Mom and doctor shares the top ways to avoid back-to-school sickness this fall

With back-to-school season in full swing, most parents are thinking about outfits, shopping lists, and first-day logistics. But there’s another thing to consider: school-year sniffles. With the return to school, kids go back to being exposed to tons of illnesses, and cold and flu (and COVID) season is about to ramp back up in a big way. If you’re wondering how to protect your kids (and the rest of your family by extension), one mom, who is also a doctor, has tons of great tips in a now-viral TikTok.

Dr. Jessica Kiss, who posts to TikTok as @askdrmom, posted the video to share tips with parents about how to avoid back-to-school sickness, like colds, flu, and the new COVID variant that’s going around.

“First is simple,” she says in her video. “Teach them handwashing. You can’t stand with them at school and wash their hands. You can’t rely on anybody else to do that either when they’re trying to take care of all these kids. So the best you can do is train them while at home.” 

She continues her back-to-school tips: “That means listening when they go to the bathroom, listening for the water to run and how long it runs. Correct them repeatedly until it’s done properly and reward them for it. Do some sort of reward system — if you catch them 10 times they get a little prize — something like that to consistently drive it home. Read them books about how germs spread so they are educated at their level.” 

A book Kiss recommends? “Sick Simon,” which she says she read to her own kids until they were in about third grade.

Her next tip is to teach kids how to cough “appropriately,” which means into their elbow and not their hands.

“You want them ‘vampire coughing’ into their elbow, and you want them to teach their friends to do so as well,” Kiss says. “Teach them to say, ‘Hey, friend, this is how we’re supposed to cough.’ For your older kids, teach them if your friend is coughing, move away.”

Kiss recommends parents teach older kids to have tough conversations with their friends — if they’re coughing, tell them to send a text if they need anything, because they need to get away to avoid potentially getting sick.

She then moves on to the next tip: “Keep up-to-date with your well child visits. Those are super important because your doctor can catch something early that can keep them healthy much longer. Keep them up-to-date with vaccination, because vaccination is preventing things that they will not get if they are vaccinated.” 

Kiss continues, “The next one is bathing frequently. You want to bathe your kids a little bit more when they’re elementary age, during the school year, during the school week, trying to get the germs off them.”

Finally, she arrives at her last tip, which she says is the hardest.

“You need to let them get a little bit sick,” Kiss says. “Kids tend to get about three to five colds a year in those elementary years, as their immune system learns to recognize those viruses, and even if they are mutating, they still recognize some of it. That’s why you see kids get common colds several times a year, and then not as much later. The hard part to this is being OK with them not always being OK, and that, as a parent, I find very difficult.”

In the comments, parents shared their own ideas and experiences.

“My son’s pre-K made everyone wash their hands right after entering the building. I think he got sick once that year. Admittedly it was a small school, about 50 kids total but still! It was awesome,” one mom wrote.

Another added, “We also wipe down my kids chrome book everyday, also win the book bags/lunchbox, and wash their winter coats at least once a week (they have multiple)”

Happy back-to-school season. Stay healthy out there!