Alternative Health Care for Your Child: How to Handle School Days Missed

Photo: (c) Lyn Lomasi

by Summer Banks, Contributing Writer

I am not a fan of doctors, antibiotics or modern medicine for everyday ailments. There is a need for traditional medical care, in some cases, but I honestly believe parents often rush children to the doctor for a dose of quick fix medicine before they allow the human body to heal naturally. When I chose to practice alternative health care with my four children, they started healing faster and getting sick less often, but there was a speed bump in my way – the school system. Children are only allowed to miss a certain number of school days without a doctor’s note. Natural healing takes long than healing with modern medicine, so I needed to address this issue from the moment I enrolled my children in public school.

Talk with the school principal, school nurse and your child’s teacher about alternative health care. From the onset, I talked with my children’s principal, school nurse and teacher about my choice to avoid modern medicine. This is a tricky subject because many people don’t understand alternative health care, especially when it comes to children. I made sure to ask how many days missed the school system allowed before requiring a child to repeat a grade. Different states have different guidelines, so ask and note the days allowed in a health care journal.

Learn the rules of sickness and school. Too many parents take children to the doctor for medication and send their child back to school the following day. This exposes other children in the school to germs, viruses and bacteria. There are two main rules of sickness and school every parent should remember.

• Your child must be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school
• Your child must not be contagious.

If every parent keeps these two rules of alternative health care in mind, fewer children will get sick.

Contact your child’s teacher for work on the first day missed. No child wants to spend three or four days out of school only to have tons of work to make-up when they return. Contact your child’s teacher on the first day missed and ask for homework. You may have to make a trip into the school to pick-up the class work, but some teachers will simply email the worksheets so you can print them out at home.

Allowing your child to heal naturally boosts immunity for life so never feel guilty about choosing alternative health care for your child, but be prepared to face a brick wall when it comes to days missed. Communication is the best tool any parent can use to keep their child on track in school.

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Summer Banks is a medical assistant who practices alternative health care choices with her family. Her four children have not taken a single antibiotic in more than five years.