Kids’ health HAPPY+HEALTHY
Faking bad
PHOTO: CARMEN CHEUN
What to do when your child pulls a Ferris Bueller during the pandemic. WATCHING THE MOVIE E.T. WHEN I WAS 10 really upped my faking-sick game. Once I saw Elliott heat the thermometer against a bare light bulb in order to spend the day with his new alien friend, I realized I’d discovered a foolproof way to skip school. From then on, when I hadn’t studied for a spelling test or if I just wanted to chill out eating Campbell’s soup and watching Star Trek reruns, I simply claimed I had a fever and let electricity inflate my temperature. Like losing a front tooth or falling out of a tree, pretending to be sick to stay home is an elementary school rite of passage. To
prove the point, my teenage daughter recently confessed that she invented cold symptoms to get out of school one day back in grade three. I don’t remember this, but apparently I was on to the con— my daughter says I refused to let her watch TV that day and made her stay in bed instead. Even though many children try it and it’s developmentally appropriate for school-aged kids, malingering still puts parents in an awkward position. Do you call their bluff and send them off or let them stay home and derail your day? And what if you sent them to school and they were, in fact, sick? It’s even more complicated January+February 2021 todaysparent.com
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