This is a partnered post with MYidealDOCTOR. All opinions are my own.
Think your child always has a cold after school starts? They probably do! According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 22 million school days are lost a year due to the common cold. Last week I shared Five Ways to Stay Healthy during Back to School Season. This week I have four more habits, recommended from the CDC, that can help your child stay well during cold and flu season.
1. Teach children to stop sharing. I know, I know, we all try to teach our children to share, but there are some things they shouldn’t, like water bottles or utensils. My daughter and her best friend could spend weeks at a time passing illnesses back and forth due to sharing their drinks and food. I spent many hours running behind them yelling, “Don’t do that!” I could tell when they were not sharing because they wouldn’t catch each other’s colds.
2. Keep your kids home when they are contagious. No one wants their child to miss school, but sending a contagious child to school can cause an infection to spread like wildfire. I still remember the day one parent brought their son to school with open Chicken Pox sores because “he didn’t want to miss a fun day.” Even though the principal was notified and sent him home, sure enough, there was a classroom outbreak in a couple of weeks.
3. Don’t touch! Germs are spread easily when a person touches their eyes, nose or mouth. While it is much easier said than done, remind children to not touch their face whenever possible.
4. Cover that cough or sneeze. It might not always be possible to have a tissue handy whenever a cough or sneeze comes on. Teach kids to cough (or sneeze) into their elbow to try to keep germs from spreading. Then, find that tissue!
Of course, even with our best intentions and helpful reminders, kids will still get sick, and usually at the worst possible time. If you can’t get to your primary doctor, you can visit MYidealDOCTOR, either online or through their phone app. Physicians can write prescriptions, if warranted, and send them electronically to the patient’s pharmacy of choice. .
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Bella has been fighting a cold this for a week. I am starting to fight a cold too. I know a few of Bella’s buddies are out of school do to illneses I keep thinking and hoping she wont get sick but every year it never fails. I have allergy meds, nose spray and she’s good to go for a while now let’s hope she stays healthy she has some friends birthday parties she does not want to miss out on.
Colds & flus are pretty common thing with kids that too when they are back to school. I agree you always need to teach them what not to share so they will be aware of it & covering the cough & sneeze is also so important so it does not spread to other kids.
I was lucky and worked from home so it was not an issue to keep the kids home when they were sick. It is important to teach kids not to share personal things like drinks.
Its nice to know that there is MyIdealDoctor that we can turn to when our kids fall sick and we are unable to get an appointment with a doctor. Of course, prevention is always better than cure. so we must teach our kids to practice good hygiene too.
These are very helpful tips. I make sure to pack extra food just in case my kids would like to share, so they won’t have to share their lunch.
Great tips! We like to keep the hand sanitizer within reach at all times. I keep some in my handbag and the kids have a bottle in their backpacks. You can never be too cautious when it comes to germs!
Great tips! I seem to always get sick, and it skips my kids. I can be at the school and a kid could sneeze near me and oops, I’m now sick. So I think I’ve taught my kids pretty well… Its my immune system that sucks!
Handwashing and sanitizing have kept me healthy for over 8 years. No cold or flu in that time or any sickness for that matter.
This is so important right now. Colds spread so quickly when school is in session and that’s the worst time to have a cold!
Oh my! I went out to the library today and even though my daughter isn’t sick, she sneezed all over the computer keyboard. My first response was ick… someone else is going to have to touch your germs. I ran to get a clorox wipe to get it up and kill anything that might have been in her saliva. Just because she isn’t sick doesn’t mean her germs can’t get someone else sick. Great points.
These are great habits. I am always having my kids wash their hands.
I tell my kiddos to sneeze or cough into the “triangle” AKA the bend of their arm. My 2 older kiddos are on board, I am still working on the 3 year old.
These are some great tips, my other half seems to manage to catch everything going sadly. x
It is so hard with a family of kids to prevent germs. We naturally share everything here so it’s impossible to prevent a bug from spreading. When there is a sign of a bug in the neighborhood (when it’s too late) is normally when I say NO MORE SHARING.
Oh I never send my kids to school when they’re contagious and I wish other parents would do the same thing too.
These are great tips. I use to get so mad when other parents would send the kids to school sick. I always kept my son home if he was contagious.