title: The unresolved child care dilemma: care for the acutely ill child.
abstract: The frequency of childhood illness, the exclusion practices of most licensed child care programs, and the limited sick leave policies of many employers all combine to create a particularly difficult dilemma for the working parent. A comprehensive solution to the problem of caring for the sick child must be tackled on three primary fronts: provision of expanded sick leave benefits and/or greater flexibility in the performance of job duties to enable working parents to care for children's illnesses without jeopardy to employment; development of clear regulatory guidelines and supplemental resources to enable care givers to accommodate a mildly ill child in the child's usual child care setting; replication of successful model programs, partially underwritten by public and/or private support, to assist parents with the costs of backup arrangements for the care of sick children when needed.
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D002654:Child Care; D002656:Child Day Care Centers; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D004651:Employment; D006699:Home Care Services; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D010356:Patient Isolation; D014931:Women, Working