When illness strikes!

There is a lot of negative commentary out there on children getting sick because they are in child care and much of it comes from the local pediatricians.  Yes, germs get spread around when children are together, but that can happen anywhere...birthday parties, McDonalds play places, playgrounds, bounce houses, the local grocery carts, at school and even in the waiting rooms of Dr.'s offices.  In north Texas, the rapid changes from warm to cool weather and then back to warm again, as well as the changes in humidity can increase children's inability to fight off infections.  The truth of the matter is that allergies have increased in recent years and those allergies can trigger many illnesses as well.

Child care policies usually restrict children from attending when they have a fever or other symptoms that indicate illness.  There are still those parents that try to dose their child up and bring them to school anyway thereby sharing those infectious germs with the whole class as well as the staff. 

There are things that you can do to help your child stay healthy:

• Make sure that they eat a healthy diet 
• Make sure that they get enough sleep every night
• Teach them healthy habits, like washing their hands, how to blow their nose, sneezing into their elbow, etc.
• Follow the child care policies from your child care...they are meant to protect not only the other children in care, but also your child from being exposed to other illness when their immunity is weak.

All illness cannot be avoided...there is some validity that being in child care can help a child build an immunity to illness.  If they are never sick, when they finally do go to Kindergarten they will miss a lot of the first year of school because of illness...they are exposed to lots of germs there.

Over the last 20+ years I have noticed that there seems to be peak times when illness is rampant.  When elementary children go back to school in the fall, they are exposed to all kinds of new germs which they bring home to their families and to the child care as well.  During the holidays children spend time with family that they don't see during much of the rest of the year and often illness can start there.  In addition the temperature changes in the winter contribute to colds and flu.  In the spring, budding plants can cause allergic reactions in many of us which often will cause illness as well.

Even though it may seem that your child is ill often when they start child care, their bodies will eventually become immune to the germs and they will be able to fight off illnesses.  I takes 6-12 months for a child to reach that level of immunity though, so be patient, do what you can to keep them healthy, make sure that your child care has good policies regarding illness and pray for God's strength and protection as your child grows through this time.