'Annoyed' mum slams school over son's sunburn
A Victorian mum has sparked debate after asking a Facebook group who is responsible for keeping children sunsafe at school after her son came home sporting some serious sunburn on the top of his head.
The mother posted images of her eight-year-old son looking raw and tender after a day at school in the sun without a hat.
“Pretty annoyed that in 33-degree heat my child’s school didn’t make sure he had sun cream or a hat on at lunchtime,” she wrote on Facebook along with the images of her son.
The frustrated mother admitted that she is constantly reminding her son to wear his hat and he doesn’t always listen, so she asked the group who they thought was at fault.
“Do you think the school should be responsible for reminding the kids or not?” she asked the group.
No hat, no play
Hundreds of responses flooded in from parents with the overwhelming majority of responders feeling the school should have enforced the ‘no hat, no play’ rule.
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"Every school/daycare/kindy my kids have gone to have had a 'no hat, no play' rule... Regardless of how old he is, they have a duty of care while he is on school grounds. I'd be p***ed as hell,” one parents commented.
The mother admitted that her son didn’t have his hat or sunscreen in his school bag that day as he had lost it, but she felt as it was an especially hot day, teachers should have reminded him to sit in the shade.
“Yes he’s old enough to know better… (but) I do feel though that the school should be reminding students especially when so hot,” she added.
The mother told Kidspot over the next 24 hours the colour on her son’s head became darker and she treated the pain with Nurofen and Aloe Vera spray. It took a full five days for the sunburn to heal.
The day after it happened the mother told Kidspot she approached a teacher at school to clarify who was responsible for keeping students sunsafe and she was told “it was up to the kids”.
The concerned mum said that about 90 per cent of people who responded to her Facebook post felt teachers needed to remind young students to wear hats and apply sunscreen through the school day so she was taken aback by the response from the teacher.
Given the painful ending to her son’s forgetfulness, the mother said she is confident he won’t ever forget to apply sunscreen or wear his hat at school again.
“I think my son has definitely learnt a lesson with what has happened!" she told Kidspot.
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