning on drop off that I had given my son paracetamol for his mouth ulcer (per GPs advice) and they told me he had to leave. I can understand why the policy exists as you say there are so many parents who dose their kids up with a fever and drop them off…but I still think it's a stupid blanket policy because pain relief medication is often used for pain relief for non infectious issues. For a teething child and an honest parent, it means choosing between letting your child attend and suffer or having pain relief but being excluded from care even though they are otherwise OK.
Besides, parents who hide their kids fever with medicine aren't going to worry about the policy because they're not likely disclosing anyway.
You know parents of small children in their right mind?
If you kept your kids away for every little sniffle, they would be constantly at home.
Any gathering of people is a cesspit of germs. Live with it or become a hermit.
It’s not about keeping them home if they have a sniffle.
It’s about when your kids are running a fever vomiting, coughing their lungs up or they’re so lethargic they can’t function.
And no, you shouldn’t have to “live with it” if you chose to have kids then it’s your responsibility as a parent to care for them when they’re sick. If you can’t handle it, then don’t have kids.
Not everyone has the choice. Letting parents stay home and look after their kids might be the right thing to do, but that doesn't mean every workplace supports it. They might not explicitly disallow it, but some workplaces will punish parents who take time off with fewer opportunities, or just give them a negative reputation as unreliable. This is a pretty big consideration for people just starting out in their career, or who took parental leave and are trying to get back on track.
For casual or shift workers turning down work regularly - and kids get sick very often - can be a hard cost to manage, especially since you still pay for childcare even if they are sick. That means not just losing income but actually losing money. Some parents at my daycare are sole traders, and if they don't work, they have to cancel jobs and might lose a contract. And all it takes is one parent who can't afford to take a day off to get every other kid sick.
The only silver lining is apparently if they get sick all the time at daycare they take far fewer sick days when they start school proper.
Some doctor's certificates will say that child is sick and parent subsequently had to look after them, hence this doctor's certificate. No need to fake them.
Yep it's a carer's certificate
Keep them home and take a sick day. Ask your doctor for a carers cert.
This is what I do.How do people manage to obtain doctor's certificates now when it's almost impossible to get an appointment on the day or even the next day or two?
Doctor's are not permitted to backdate a certificate so how can a business insist on a certificate that may not be able to be obtained?
Does everyone just use stat decs now? (but they need witnessing don't they?)
Some pharmacies do sick certs for about $20
That’s why you fake one according to the OP.
I've not had this problem. There are 4 Medical practices near me and when the child's usual is busy any of the others will do.
DRs here usually back date by 1 day if required and if child is stil sick…. Sometimes 2I've not had this problem. There are 4 Medical practices near me and when the child's usual is busy any of the others will do.
DRs here usually back date by 1 day if requiredI wish my area was like this - my regular GP often has the first appointment 3 days out. The others nearby, you may be lucky to get in to see someone within 2 days unless there has been a cancellation.
Even worse when you have to take Friday off due to illness etc - it can be the following Tuesday or Wednesday to get an appointment and by then you are recovered with no symptoms to show them.
No symptoms to show means no certificate - have to fall back on a Stat Dec at that point.
Yep - it is called personal/carers leave
Also use a sick leave day to take mum to appointments etc
tbh i use my sick leave more for other people then i do for myself
does Thor have the flu or gastro?
Loki gave him a snake bite.
noop, I wfh, but will tell boss that I may be afk intermittently when little one is sick at home with us,
AFK?
A Friggin' Karen?
Yes, as pointed out this is part of your sick leave entitlement.
Not for everyone.
Really? That sucks, I would get the GP or emergency doctor to write a medical sick leave in my own name if ever the company I'm with doesn't allow carers leave.
Some don't get any sick leave. eg. contractors.
When the government said every contractor would, that was just b** s**t.
I believe the modern terminology is "personal leave", of which there are sub categories like sick leave, carers leave etc. It all comes from the same bucket but yeah absolutely, if my son is sick and I cannot get care for him, I need to take personal leave with the subcategory family carers leave.
Of course. I even take a sick day if my neighbour is unwell.
Carers leave similar to sick/personal leave.
Just check your leave policy/check with your boss.
Don't send sick kids to childcare please.
Unfortunately management often don't understand the award/enterprise agreement which you are employed under. Do your own homework to make sure they aren't pulling the wool over your eyes.
Of course they send sick kids to daycare. That's why kids always come home with some sort of cold lol 😂. It's just the cycle of life. That will never change.
Weeds out the wimps early.
Only the strong ones survive childcare.
No certificate at my work as i dont make a habit of it. If i made a habit of it they would or it was a monday or friday and a stat dec will do as cant get into docs anyway. No childcare in the town i live in and nearby towns dont open till after im due at work
Check your award or your Enterprise agreement - not all workplaces are the same.
Under my Enterprise Agreement I get 10 days personal leave per annum (which doesnt accrue) and 20 days sick leave per annum (which does accrue). If my child is sick I take that out of personal leave as carer's leave. If all my personal leave has been exhausted I would then take it out of my sick leave. No certificate is needed if it is 3 days or less of personal or sick leave.
Man that is a lot. Most of us get 10 days total.
You sure you aren't confusing annual leave and sick leave here…?
I am very certain, I was part of the union bargaining team that negotiates these things!
Why did you bargain down from 4 weeks/20days annual leave a year down to 2?
@Typical16-bitEnjoyer: Personal leave is seperate to annual leave. We get 20 days annual leave and 10 days personal. Personal leave is for commitments that you might have that aren't due to sickness (so caring for family or spouses, moving house etc).
@Big Willy Style: To expand on this and clarify because it does cause confusion because different workplaces may have different terminology. My partner's workplace calls sick leave personal leave and that is not by accident because they are expected to take their personal leave (what is commonly called sick leave) if they are caring for their family or if they are sick. If she has to move house it comes out of annual leave.
My workplace has a distinction between sick leave, personal leave and annual leave. Sick leave does what it says on the tin, you take this leave when you are sick. Personal leave is essentially leave that you take when you are not sick but have other life commitments that aren't rest and relaxation.
It is really important to have these distinctions. Say you are a carer and you have to exhaust your sick leave because you are caring for family then you are left out of pocket if you get sick yourself and have burnt through all of your sick leave. Similarly, if you take annual leave to care for family you are not actually going to be well rested and as productive as you could be if you had used your 20 days annual leave to properly rest.
its illegal for annual leave to not accrue in Aus… i work for a UK company, they can only roll over a max of 5 annual leave days every year. I rolled over 12 days from last year + 20 standard days = 32 days of annual leave. They also give us an extra personal day and 2 well being days, plus between xmas eve and new years day (5 days~) is forced leave which doesnt come out of your annual… a pretty good deal.
@chriskq: but but Big Willy is very very certain! So certain they haven't come back to double down on their claims
@Typical16-bitEnjoyer: Personal leave and annual leave are two seperate things! Personal leave is used for caring for family/spouses, moving house, taking pets to the vet.
If you knowingly send your sick child to childcare/school then you are a bad parent.
A bit harsh there but I agree that it's not nice for the kid or the other kids who get sick. Some parents may not have personal leave and need to work to pay for luxuries like food and rent though…. makes it very hard.
I wonder how many parents that do this are at real risk of not paying for basic necessities, rather than it simply being the norm for them. I think it's culturally normal to do this, the same as it's culturally normalised for both parents to work and stick kids in daycare or before and after school care despite a high combined income.
Re the former: probably varies according to the area?
Re the latter: interesting point. The two seem to be connected. My husband and I are going part time and the days we send our kid to day care we use flexible work hours to minimise his time there/maximise our time with him. But I would add that as a woman there is no way I'm abandoning my career and becoming dependant on anyone — that is also culturally normalised.
if you knowingly send your kids to childcare where other sick child can be present, also makes you a bad parent.
It's unfair that people with kids can get maternal/paternal leave when they have a child but people who get new baby pets that need someone at home to look after them don't get the same leave.
..
This is an actual thing
maybe because said kid is a future tax payer/ contributor to society and community member and has a longevity of many years
A pet is not the same as a child.
How dare you discriminate against my schnookums
If you're going to have pet leave, may as well have real-doll leave, or lego leave. Why stop at giving time for projection and personification of animals when we can include plastic (which plenty of us do).
Most of my colleagues (like 90%) have little kids and they take personal leave all the time for them. The staff without kids have to absorb the extra work and they take "personal leave" for other things as they don't want to do all the extra work and lose their 10 days at the end of the year.
You don't lose your 10 days at the end of the year, it builds up.
So one day in a few years from now when you really are sick, you can use it all up then. :)
But you do if you change companies, they dont get paid out or anything, you just loose the entitlement
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That’s what family/carers leave is for, you’re probably entitled to it