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Does Your Kid Need a Mental Health Day?
Even kids need a day off now and then.
I am blessed with a healthy child who rarely gets sick. She manages to dodge most classroom illnesses and has run a fever just once in the past year. Her good health is something I am thankful for, but something she sometimes regrets. Because if you are never sick, you never get to enjoy a sick day. And even a 10-year-old can appreciate the attraction of a day spent curled up on the couch doing absolutely nothing.
So, what’s a freakishly healthy kid to do when she’s feeling a little burned out from all that fourth grade math and playground politics? Take a mental health day, of course.
Jody Becker, a mom and guest columnist at Motherlode, learned about the mental health day when her daughter pretended to be sick in order to get one. Her 7-year-old had no fever or other symptoms to back up claim of being ill, but mom let her stay home anyway. And was glad she did.
I’m actually a little pleased for her, because I would have never been allowed to do that, and probably never would have wanted to, much. I’m always afraid I’ll miss something, while my daughter seems confident enough to know that if she takes a day off to relax and collect her thoughts, the world will still be there tomorrow.
I am a big advocate of the occasional mental health day. My 10-year-old is a responsible kid who works hard and does well in school. If she says she needs a break, I let her have one – as long as she follows the mental health day rules:
Rule Number 1: You can’t pretend to be sick when you aren’t.
This is important because it encourages her to be honest about how she’s feeling and prevents me from worrying when there’s nothing to worry about.
Rule Number 2: All missed school work must be made up the following day.
If she can’t manage a day off without getting behind at school, then she needs to go to school. This rule also helps her think about the consequences of staying home and, more often than not, convinces her to just get up and go.
Mental health days happen only about once or twice a year around here and I think that’s just fine. What about you? Do you let your kids stay home from school when they aren’t sick?
Image: richardmasoner/Flickr
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6 Comments
bob commented on Nov 05 10 at 2:29 pmDo you have rules about who she can communicate with while she’s “sick”? What about what she should tell others about her reason for being absent?
sandymaple commented on Nov 05 10 at 3:13 pmGood questions, Bob. No, I don’t have rules about who she can talk to when she stays home, but she can’t play with any friends. The point is to spend a quiet day at home. And we don’t lie to anyone about her absence. I let the school know she won’t be in, but they don’t ask why. And if someone should ask at school the next day, she tells the truth.
Lisa commented on Nov 05 10 at 6:47 pmKids shouldn’t miss school unless it is necessary.
Marj commented on Nov 06 10 at 12:30 amI used to pretend to be sick all the time. I just hated school. I was shy and a booklover and the other kids sucked. Sometimes the teachers sucked. And I hated math. I’m not sure if any of those count as mental heath exactly, unless I was seeing a shrink on those days off. Which I wasn’t.
ashley commented on Nov 06 10 at 1:05 pmI wish I had of thought of something like this when I was in school. I didn’t miss a single day of school from the last half of seventh grade until i graduated. a mental health day would have been something nice, instead of the same thing day in and day out
Lori C commented on Jan 03 11 at 10:20 amI had a couple friends in school that were allowed these. They were allowed 1 a quarter, as long as they didn’t 1) have a test, 2) had at least a “B” in all the classes they would miss and 3) didn’t lie about it. I believe the also needed to not have been absent for other reasons.
They seem like a good thing to me, and as my daughter seems to have inherited my husbands freakish immune system I’ll probably have cause to consider them in the future. I’d hope that she wouldn’t feel the need for such a thing until closer to junior high though.
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