How to Help Your Kids Stay Healthy at School

Outbreaks of infectious illnesses are extremely common at schools. Despite the best efforts of teachers, kids sneeze in their hands and touch other kids, don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, and eat their lunches after playing on the jungle gym. Although urgent care can get your kids on the road to recovery fast when they bring an illness home, prevention is an even better strategy. You can reduce your kids’ risks of getting sick at school with this advice.

Talk About Hand Washing

Hand washing is the simplest and most effective way your kids can cut the number of germs they are introduced to at school. Stress the importance of handwashing before eating and after using the bathroom. Make washing hands a rule at home so that it becomes second nature for your kids to do it at school. If the school allows it, let your child keep a travel-size hand sanitizer in their backpack or send it back and forth every day in their lunch to make it even easier to get clean hands.

Teach Sneeze and Cough Etiquette

Kids are trained to cover their mouths when they sneeze and cough, but too often, they resort to using their hands to cover up, which they then use to infect surfaces around the classroom. Teach your kids how to sneeze and cough into a tissue, when possible, or into the crook of the elbow. This practice keeps hands cleaner so that fewer germs are dispersed in the school.

Keep Sick Kids Home

It can be difficult for parents, especially parents who work, to keep kids home when they are sick, especially if you think they are well enough to make it through school. However, when parents send sick kids to school, they put everyone at risk. Keep your kids home when they are sick, and encourage other parents to do the same.

A flu shot from Paramount Urgent Care is another part of keeping your kids healthy this school year. Call 352-674-9218 to find out more about the services at our walk-in clinic in Orlando, Lady Lake, Oviedo, and Clermont.