Francesca Rudkin: The guidelines for parents and sick kids are silly

The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

I’m not sure the government thought through the timing of this week’s release of guidelines around kids’ illness and school attendance.

Half way through the school holidays, I can assure Associate Education Minister David Seymour that after another week most parents will be happily marching their children off to school, snotty nose or not.

Which isn’t to say we don’t love our children. They’re the most important things in our lives, we’d do anything for them, and we love spending time with them.

But let’s be honest, we prefer it when they’re at school for a number of reasons. It’s where they need to be to get an education. We also want them out of the house. We like routine. The juggle of childcare and looking after sick children for two working parents is a nightmare if you can't work from home. And finally, those who parented through lockdowns understand the academic, social and health impacts on our children when they aren’t in school regularly.

So while the coalition government’s intentions are good and we want kids in school as much as possible, acting like a nanny state and telling us how to parent isn’t the way to do it.

We’ve moved on since Covid’s restrictions and most parents are making sensible decisions about when they should or shouldn’t send their kids to school. A decision that 's best for their own child, and the rest of the classroom. For the most part I think parents do their best to get that balance right.

I understand this is part of the Minister’s plan to lift school attendance rates and make the stats look better with short-term illness or medical reasons the biggest cause of justified absences.

Don’t forget a child only needs to be away from school for a week a term to be categories as not regularly attending. That’s a high bar.

But let’s not focus too much on short term illness. We know children and teens can catch up after a few days off battling a cold. Longer term medical reasons are more of a concern.

Talk to the amazing team at the Northern Health School, who help children carry on with their education when they’re assessed as too medically unwell to attend school. They’ll tell you their students used to be mostly being treated for cancer or recovering from an operation. Now, they’re overwhelmed with children dealing with serious mental health issues.

I can say from experience that the work they do is vital to getting students back into school without having fallen behind academically. They are some of the unsung heroes of our education system.

So instead of patronising parents about colds and snotty noses, I’d like to see the government focus on addressing a much more important issue, how do they better support the educational needs of children dealing with much more serious life challenges that keeps them out of school for longer periods of time. And if they haven't already, I'd suggest they start by having a chat with those making a difference in this area daily.

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