Whatever happened to parents knowing best?

[Back to being Cenanuff]

My 6 year old just had his tonsils taken out. The surgeon that performed it directed us to give him Tylenol for the pain, since he wasn't at the age that you can give narcotics. No big deal. I was told by his teacher that I'd have to fill out a form at the nurse's office so he could take a dose at lunch. No big deal. Turns out, she was wrong. I have to take the form to his doctor and have him prescribe it. It's Tylenol. I know you have liability and allergies, but it's Tylenol. It's OTC. I wouldn't be giving it to them to give to him if I didn't know he wasn't allergic, and it didn't have directions on the bottle. When did it come to this? When did parental direction become not enough, and schools had to protect children from their own parents? Total crap.

[Alexander The So-so]

Well, I won't say it's not silly to go through so much trouble over a dose of Tylenol, but to answer your question...you ever read the news? Parental responsibility has been plummeting through the floor lower and lower with each passing decade.

[The Line]

While yeah, them doing it over an OTC is extreme, you have to look at it from the school's perspective,too. If at any point there was any sort of slip-up involving children, especially young ones, and prescription drugs in our 24/7 media world, and that school can basically kiss any state funding it get goodbye. It ends up making for a lot of inconvenience, but when the school is having to appease so many different groups simultaneously, they have to take somewhat extreme measures to cover their asses.

[Allie Kitsune]

Feb 13, 2012 10:55:53 GMT -5 Alexander The So-so said:

Well, I won't say it's not silly to go through so much trouble over a dose of Tylenol, but to answer your question...you ever read the news? Parental responsibility has been plummeting through the floor lower and lower with each passing decade.

You shouldn't handcuff and punish parents who ARE trying to be responsible just to Shadow-Ward the ones who don't give a shit.

Going All-or-Nothing with things like that never work out.

[darthalexander]

A lot of parents don't know best. Not by a long shot. I've worked in daycare for over 10 years now and the stuff I have seen here is unbelievable. It's quite scary in many ways.

Not all parents are bad of course, but the amount of bad ones I have seen in the last 10 years really worry the hell out of me. I've seen little kids who were more rational and mature than their own parents. You can tell these kids will pretty much be raising themselves.

We've had some parents come in here with some really idiotic ideas and beliefs so we need to have as many documents as possible to cover our tracks and to also protect the child "just in case". You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how little many parents know about their own children.

We also had one family who refused to believe in medicine. When their son got pink eye, they refused to take him to a doctor and took the "natural" way to heal him. The result was they all got pink eye and they also gave about 90% of the daycare pink eye over a month. Many of those kids then passed it on to their families.

[Cyno]

It's not so much the schools taking away from parents knowing best so much as covering their asses legally. It's easy to say "it's Tylenol! it's OTC!" but schools aren't going to take their chances with very young children.

Feb 13, 2012 13:15:52 GMT -5 darthalexander said:

We also had one family who refused to believe in medicine. When their son got pink eye, they refused to take him to a doctor and took the "natural" way to heal him. The result was they all got pink eye and they also gave about 90% of the daycare pink eye over a month. Many of those kids then passed it on to their families.

I don't know how it is around you, but down here a lot of daycare centers would outright refuse to let that family use their services. Rightfully so, I might add.

[darthalexander]

Feb 13, 2012 13:20:42 GMT -5 Cyno said:

I don't know how it is around you, but down here a lot of daycare centers would outright refuse to let that family use their services. Rightfully so, I might add.

I felt that they should never have been allowed in but they were. The worst is that many here got infected by it and they knew but simply didn't care. Even when it was going on and on and getting worse they still refused to give the child or themselves any real medication for it.

I remember the dad coming in one day with his eye all messed up and dripping. It was disgusting yet he felt he was "right".

They also tried to get us to install "all natural" vending machines here (we don't even have vending machines).

I could go on and on about some of the parents we've had here. When I think that they are raising the future generation it scares the hell out of me. So many of them are clueless. Not one ounce of common sense to be found in them and they are raising children?

[Back to being Cenanuff]

Feb 13, 2012 13:20:42 GMT -5 Cyno said:

It's not so much the schools taking away from parents knowing best so much as covering their asses legally. It's easy to say "it's Tylenol! it's OTC!" but schools aren't going to take their chances with very young children.

This idea is the one that I find worst. It's parental directive. Unless it's abusive to the child, there is no chance for the school to take, and the school's worry about allergies in the child should not supercede the parent's.

[Cyno]

I've worked in public school districts before. Believe me, they are absolutely mortified of any sort of lawsuits so they just don't take any chances.

[Allie Kitsune]

Feb 13, 2012 14:23:49 GMT -5 Cyno said:

I've worked in public school districts before. Believe me, they are absolutely mortified of any sort of lawsuits so they just don't take any chances.

If they're that worried about it, couldn't there be some sort of waiver the parents could (optionally) sign regarding that sort of thing?

Or would that be too easily abused from the other end by the schools?

[Deleted]

It is not about questioning your parenting skills.

It is about absolving the school district of any liability should those pills do him harm.

Thank the overly litigious for that.

[xCompackx]

Yeah, with kids that age it's really nothing personal. Really though out of all the ways a school could potentially get sued, I'd think OTC medicine would be the least of their worries.