Avoid Back-to-School Bugs

Submitted by Jim Haselmaier

Our daycare provider, who was also a nurse, taught us a lot about how to avoid sharing viruses among family members.

Managing personal and professional obligations is a challenge on a good day. When unexpected complications pop up it gets even harder to keep everything and everyone on track. You probably know what I mean; a meeting that runs late, a call from the school, realizing that you've got two different colored socks on as you prepare to meet with your customer, or, a family member that gets sick.

When someone gets sick at home, the challenges can mushroom into even more problems if other family members end up with the bug. And being sick yourself is often the worst because, in addition to feeling lousy, you start to fall behind at work and at home as the ratio of "doers" (aka "parents") to those needing attention (aka "kids") gets out of whack.

Our daycare provider, who was also a nurse, taught us a lot about how to avoid sharing viruses among family members. We learned how to "contain" these bugs and usually avoided passing them between each other by developing this strict protocol when one of us got sick:

• Always wash your hands before you touch anything in the kitchen, your food, or your face.
• If you're sick, don't go in the kitchen. Period.
  (My wife rarely cooks. Sometimes when I'm sick, I sit in the other room and give her step-by-step directions. Her food prep skills and patience are somewhat limited, so I keep that in mind :) 
• Healthy family members have to become especially helpful since the sick person can't go into the kitchen. Requests for drinks and snacks are met with fast responses and sympathetic smiles.
• Teach children (and yourself) to cough and sneeze into an elbow (preferably their own ;)
• Disinfecting wipes are used liberally to clean off doorknobs, faucet handles, telephones, etc.
• Sick people don't sleep with healthy people.

This system works! We often stayed healthy when one of our kids got sick.

​Jim Haselmaier worked full time for 33-years in high tech business strategy & product management positions. He's a husband, father of two grown children, and holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University.

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