Hello everyone! I started working part time at a daycare from November last year. My job consists of doing odd jobs around the property , taking care of the kids, helping teachers out and teaching English. Ever since I started working there I’ve been getting sick every 5 weeks or so; I’ve had ear infections, throat infections, mild to kinda bad colds, and rn I’m sick again, my parotid glands are swollen. I work with kids from ages 3 to 12. So, I was wondering if being close the kids and interacting with them so often is taking a toll on my health. I’ve been in Japan for about 3 years now, so I thought that by now my immune system would’ve acclimated to the microbes here.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
21 comments
with 3 year olds youre pretty much doomed. get used to it or quit. good luck.
Kids are always sick with all kinds of random crap they get from the outside and other kids. It’s normal to get sick from young kids pretty often.
I noticed that while COVID mask policies were enforced, wearing a mask around them kept me almost immune from their noxious fumes. Once the mask policies were lifted and I stopped wearing masks, I got sick within the first two weeks.
It’s normal for them to make you sick, especially if you’ve been protecting yourself pretty well for the past few years. Your body kinda forgets how to fight off the most basic of infections.
Children are notorious for spreading diseases all over the world.
You should be wearing a mask and washing your hands frequently. From now on, even if COVID-19 infections drop to 0, wear a mask in the fall.
I don’t work with kids but I have a 4 year old in yochien. It’s so tough, I feel like she brings home a new illness every month. They’ve actually closed her class a couple of times due to the majority of the class being sick.
For what it’s worth, it was basically the same when we lived in the US! Kids just love to trade germs. Get to bed early, eat healthy, drink lots of water, and some vitamin C and Zinc probably won’t hurt.
Just do your best to stay healthy. Daughter brought home a variant of HFMD, common in kids but can be serious in adults. Immunity is based on the variant you were exposed to as a child. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand,_foot,_and_mouth_disease. Lost my toenails and was pretty much immobile for 2 weeks.
You’ll be sick a lot for the first year, but your immune system will be a lot stronger by the second.
This is normal. Worked at an international school for 4 years I was in charge of 2-4 year olds. Your body will get used to it after year and half or so. Even kids who go into preschool for the first time get sick a lot for a year (I have 4 of my own).
Until pretty much grade 3 you’re going to be dealing with this. Kids definitely don’t get “keeping germs to themselves” at that age, and they touch everything.
I’d suggest finding something where you’re not working with living germ factories. I used to basically always have a cold or something in the works. Ridiculous, because smaller kids are the most fun to work with – since, you know, the energy levels are off the charts.
Wash your hands. Between every class. On every break. Before you eat. And never never ever touch your face.
My first job in Japan was teaching at an Eikaiwa in a (comparatively) rural area. I had a LOT of kids classes, all age ranges, and being somewhat rural they were coming in from 5 or 6 different towns/cities. So basically I was exposed to every virus from every age/school level in the surrounding 5 towns. I was constantly getting sick. One kid even gave me chicken pox, which I had somehow avoided until I was in my 30s. Kids, even moreso the younger ones, are walking petri dishes of disease- they’ll touch everything, stick their fingers in their mouths, grab and rub each others hands and faces with those unwashed fingers, cough straight in your face, and so on. So yes, you are getting exposed to *everything*. Wash your hands all the freaking time, have the kids do the same, try not to touch your face as much as possible (that just brings whatever germs are on your hands right to your mouth/nose/eyes), basically follow a lot of the COVID protocols, and you can reduce the number of illnesses you catch from the kids from once every 5 weeks down to maybe once every 5 and a half weeks.
I have been in kindergartens for 20 years.
First year teachers always get sick a lot, from the second year your immune system can better deal with it and you will hardly get sick.
Just handwashing and gargling and you should be good from year 2
I had to quit teaching because constant illness. When I stopped I get sick maybe 1-2 a year max now.
Masks, frequent hand washing, a bottle of hand sanitizer in your pocket, do your best to never put your hands in your face unless washed, and just do your best to avoid it. I taught kids for years too and had the same issues. I could often tell exactly which kid gave me a new cold.
IMO kids get blamed for sickness way too often. It’s never the train you were on, the restaurant you ate at, one of many people you walked past…etc. Always the kids.
Seems like you’ve already made your mind up on this one so I’m not actually sure what you’re seeking other than confirmation/sympathy (which there’s nothing wrong with BTW, but it doesn’t always fix things).
If you want my thoughts:
– I’ve worked ‘with kids’ in various roles and am not sick very often. Guess we’re all different?
– While working in a single teacher kids’ eikaiwa I was constantly burned out. Once I became burned out, I had anxiety attacks (chest pains) and developed a chronic cough. This is something I’d look out for.
– How’s your health otherwise? I put on stacks of weight while working in eikaiwa, drank a lot and hung-out in smoky bars a lot (not a smoker but a night in one of them was probably equivalent to smoking a heap of durries). While working closely with kids MIGHT increase your chance of exposure (I’d argue things like commuting and going out to a heap of small bars are same-same if not worse), clearly people work with kids and aren’t sick 365 days a year. That is abnormal and I’d be looking at what you can change to make your body more resilient. Also, get a check-up! You might have something other than a cold…
Oh no, I’m sorry you went through all that! I hope you feel better soon. I’ve been working at a daycare (ages 2-5) for two years, and the masks really help me personally. I’ve gotten by with just wearing a regular surgical mask, but occasionally a kn95 when Covid rates were higher. I’ve also been cleaning my hands frequently at work, and I shower when I get home, too. I get my flu shot yearly as well. These things work for me, and I haven’t gotten sick from the kids!
Use lots of sanitizer, wear mask get used to it
Konbini has vitamin C drinks, you should down one every few days!
I have the same issue teaching in Taiwan. Kids are gross and have no sense of hygiene 😅 as we spend so much time with the kids unfortunately it’s pretty hard not to get sick from them.
The best I found was wearing a mask, always. It’s not gonna do much if they stop wearing them but it’s better than no mask. A strict no face touching rule. I really try not to touch my face at all during the day as much as possible. Repeated hand washing. I tried to wash my hands between each class, before and after eating and after any exposure (if a kid sneezed on me or something). I kept a sanitizer in my pocket for if it was in the middle of a class so I couldn’t leave.
I obviously couldn’t do this with my kindi kids, but older kids if they sneezed into their bare hands, stuck their fingers in their nose or mouth etc I sent them out to wash their hands. At the beginning this meant some of the really gross kids were being sent out to wash their hands multiple times and they hated it so much that they quickly learnt to stop doing it in my lessons 😅
I also sprayed down high touch areas like doorknobs or any toys, shared books, board pens etc with alcohol spray multiple times a day.
I took multivitamins daily and tried to ensure I was getting enough sleep every night as well.
I still occasionally got sick but it was way less frequently than before.
It sounds like a lot at first, but actually once I got used to it, it really wasn’t difficult to keep up with.
OP are you me?? It’s like you were telling my own experience hahaha.
Yes, It’s because of the kids. I actually went to the hospital and they ran all kinds of tests..
After a while the doctor just told me that for the average Hoikuen teacher it takes around 5 years for theirs bodies to get used to all the baby germs, it might take a little more for us foreigners! But you’ll be super man afterwards (or at least that’s what my doctor said).
I hope I can move to another job before that happens tho.
I was the same for 2 years when I started working in kindergartens here in Japan. I was sick all the time and when i started to adapt i got hay fever. Now i have been working 8 years with the kids and i get sick only a few times a year. It gets better. Hang in there.
I realised kindergartens in Japan are basically the opposite of hospitals; healthy kids in, sick kids out.