Sick child? What working parents are entitled to

Lisa Vogel studied departmental journalism with a focus on medicine and biosciences at Ansbach University and deepened her journalistic knowledge in the master's degree in multimedia information and communication. This was followed by a traineeship in the editorial team. Since September 2020 she has been writing as a freelance journalist for

More posts by Lisa Vogel All content is checked by medical journalists.

A sick child especially needs a lot of love from his parents. But what if they have to work? How the situation is legally regulated - and why nobody should have a guilty conscience.

Fever, cough, runny nose, otitis media or gastrointestinal tract: the list of diseases that young children go through seems endless. When they are sick, children need a lot of care - from mom and dad, of course.

And of course the parents want to be there for their little ones. If they are at work, however, legal regulations, pressure from colleagues or self-inflicted 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 probably: Can I stay at home? The answer to this question is, in principle, quite simple: yes. Of course there is a "but": You will not get paid without further ado and indefinitely if you stay at home with your sick child. This is regulated, among other things, in the German Civil Code (Paragraph 616), as Nathalie Oberthür, specialist lawyer for labor and social law, explains.

If an employee is unable to pursue his or her job for an insignificant amount of time for personal reasons, he will continue to receive his salary. "A period of no more than five days is generally considered to be insignificant," explains Oberthür.

Other regulations in the employment contract are possible

In this case, there is no upper limit to how many days there may be in the whole year. However, in the respective employment contract or in the collective agreement, something other than the regulation from the BGB can be specified, says Oberthür. It is quite common for such days to be completely excluded in an employment contract.

Then the Social Security Code (Fifth Book, Paragraph 45) takes effect and you get sick pay instead of your salary: If there is no other possibility of care - for example from the other parent or grandparent - you can stay at home ten days per year and child, explains the specialist lawyer . It is 20 days for single parents. The regulation applies to children under the age of twelve. A prerequisite in both cases is a certificate from the pediatrician, which you usually have to present to your employer on the first day.

If you do not pay, the above-mentioned time limits do not apply, according to Oberthür. However, even in this case you are obliged to inform your employer immediately that you have to stay at home with your child. For some employees, it may also be a consideration to take the sick child to work.

"Some companies have special parent-child rooms, then it works," says Oberthür. But: "If it is not explicitly allowed to take your child to work, then it is forbidden. You are not allowed to do so without a vote."

No bad conscience

The legal or contractual regulations are one thing. The work that remains is the other. It is not necessarily the colleagues who curse the sick child and the tasks that they also have to take on. "It usually works very well," says psychologist and coach Gabriele Bringer. "It is more the parents themselves, mostly mothers, who think that others have no understanding. So it is often self-inflicted stress."

In her experience, women are more likely than men to have a guilty conscience when work is abandoned because of a sick child. To counteract this, Bringer advises you to stand by the fact that you have a child at work. "You have taken responsibility and without all the care it just doesn't work." But it is important not to overdo it: "Some mothers carry their motherhood in front of them and expect absolute consideration. That does not go down well."

Sick child and continuing to work - neither is possible

In order to curb your own guilty conscience, psychologist Bringer advises you to always be there in your head where you actually are: At work you think about work and at home with the child you concentrate fully on it. "To do this, you have to work on yourself and rationalize: the child needs all the care it can get. It doesn't help either the child or the colleagues if I stay at home but only have work on my mind." It helps to put such thoughts into words.

For this reason, Bringer doesn't think much of working from home with a sick child or taking the child to work. "Both the job and the childcare need all the attention." It could be helpful for colleagues, however, if you say in a short conversation which tasks need to be done.

Anyone who is unsure how the team thinks about the "child sick days" can ask a good colleague for honest feedback. Another possibility is to deal openly with your thoughts in front of the team: "You can formulate that you are very aware that work is being left behind and ask that those who are bothered by it should report. Then you can clarify it openly . " (lv / dpa)

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