Key TakeawaysExperts say a fever, persistent cough, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, and red, crusty eyes are all signs you need to keep your child home from school.Each school district also has its own policies about sick days for kids, so make sure you know what the rules are.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend keeping your child home if they have lice.

Key Takeaways

Experts say a fever, persistent cough, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, and red, crusty eyes are all signs you need to keep your child home from school.Each school district also has its own policies about sick days for kids, so make sure you know what the rules are.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend keeping your child home if they have lice.

Back-to-school season is also “back to cold, flu, and other not-so-fun bugs” season. If you’re a parent, you probably aren’t looking forward to the first morning your child wakes up not feeling well and you have to decide if they should stay home from school or not.

Adding to the confusion is that your school district, state, and even the part of the country where you live may have totally different policies that guide parents on when kids have to be kept home from school if they’re sick.

Here’s what experts say about the signs and symptoms that mean your child needs to take a sick day from school and their other activities, as well as when they need a trip to the pediatrician.

Avoiding Illness When Your Family Is Sick

Sick Day: Signs and Symptoms

After getting through aglobal pandemic, a lot of us feel more confident about spotting the signs of an infectious respiratory disease and know how important it is to take steps to try to prevent its spread. Maybe you’re already used to getting your family’s flu shots in the fall, and you’ve worked hard to make sure everyone knows to always wash their hands and sneeze into the crook of their elbow.

You can do your best to try to keep germs out of your home, but colds, the flu, and other ailments are likely to find their way in eventually. And then you’ll have to decide if a sick day is warranted.

“I recommend keeping your child at home for fever, significant coughing, vomiting, and/or diarrhea,”Lauren Strelitz, MD, a pediatrician at Bayside Medical Group at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, told Verywell.

According toAndrew Bernstein, MD, a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, fever, a bad runny nose, and cough are the symptoms that keep kids out of school the most.

It sounds simple, but caregivers have to juggle a lot of competing feelings and priorities when they’re trying to decide whether to let a child who isn’t feeling well go to school or not.

Fever

A fever is a body temperature over 100.4 degrees.Experts recommend that you keep your child home from school until they are fever-free for 24 hours without taking any medication like Tylenol or ibuprofen thatbrings a fever down.

Positive COVID Test

If your child tests positive for COVID, keep them at home—even if they don’t feel sick. You’ll also want to call their school to let them know about the positive test.

The current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that you need toisolate for five daysafter COVID symptoms start or you get a positive test.

You can usually end isolation after five days if your symptoms are getting better and you’ve been fever-free for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medication. However, you’ll need to check with your child’s school to find out what the policy is for coming back after COVID.

What to Do If You Test Positive for COVID

Persistent Cough

Coughing spreads germs and can be distracting for a child and their classmates. Keep your child at home if they have apersistent coughthat’s causing mucus (a productive cough) or shortness of breath.

Here are a few common contagious cough culprits in kids:

There are also several common causes of cough in children that are not contagious:

Should I Worry About My Kid’s Cough?

Uncontrollable Runny Nose

If your child’snose is dripping nonstopor they frequently need to blow their nose, they’ve probably got a cold or another respiratory virus.If your child is constantly using tissues, those little germ balls are going to get spread around the classroom—and so will the illness.

Keep your child home if they:

Why Runny Noses Happen

Vomiting

Kids throw up at school for a lot of reasons that are not contagious—nerves, a snack that doesn’t agree with them, playing too hard at recess after lunch, a weird tickle in their throat that makes them gag.

But if a child vomits and also has stomach pain, fever, diarrhea, or just an overall “yucky” feeling, they probablyhave a bugand need to go home.Keep your child out of school until they have not thrown up or had a fever for 24 hours without taking any medication.

Diarrhea

If you’ve ever been stuck at work or out on an errand whendiarrheastrikes, you know that being anywhere other than the comfort (and privacy) of your own home when you’re dealing with it is miserable. For kids, having diarrhea at school can be even worse because they may have a harder time controlling it.

There are also non-contagious causes of diarrhea in kids such as:

If your child has diarrhea, let them stay home until they’ve been symptom-free for at least 24 hours, and make sure they stay hydrated (especially if they’re also vomiting).

How to Help Your Kid Stay Hydrated When They Have Vomiting and Diarrhea

Sore Throat

COVID, RSV, and the Flu

Flu season is expected to coincide withrising cases of COVIDand respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). These respiratory illnesses can share many of the same symptoms, including:

However, there are a few differences, too:

Where Is RSV Spreading?

Eye Discharge

If your child has red itchy eyes, your first thought might be seasonal allergies. But it could also be an eye infection like conjunctivitis (also known ashighly contagious “pink eye”). While allergies usually affect both eyes at the same time, an eye infection tends to start in one eye and may spread to the other.

As a rule of thumb, keep your child home if they have:

How to Tell If Your Kid Has Pink Eye

Body Rash

“Children get many rashes,” said Strelitz. “Unless it is from something highly contagious, such as scabies, measles, or chickenpox, there aren’t any specific rashes for which they would need to stay at home.”

A body rash has a lot of non-contagious causes like allergies, eczema, or irritation from something in their environment.But there are also some causes of body rashes that are contagious:

The Most Common Rashes in Kids

Head Injury

It’s not a contagious thing, but if your child getsa head injuryplaying a sport or in gym class, they should be kept home from school. You’ll also be advised to keep a close eye on them and get medical attention if they have:

If your child has aconcussion, they’ll need to follow the return-to-school/sports protocol from their pediatrician. Usually, this means they can go back to school after:

What Are Return-to-Play Guidelines for Concussions?

What About Lice?

Head lice, a tiny insect that feeds off blood on the scalp, is a fear of many parents of school-aged children.

Head lice is itchy and annoying to deal with, but it does not carry or spread disease. Contrary to what decades of classroom “lice checks” might have led you to believe, it’s also pretty rare for lice to be spread at school.

In fact, the CDC does not recommend children with lice be excluded from school, and it does not recommend those mass lice screenings anymore.

“A child with lice should not stay at home, or even be sent home early,” said Strelitz. “They should be treated the night it is diagnosed with permethrin shampoo. A nit comb should also be used to thoroughly brush the hair to remove the eggs. The treatment should then be repeated on day 9 or 10 after diagnosis.”

If you think your child has lice, you should tell the school and get in touch with their pediatrician about the steps. There are severalover-the-counter (OTC)and prescription treatments for lice that are safe and effective, such as:

How to Avoid Head Lice

When to Take Your Child to the Pediatrician

The symptoms of a mild cold will usually get better after a couple of days. However, if your child’s symptoms do not improve or get worse, it is time to call their pediatrician.

You should also call your child’s provider right away if they have:

Government and school-based guidelines will differ, but you can often rely on your parental intuition and common sense when it comes to deciding to keep your child home from school for a day or two if they’re not feeling well.

“Parents know their child best and have a great sense of when their child is sick, anxious, or has other reasons they might not want to go to school,” said Strelitz.

Before you send them back, make sure they have the basics of infection prevention down. That means knowing how to wash their hands properly andcover their coughsand sneezes. As a parent, you’ll want to make sure you’re giving them the tools they need to avoid giving others germs, too. For example, having them mask up for the trip to the pediatrician.

What This Means For YouFor an obvious infectious illness, the decision to keep a child home from school is pretty clear. But if you’re not sure, consider whether your child’s symptoms would make it hard for them to focus or disrupt their classmates.

What This Means For You

For an obvious infectious illness, the decision to keep a child home from school is pretty clear. But if you’re not sure, consider whether your child’s symptoms would make it hard for them to focus or disrupt their classmates.

Signs Your Child Needs to See Their Pediatrician

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Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.UCLA Health.As COVID-19 cases rise, should we start masking again?.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Definitions of symptoms for reportable illnesses.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Isolation and precautions for people with COVID-19.American Lung Association.Learn about cough.Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.Runny nose.KidsHealth.Vomiting.National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.Symptoms & causes of chronic diarrhea in children.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Sore throat.Food and Drug Administration.COVID-19, flu and RSV: FDA resources for the fall respiratory illness season.KidsHealth.Pinkeye (conjunctivitis).NHS.Skin rashes in children.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Scarlet fever.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Impetigo.KidsHealth.Ringworm.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Hand, foot, and mouth disease.KidsHealth.Head injury.Halstead ME, McAvoy K, Devore CD, et al.Returning to learning following a concussion.Pediatrics. 2013;132(5):948-957. doi:10.1542/peds.2013-2867Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Head lice information for schools.American Academy of Pediatrics.Fever: when to call the pediatrician.

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

UCLA Health.As COVID-19 cases rise, should we start masking again?.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Definitions of symptoms for reportable illnesses.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Isolation and precautions for people with COVID-19.American Lung Association.Learn about cough.Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.Runny nose.KidsHealth.Vomiting.National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.Symptoms & causes of chronic diarrhea in children.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Sore throat.Food and Drug Administration.COVID-19, flu and RSV: FDA resources for the fall respiratory illness season.KidsHealth.Pinkeye (conjunctivitis).NHS.Skin rashes in children.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Scarlet fever.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Impetigo.KidsHealth.Ringworm.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Hand, foot, and mouth disease.KidsHealth.Head injury.Halstead ME, McAvoy K, Devore CD, et al.Returning to learning following a concussion.Pediatrics. 2013;132(5):948-957. doi:10.1542/peds.2013-2867Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Head lice information for schools.American Academy of Pediatrics.Fever: when to call the pediatrician.

UCLA Health.As COVID-19 cases rise, should we start masking again?.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Definitions of symptoms for reportable illnesses.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Isolation and precautions for people with COVID-19.

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Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.Runny nose.

KidsHealth.Vomiting.

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.Symptoms & causes of chronic diarrhea in children.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Sore throat.

Food and Drug Administration.COVID-19, flu and RSV: FDA resources for the fall respiratory illness season.

KidsHealth.Pinkeye (conjunctivitis).

NHS.Skin rashes in children.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Scarlet fever.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Impetigo.

KidsHealth.Ringworm.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Hand, foot, and mouth disease.

KidsHealth.Head injury.

Halstead ME, McAvoy K, Devore CD, et al.Returning to learning following a concussion.Pediatrics. 2013;132(5):948-957. doi:10.1542/peds.2013-2867

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Head lice information for schools.

American Academy of Pediatrics.Fever: when to call the pediatrician.

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