A sick child needs a lot of love from his parents. But what if they have to work? How the situation is regulated legally - and why nobody should have a guilty conscience.
Cologne (dpa / tmn) - fever, cough, runny nose, otitis media or gastrointestinal tract: The list of diseases that small children in particular are constantly going through seems endless. When they are sick, children need a lot of care - of course from mom and dad.
And of course the parents want to be there for their little ones. When working, legal regulations, pressure from colleagues or self-made stress often make it difficult for them. Experts explain what rights and obligations employees have and how they can best deal with the situation in a team.
Parents with sick children are allowed to stay at home
The first question that arises when the child is sick is: Can I stay at home? In principle, the answer to this question is quite simple: yes. Of course there is a "but": you are not easily paid for an unlimited amount of time if you stay at home with your sick child. This is regulated, among other things, in the Civil Code (Section 616), such as Nathalie Oberthür, specialist lawyer for labor and social law.
If an employee is unable to work for an insignificant period of time for personal reasons, he will continue to receive his salary. "As a rule, a period of no more than five days is considered not to be significant time," explains Oberthür.
Other regulations in the employment contract are possible
In this case, there is no upper limit on how many days it can be throughout the year. However, something other than the regulation from the BGB can be specified in the respective employment contract or in the collective agreement, says Oberthür. So it is quite common that the payment of such days is completely excluded in an employment contract.
Then the Social Security Code comes into effect (Fifth Book, Section 45) and you get sick pay instead of your salary: If there is no other childcare option - for example, through the other parent or grandparents - you can stay at home ten days a year and child, explains the specialist lawyer . For single parents it is 20 days. The rule applies to children under the age of twelve. In both cases, a prerequisite is a certificate from the pediatrician, which you usually have to present to your employer on the first day.
No bad conscience towards colleagues
The legal or contractual regulations are one thing. The work that is left behind is the other. It is not necessarily the colleagues who curse the sick child and the tasks that they have to take on. "It usually works quite well," says psychologist and coach Gabriele Bringer. "It's more the parents themselves, mostly mothers, who think that the others have no understanding. So it's often a self-made stress."
To counteract this, Bringer advises that you also have to have a child at work. "You took responsibility and you just can't do it without all the care."
Sick child and continue working - neither is possible
In order to curb your own guilty conscience, psychologist Bringer advises you to always be where you are in your head: at work you think about work and at home with the child you concentrate fully on it.
For this reason, Bringer does not think much of working from home with a sick child or taking the child to work with him. "Both the job and childcare need full attention." However, it could be helpful for colleagues to say in a short conversation what tasks are to be done.
If you are unsure how the team thinks about the "child sick days", you can ask a good colleague for honest feedback. Another possibility is to deal with your thoughts openly in front of the team: "You can put it in a way that you are very aware that work is being left behind and ask that those who disturb it should report. Then you can clarify it openly . "
BGB §616
SBB V § 45