Originally Posted by Unregistered:
For the parent who got upset over another parent not keeping both kids home when one was in the ER
Nooooooo..... if one child goes to the ER, don't bring the other one with you! Send the healthy one to daycare! The sick child will need more individual attention and the healthy one is more likely to get the attention they need from something other than the TV if they go to daycare. Especially in the ER, I can only imagine having both kids there creates more stress on everyone involved. Don't put them through that. And you do want the sick and healthy kids separated which is easier if you don't keep them both home. In terms of being contagious, whether you keep kids home or not likely won't make much of a difference because they're contagious before they're sick (so you wouldn't keep them home in that stage as you have no idea) and daycare or school is probably where they got it anyway so everyone else was already exposed whether you keep them home or not!
Any family will likely tell you that their first priority is their own family and they will therefore do what is best for their own family. It's not that they don't care about other families but it's perfectly appropriate and reasonable to set boundaries on how far they'll go for other families so as to not exacerbate their own situation. It's part of the job as a daycare provider that you'll be around more germs than if you'd pursued almost any other career and it's part of the deal for parents who send them there that children will pass germs along (it's just part of the deal with people in general), and that everyone's situation is different and we're all doing our best and that because they're not the only parents who send their kids there, it's not just about their family so try to exercise both reasoning and empathy. So I think it's a little narcissistic to expect that parents of a seriously ill child will willingly inconvenience themselves more than they already are purely for the other families whom such measures may or may not spare. If it was practical, enforceable, and appropriate for all parties involved to include in the sick policy that all siblings stay home when 1 is sick, that would be the norm, not just "something parents wish each other would do"
This is when a family uses a babysitter or family member:friend not a daycare.
Not has nothing to do with a provider being empathetic and everything to do with a parent being responsible, realistic and logical.