Sick Days

As a child, I knew that a sick day would only be declared if I had something to show. I needed evidence. A high fever. Vomit. Diarrhea. It's a standard that I have applied to my own children as well. Tiredness, headaches, and stomachaches are no excuses for skipping school.

Continuing with that same mentality, I forced my then 10 year old son to swim on the swim team and pushed him to do whatever we were doing when he complained of being so tired during the summer of 2010. By the end of August, tests showed he was suffering from mono.

Before he contracted the virus, I had always thought of mono to only cause sleepiness and sore throats. Little did I know that 18 months later I would still be bracing for every lingering tremor set off by that devastating original earthquake.

All last year my poor boy was stricken by every last item on the "You Might Also Experience These Symptoms" list. Ever see those lists on a medical website? They warn you that a small percentage of people might be afflicted by this uncommon list. Well, he had every one of those.

School for him was a wash last year. It's really not productive to school a boy suffering from migrane-type headaches while also suffering from body-contorting stomaches and joint aches and muscle aches and eye strain. My job, really, was to comfort him.

This year, his health is so much better, but he's not 100% well yet. At times he still hides under piles of blankets because he cannot feel warm enough. His headaches occasionally afflict him, as do the stomaches.

So far, the doctors haven't pinpointed a cure. I haven't given up on the medical front, even though his many good days in a row tend to bump him off the emergency list that I seem to be endlessly operating from.

After loosing basically a whole year of school last year, I don't want him to get farther behind. Besides, this year his mind reawakened. Because he is able to absorb knowledge, I want to encourage that.

On the days when he feels like junk, the little girls and I accompany him in front of the amazing Netflix to watch an education video from their unlimited list of options.

Today, for example, we watched a National Geographic movie about the Appalachian Trial since the kids are learning some of the more popular mountain ranges and other geographical features that make up that extensive mountain range.  After that, we watched a PBS documentary about Pompeii to learn about one of the points on their timeline of world history. (As a result, by the way, my 7 year old has decided she wants her older sister to design her a Roman house like the ones she saw in Pompeii. Adorable.)

On his relaxed schedule today, I had my son help me drill his 5 year old sister on her vowels. Knowing his stomach hurt badly, I read to him his source material so we could take notes together for his research paper. It was a hard day for him, and an even busier day for me, but we ended the day with some school work to show for our time.

Depending on one's point of view, a sick day for the homeschooler is still spent with the teacher which can either be an asset because there is less opportunity to get behind. Or it can be an even bigger disappointment because the teacher hates to see her student lay around doing nothing.

It's hard to be responsible for your kids' education and it's hard to make the call on when they are truly sick. It's hard to lose a day of school when you are teacher, parent, and principle all wrapped up in one. So unless there is evidence, they are required to do their schoolwork. But even if there is evidence...well, even with the evidence, I can't stop myself from imposing some type of school on them.