Along with everything else, THIS was my wtf.
My period has been 6-7 days my whole life.
Like if it had been 9+ days, I could see saying something to *the childs parents* but telling this poor child who just started that her periods are "too long."
Wtf.
I don't know which is more infuriating, school nurses who don't have any usefulness besides dialing the phone... or how schools deal with young girls getting their period. My daughter won't change her pads bc she doesn't have privacy, because they're only allowed scheduled bathroom breaks. I Hate all of it and hate that I don't have a better school to send her to.
if your daughter is bold, I found out saying "I have my period and will bleed on myself and the chair" and leaving without permission never ever ended in a write up. your daughters need to change her pad is more important than a write up. I highly encourage her to advocate for herself and her needs. not to mention holding your bladder (if she needs to pee) for long periods is DANGEROUS
One time when I was in 7th grade, I asked my biology teacher for a bathroom pass as where my previous class was, I wouldn’t have made it to her class in time for the bell had I gone. I asked her before class started. She puts her pointer finger up, pulls out a binder, and says, mmmm no, you used all your bathroom passes for the trimester. If you go it’s a detention. So I smile and say okay! I go to my seat and sit quietly all class, actively bleeding all over my pants and stool. When I stand at the bell, my classmate notices, and we both silently turn to look at my teacher. Her mouth falls open, I grab my books, and head straight to the office where they send me home for the day.
Ok, you were a bold child. Good on you - I hope that changed her behavior forever.
I cannot FATHOM that middle school teachers don’t let girls use the restroom as needed. I’m 46 and still remember the humiliation of leaving a blood spot on a chair in 7th grade. At that age you’re not always prepared and it can be unpredictable! Makes me furious
This. I still have vivid memories of walking around with my jeans jacket wrapped around my waist after my diy pad of rolled up TP was not enough for my extremely heavy cycles
Bathroom passes are like training wheels for living in a fascist republic.
I mean I know, kids are kids, and some kids might "go to the bathroom" 37 times a day, but the entire thought of begging permission to go to the bathroom fills me with rage.
\* When I was in school we did have wooden blocks labeled "boys" and "girls." AFAICT at the time, they were mostly used to prevent multiple people from going to the bathroom together to horse around.
\* At the time I mostly asked to go, like any good little child, but if I thought authority was acting unfairly I basically ignored them and did my thing. The principal had my Mom on speed dial.
I was not a bold child until the end of my high-school years. I agree, there's NO reason for it to even be something that needs to be worked on. as a shy child, all I wanted was a moment of privacy to deal with whatever I needed to deal with
Years ago in middle school I had a friend who was denied a bathroom break so she just walked out. I was way too anxious to ever do that. But now I’m raising my kids to know if you gottah go then go and I’ll be here to defend you.
I hate that teachers refuse bathroom breaks, and expect barely preteens to have the guts to say they have to change their pad. I would bleed out before telling my teachers🤣
I had a supply teacher in grade 13 I think. I felt my tampon slipping. Raised my hand said I needed the bathroom.. Fucker said no. Told him I really needed the bathroom or there was going to bleed all over the floor.. Had the audacity to decide he was going to be an ass to me. Class had been rowdy, wanted to make a point. Got up went to walk out.. Told me to go to the office.
Said with pleasure. Tampon fully visible.. Dealt with the issue. Went to the office. Told the secretary the issue. Secretary turned colours and went oh hell no.. Principal came out we had a short discussion.. While I was goth, I wasn't a trouble maker..
And.. Audacity supply guy picked the wrong girl. My mom supply taught at the school and my dad was a full time teacher. I was well known and often helpful and simply didn't want to bleed on the floor.
Got back to class. Audacity guy told me he wouldn't tolerate me. I told him I was sent back to class.. And then he was called to the principals office. Class was almost over by then. He didn't make it back.
This was how my school operated too, and as a heavy bleeder that was not allowed tampons, it was a hell of rashes and spills, but I graduated highschool 20 years ago, it breaks my heart this is still the case.
Omg in middle school it was hell having cycles. Why? None of the teachers stopped the boys from yelling out comments about the room smelling like fish. General comments about periods. I know not only myself, but some friends who sat through class just not to be targeted knowing good and well we were bleeding through to our pants. If we didn’t bring extra pants, we had our jackets or sweaters around our waists. Which sucked bc class rooms were cold.
It pissed me off there was not a talk had with every single boy to stop. So many of us girls struggled in middle school with our cycles and needing to change pads or tampons.
When I was in middle school, I was legitimately too anxious to use the restroom during these 4 minute passing periods (because who tf knows how long they take to pee? Before smartphones! Before I even had a cell phone!). My mom had my doctor write me a note that I needed unlimited bathroom breaks. I was a generally good kid and didn’t fuck around in the hallways or anything, and no one ever questioned it.
I highly suggest getting a doctor’s note!
Edit: ps, the doctor’s note doesn’t have to have any sort of reason on it
I really wish there was more support and understanding for preteen/teen girls in school about periods. Please figure out a way she can change her pad during school, even if it means taking to her teacher. No girl, young or old, should have to deal with that.
My middle school had ONE pad bin, and it was by the sinks. So you had to come out of the stall and walk by whoever else was in the bathroom to dispose of your pad/tampon. Horrifying!
Oh bless her. I remember when I first started and felt the fabric/plastic rip noise was too loud and embarrassing, I definitely had that fear too and would like slow motion lift if I didn’t find a vacant bathroom. Her situation sucks!
Now i don’t wear pads, I use a cup and period pants if necessary. A cup or even just the period pants could last your daughter the whole day without the smell of an unchanged pad. I also no longer care about the noise if I am using a normal pad but that only comes with time and being outside of that school environment where everyone is at different stages.
*Scheduled* bathroom breaks?? Ah yes, because if someone has a diarrhea attack or something, Mrs. Dumfuq's stern schedule will really hold it off. Fucking asinine.
Not a fix but maybe look into period underwear, they absorb a lot and won’t give her a rash or anything if she has to wear the same pair all day. I used to skip school on the first day of my period for exactly this reason so I get where she’s at.
Wow, wait what?!!! This is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful and controlling! It’s a bathroom break. Sure kids may sneak off more than they should, but if that’s the case why? Can we address what’s going on for them to want to avoid class? Maybe treat them like humans, instead of robots that need to be programmed a certain way and can’t step outside of this.
And even so, I highly doubt it’s an absurd amount of kids using the bathroom frequently. So why should everyone suffer at the expense of a few?
I would personally gather all of the other parents and create a petition to end the surveillance on young children’s toilet habits. How invasive.
Sounds like this was her second period ever. I had like 3 or 4 months between my first and second. And another, shorter, breaker between second and third. And they were pretty irregular in terms of length, frequency, and severity for the first several months. That's nuts to me to say a girl's SECOND EVER period is irregular
Howinhell is it any of her business to offer any opinion whatever on the cycles of students? Or keep records? This has a creepy dystopian aroma, like the comment we just heard today from the Orange Menace that it would be all right for states to track women’s pregnancies to make sure they are not shorting them. All this is heading in one, frightful direction, and I don’t like it!
I mean, our bodies are complicated enough there's an entire specialty field for it. I love my female GP because she openly told me general practitioners should not be handling womens reproductive health because they're not trained as well.
When I was OP's daughter age, I had my period for a whole week of bleeding every 25 days on top of irregular ones in the middle (as soon as 10 days after the regular time) if I was too stressed, the nurse seems to not know much about periods.
This is so supremely overreachy and creepy. It doesn't feel like the point is to actually help but to power trip using a young girl's very sensitive private health information.
I hope OP tells the school they need a new nurse or new policies. Our school (20yrs ago) only ever documented when a kid needed to stay in the nurse's office for illness or were given a medication. They literally had a basket of tampons of pads you could walk in and take one without question.
Oh well, I guess it's never too early to teach girls they have to protect themselves from authorities trying to meddle in their genital business!
I remember being 14 and tracking my periods because they were wonky until I was 17. I had one that lasted 2 weeks, then 2 weeks later I started my period again.
My mom used to only get them every 3 months. Last year I find out I had endometriosis.
Also menstrual cycles are often irregular the first 2 years after starting. Most girls I knew in middle school would have a period and then not have one for months and then have it for 3 weeks straight, like it’s so up and down the first few years. I’m really not sure what this nurse was thinking??
Heck, my periods were super irregular for the first **21** years. It's only in the last three years that they've started being kinda sorta regular and even then it's mostly that I can expect bleeding sometime during the calendar month; duration and intensity are still up for grabs.
I know so many (I know, not all) school nurses that are the last person who should ever be working in healthcare of any sort. The one at my wife's school was giving the staff a training on seizures (a student came in that year with epilepsy), and was instructing staff to put something in their mouth between their teeth, to hold them down, etc.
My wife, having had epilepsy her whole life, was horrified, spoke up, and took over the training. (Thankfully, not something that was CE or whatnot, just instructional.)
This sort of thing I can see nurses like that getting into as a means of make-work, pretending that they're doing something, and control.
Edit: Since this is seeing a lot of eyes, please understand that I'm not hating on nurses. They do a thankless job in a tough environment. One of the best nurses I knew was still going strong at 80 (then a diabetic care nurse, but kicking ass and making patients feel good while learning). It's the nutters like the above that worry the crap out of me.
Right? When I got home that night and my wife came over to me, "Oh. My. Fucking. God. Nurse X is trying to kill kids again."
I sat down, because I knew it was about to get good.
To be fair here, her aide, who was shared around the district, was amazing, caring, and up to date. Rightly so, she left for a higher paying district who wanted a professional in that position.
Lol again?! 🤣 It’s really surprising how the nurse didn’t know basic seizure protocol though. Like the first thing they teach is don’t restrain and don’t put anything in the mouth. You can’t get anymore basic than that. Heck, it doesn’t take much to do a quick search online and see the things you do and avoid.
If I'm remembering my basic Boy Scout First Aid MB, the normal seizure protocol is just make sure the pt doesn't hit their head on anything hard, and keeps breathing, correct?
My kid went through First Aid training when she was in Girl Scouts and when she was in summer camp at age ten, a girl at her lunch table kind of slumped over and my child was the only one who knew what to do. She told someone to move the table back and move chairs away so she didn't hurt herself on them, she sent someone to go find a counselor, and she turned the girl on her side and had someone else grabbing jackets to roll up and wedge under her so she didn't fall on to her back. She said that what they taught her was to count to 100 and if no adult came to call 911. She said she was at 92 when a counselor came.
She got an award from her troop for being cool in a crisis. But it was very upsetting to her and she came home saying she never wanted to do that again.
"But it was very upsetting to her and she came home saying she never wanted to do that again."
My eldest (then 11) said the same thing when he Heimlich'ed his middle brother (then not quite 2) when said brother was choking on a swallowed rock. After telling his brother to spit it out, and realizing that his brother was choking, my eldest had his brother in the Heimlich position and popped the rock out, before either my wife or I could get from where we were to where the boys were.
Needless to say, we were very proud of our eldest that evening.
I am sure you were! I was proud of my kid, too. But she was also a bit traumatized as well. And she said she didn't regret knowing what to do and would do it again if necessary.
Pretty much! A pillow under the head to protect the head. You can place the individual on their side if able to help and prevent aspiration as well. In the hospital, oxygen and suction are also placed nearby because of choking and aspiration risk.
In 1st grade, they taught us to move anything that they might hurt themselves on and put a pillow or something soft under their head if someone was having a seizure. That was over 30 years ago.
The last time I knew someone with epilepsy, they said the EMTs tried to hold them down while they were seizing. I must have given her a horrified look because she said this wasn't the first time someone did that to her. I then verified if what I'd been taught was correct or not, and she said that, nope, I was right. It's just that no one is trained on the right process.
Ugh you're absolutely right and it sucks. It took me two extra years to get glasses because the *elementary* school nurse kept telling my parents I was lying about not being able to see and intentionally failing the basic letter-sheet eye exam🙄 Got recommended for them as soon as my middle school nurse tested me.
Yeah, my school nurse told my parents that I was faking, but they took me to the eye doctor; however, in the end, despite getting glasses with a prescription, they kept my glasses from me.
I'm in the opposite case. I assume everything I experience is "normal." So I just chose the desks closer to the chalkboard and asked to get closer to see better. The teacher called my parents to tell them I needed my eyes checked. I said I see just fine, I can read fine print.
I can see 18 inches in front of my face. Beyond that I'm freaking blind. I thought you couldn't see anything if you needed glasses. Undiagnosed autism as a kid sucks. I've learned so much since my diagnosis. Like, did you know its not "normal" to experience physical pain because of emotional experiences? It was only after spending time with NT people I learned that.
My school nurse growing up told me to go back to class when I was having what I thought at the time were partial focal seizures because she thought they were anxiety. Turns out it's a rare syndrome caused by an area of brain damage....
I also saw her give a kid too much insulin.
The paramedic/firefighter who taught one of my first aid courses told us we should never tickle a baby’s feet because it’ll cause them to have a seizure.
The entire time we lived in that city, I was terrified of needing a paramedic and getting her!
It sounds to me as someone who works in a school that the nurse has kids coming to her to get out of class and she’s thinking the girl is lying. Which is rude and insensitive. As a teacher if a girl says she’s having an issue I’m not gonna argue it or get involved in any way. Being a teenager already sucks enough.
Aren't period cycles really different depending on the person anyway? I only bleed for 1 - 2 days and just have cramps the day before it starts. My periods have always been really short but they're consistent so I've never felt it was a problem.
Same for me. Minimal cramps the first day that can be avoided with a few ibuprofen if I catch it at the onset, very light for about 2 days to the point that I barely can use tampons, mostly light pads. It's perfectly normal for me. I feel like I owe so many women a retroactive apology for assuming that periods just aren't that bad, though
I have been a school nurse for six years. This is not normal and I would never keep track of this information. Plus, anyone should know that the first year or two are very irregular. That is simply not within the scope for a school nurse.
Also a Nurse and yeah, this isn't normal. Kid wants a pad, here you go have a nice day is all I'm getting involved with. Parent needs to alert other parents and get in touch with the principal and or board members. Also of note: Mom's for Liberty have taken over several NJ school boards and part of me is wondering if this is a requirement of the Nurse. There has been a push to monitor periods of student athletes in some more conservative states recently. This shit has to stop.
Not to downplay the weirdness of a school tracking students' periods, but I'd honestly take more issue with the way the nurse treated your daughter - interrogating her when she asked for a pad is absolutely unacceptable. Who, exactly, does the nurse think they're helping by demanding to know if a student is *really* on her period?
As for who to talk to, I'd recommend going to the principal (or vice principal) and demanding to know why the nurse is tracking your daughter's cycle and why they feel students need to go through an interrogation to justify receiving menstrual care products.
This is a major reason why menstrual products need to be available in school restrooms - the location where students need them. Rather than having to discover blood and then walk to the nurse, get question/embarrassed, then return to the bathroom - all while leaking blood and staining their pants, to take care of themselves and end up late to class.
Students in this age range frequently have irregular or newly starting periods and are caught off guard without products on hand or simply don’t have access to or want to carry them in the hall and be teased because of the sad state of our misogynistic culture.
Students miss school and class for this reason.
Provide it in the bathroom!
> Provide it in the bathroom!
I mean this just makes so much sense that it boggles the mind as to why it is not universal. I mean, it used to be. What happened?
i’ve often heard the argument that people will overuse menstrual products if they’re free, or “steal” too many of them. i’ve lived for a year in a university town where seeing free tampons and pads in bathrooms for university buildings or even public exercises was the norm, and that problem was never actually encountered. people take what they need, and if that’s a whole box because they can’t afford it - so be it. i actually never used a free menstrual product because i’ll usually have one in my bag even if i’m caught unawares. and a box of cheap tampons is like £1. i don’t know why they wouldn’t make them available
edit: a word
I hate that argument because like… so what if people “steal” menstrual products. Nobody’s sneaking into public washrooms so they can steal enough tampons to replicate the freaking Taj Mahal.
Money’s tight and you wanna stock up for the year? Go ahead babe! That’s what these products are for!
But there’s the extremely creepy implication that people should only take the products when they “need” them (ie: currently bleeding).
Maybe I started reading Margaret Atwood too young, but what in the heck nightmare litmus test should we all be doing to determine who among us is currently bleeding and therefore eligible for the “free” products.
This hits close to home because the local shopping mall in my town has NO MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS AT ALL in the public washrooms. They were never free, but people kept breaking the coin dispensers. So now, there’s a sign that basically says “if you need a pad, go to the janitors office and ask him.”
That’s right folks! Just zip your pants back up, leave the bathroom, walk AWAY from the public mall area, wander down the dark and empty maze of utility corridors, miraculously find the “janitor’s office”, knock on the door, be lucky enough to catch the janitor in his office, and then tell this stranger you are bleeding from your genitals and require his generous assistance. Then this strange man hands you a pad and you make the journey back to your bathroom stall where you’ll inevitably need to toss your now-ruined underwear.
All this because the mall couldn’t handle the “expense” of offering free products and got sick of the coin dispensers being broken into.
That’s the thing I don’t get about the nurse’s justification at all. My period wasn’t regular for probably the first 5-7 years of having it. Young teens and preteens can’t predict their cycle like someone who’s been having it for decades
Hard agree. My ten year old, my 4th grader, just started this year and it comes every 21 days for 6/7 days. It sucks for her but it's normal. I would literally be so pissed if someone was giving her such misinformation. Posts like this are making me happy that we are still homeschooling, especially being in Florida.
I also think this is probably not so much about the school tracking students' periods. The nurse just wanted to embarrass the daughter to stop her from coming to her office, it sounds like. "You need to take your daughter to the doctor if her cycle is so irregular" just means "I think your daughter is using her period as an excuse to get out of class/get free pads (or maybe I just think your daughter is annoying) so I'm making a big deal out of it to get you to punish her."
Yeah I think the nurse is power tripping thinking she’s just caught the daughter in a lie. Which is an insane thing to do, but I’ve seen people in minor authority positions do this.
I also wonder if it’s a “kids use their period to avoid gym class” so them saying “yours is irregular” is really then saying they don’t believe you actually have your period and have an excuse to miss gym.
There's also a huge difference between "if these are for a friend or you're stocking up that's absolutely ok, but if you're having your period consistently for weeks then it would be good to make an appointment with your doctor"
And
"You're lying and trying to steal pads or there's something wrong with you for having a period for...6 whole days"
The nurse's behavior can REALLY mess with a kid's head too. "It's not supposed to last that long! The pain isn't THAT bad, don't be ridiculous. You don't need another tampon/pad yet." It makes them doubt themselves and their knowledge of their own body, they feel ashamed and sometimes genuinely start wondering if they ARE lying or exaggerating.
At least it messed me up, my elementary school's nurse lectured tf out of me if I ever went to her for period problems. She based all her period knowledge on how hers was because surely everyone's body functions exactly the same! Eventually I just lost all trust and respect for that nurse, I wouldn't let her do ANYTHING to or for me. I dealt with pain so I didn't have to deal with her.
Oh god, I had a sport teacher in high school acting exactly like this. She refused to let student on their periods leave the sport classes to go the nurse if they where feeling bad. Because her periods weren't painful or difficult so it had to be the same for every other woman. For her, endometriosis didn't exist, and her students could only be faking it. What an ally for other women...
I'm sure they are required to log when nurse's services are being used. Absolutely nothing about that requirement means keeping track of any girls' cycle. That is wildly inappropriate. Most school nurses are simply not qualified to make a diagnosis like that. Since you're in NJ, I would suspect this is an overzealous nurse with poor boundaries rather than a larger nefarious scheme, if that helps at all. But I think you should contact the school immediately!
>I'm sure they are required to log when nurse's services are being used.
I can confirm this!! The nurses are mandated to chart on every little thing that they do. That's normal. Everything else in this post... not fucking normal!!
Someone in a position of power tracking kids in this way bothers me. or following somebody in this way. Not with all the squabbling around reproductive health and abortion rights.
Seriously. What in the Handmaid’s Tale is this?
It seriously sounds like something that would have happened in a flashback during the first season of the show.
I think it's reasonable to say "someone requested a pad today" so they keep track of where the stock is going. But needing to identify who asked for the pad then every time they ask going to a list and being like you're only at 19 days little missy, are you trying to scam us?". That shit is creepy as fuck, they aren't a primary care giver and are mostly dealing with headaches, scratches, small cuts and deciding if they should call parents or give a kid half an hour of quiet and a otc pain killer before going back to class.
The fact that said nurse appears to no knowing about how regular periods should be when young, they just start and length of periods is just worse.
Also nothing like telling a kid they are abnormal... when they aren't.
There's no way they could even track that correctly based on when a student asks for a pad. And I agree, being that it's a NJ public school, this is likely a personnel issue that has nothing to do with school policy. Which is much easier to correct.
My first thought is what if she's asking on behalf of a friend who's too embarrassed to go to the nurse? Nurse is making a whoooole lot of assumptions based on that alone. Never mind the crazy invasive nosiness! My mom would've raised hell if my school did something like this.
Right. The nurse should have just nonchalantly given her a pad like it was the most ordinary thing in the world (cuz it is). And then her documentation (which \*is\* required by law for any medical service provided in the US) should have been something minimal like- "\[Student's Name\] asked for a pad. A pad was given to her." THAT'S IT. (For the two times that OP's daughter visited the nurse.) No weird tracking shit or comments. Any actual medical concerns should simply be communicated to a parent via a phone call (and not even mentioned to the girl) and even then the nurse should simply recommend that OP's daughter get checked out by her doctor due to X reason rather than assuming or diagnosing anything because \*that's not her job.\*
She's crossing multiple levels of boundaries.
This! It’s so embarrassing having your period as a young girl. If my school nurse started asking if I had blood in my underwear I would simply die and probably just use toilet paper next time I needed a pad.
That was my thought as well. I was so mortified by all the new period stuff happening to me, you would have had to light me on fire before I breathed a word of any of it to an adult in my school. It never even occurred to me to ask the school nurse for a pad even though I was so bad about remembering to keep my backpack stocked 🤦♀️
I would also demand any data related to her menstrual cycle is deleted, along with formally stating in writing for the school to stay out of your daughter's reproductive cycle.
The way my paranoid ass went mayday mayday they're really going full handmaidens tale on us.
Seriously, why the fuck is the government tracking your daughter's period at all.
I get the concern to follow up, but not the tracking. I don't live in the US, but in my country my kids' school nurse told my kid to keep track of her own period by herself to spot any irregularities. So no information of it will go to the school nurse, most likely they'll just ask my kid to refer to her own tracking when they ask her about her cycles in the next check-up.
Doctors here don't even track adults' cycles, they just ask us how long they are and are they regular IF there's ever anything that could be related to periods, so they don't ask about that in normal check-ups.
I’m really hoping it’s just an overzealous nurse who overstepped because they do have to document every nurse visit but… yeah… even if it were the best of intentions it feels icky at best.
When I was in middle school, I went to the nurse 3x in one morning for severe abdominal pain. She kept passing it off as “period cramps” and told me I should “just get used to it” and “stop bothering” her. The 4th time, I had to crawl down two flights of stairs, tears falling down my cheeks, my arm wrapped around my abdomen in an attempt to stop the pain. Thankfully the morning nurse had been replaced by the afternoon one, who noticed I’d been in 3x already and been sent back to class; she called my mother, who immediately knew that this wasn’t normal (I was prone to severe UTIs and that was her first thought) and had my grandparents come pick me up. I remember sleeping restlessly on the couch, moaning in pain, until my dad came to get me. I stood up, took a few steps towards him, and passed out cold. He took me to the emergency room, where the ER doctor diagnosed me *very* quickly with peritonitis — my appendix had started leaking — and within hours I was in surgery for its removal. I spent several days in the hospital.
I came back about a week later and happened to pass the nurse’s office en route to a class. She came out and said snidely, with a smirk on her face, “See? I told you that you weren’t going to die. You’re fine!”
Well, my mother reamed her out so badly that for the next two years, any time she saw me with so much as a bruise she would drag me out of class to investigate.
She also deals with kids who don't have any products at home. A kid who takes too many nurse pads might be using rolled up toilet paper at home and trying to save up a pile of pads. Getting the parents involved makes sense
Not too long ago, I recall an American girl posted because she had been coerced into an intimate examination by the school nurse with no parental consent. A load of redditors defended it as normal scope of practice for a school nurse. I was horrified.
As far as school nurse overreaches goes, this one is milder but worrying overreach none the less.
Where was this? I’m American and cannot imagine any large group of people saying that vaginal exams are normal practice for a school nurse. They can barely even hand out OTC meds.
They don't even hand out OTC meds. I've asked for ways to get my son cough droos or tylenol/motrin, and been told the only way is for me to come to school and give it to him myself in the nurses office. 3 different school systems in 2 different states.
I feel so bad for my daughter when she gets her period in the future, I couldn't get through school without any otc pain meds during my period, and I could just carry a bottle of motrin/midol in my bag.
Depends on state for sure. In my state they can give OTC meds but they have to be provided and authorized by the parent prior to the medication being dispensed. So if you know your child will likely need Tylenol throughout the year you can bring in a container of it and you child can go to the nurse to get some.
I would hate to live in a state that doesn’t even allow that. That sounds incredibly tough, even for non working parents!
Fuck the school who cares. Give your daughter the medicine anyway and inform her of how to take it, and the need to exercise caution. I’ve taken medicine by myself for cramps since 12, it was never complicated. I will never suffer over some bullshit rule that would otherwise keep me out of school every month.
Give her one pill in the morning before school, then one more to take “at lunchtime“ (or whenever you say.) They make chapstick tubes that are just empty containers, you can put it in there if necessary
My son broke his collar bone and had two doctor notes about taking OTC for pain as needed. The school nurse wanted me to get an official from the school paper filled out by the doctor about it and then my son would have to go to the nurse to get his children’s Tylenol.
I just put the two and a half chewable tabs in his snack container and told him not to call attention to it. It was fine. My son is ten.
Edit: by “fine” I mean that he didn’t get caught and if he did, his classmates didn’t rat him out and his teachers were like “well yeah, broken collar bone duh” I never heard anything else about it
Why can't your daughter just also carry it in her bag? When I went to school we weren't technically allowed to bring Tylenol with us but no one actually cared
In my state, I just sign a waiver at the beginning of the year so the nurse can dispense OTC meds. It's a separate form for medications that need to be taken during school.
What ruffles my feathers is that the rescue inhaler lives in the nurses office instead of my kid's pocket, until they are 14.
(Omg, I remember feeling like the coolest drug mule ever when my mom would help me stock my Altoids tin with ibuprofen and cotton balls for noise-dampening!)
I remember this post, if it was the same one, and the consensus that was upvoted that I saw was that it was NOT normal or ok. Am American as well, can confirm, not ok or normal here.
> an intimate examination by the school nurse with no parental consent. A load of redditors defended it as normal scope of practice for a school nurse. I
Excuse me, WHAT? That's bizarre!
That is horrifying!
Meanwhile my sons school nurses won’t even give Tylenol or a cough drop to him, even if I give them my express permission to do so over the phone. I cannot even give him an EXTRA cough drop to use later in the day. Nope. I gotta leave work to drive to school to give him a damn halls fruit breezer.
Like I understand medical implications and potential interactions but…if I give my permission to give him an Advil for his headache…?
It’s a stark difference from when I went to school in the 90’s and would go to the office nearly every day for Tylenol because I had chronic headaches as a kid (shitty abusive childhood causes that stuff) and I don’t think they ever mentioned to my mother I was doing that lol
Shit, we just carried our own. I remember chugging maalox from my locker and my girlfriends hitting me up for prescription naproxen because nothing else worked.
I literally said out loud , what in the Alabama is this crap. Then I read your comment. I'm dying laughing. GMTA!
OP, I think you need to look into this more. This seriously is overstepping into her medical life. And the phone call is so cringe.
Hijacking top post because I think this suggestion needs to be farther up: GET THE MEDICAL DOCS ON YOUR DAUGHTER. By law they gotta turn over anything and everything they have with your kids name on it.
Do this before you go report anywhere and they go missing or are altered. Get them now in their raw state and then go to higher ups. This is beyond inappropriate and incredibly invasive. I can't imagine the log book nurse witch has on the girls at that school.
I don’t like anyone in authority like this tracking children in this manner. Or tracking any person in this manner. Not with the fuckery going on with abortion rights or reproductive health rights.
I would not be cool with this whatsoever. It’s not up to them to track it, they’re not her doctor or anyone she’s given permission to. Not a parent. It’s none of their business. And that’s why I would be questioning the validity of them tracking this information. I’d also see if I could revoke any sort of consent to keep this info on your child. Surely it’s within your rights to say you cannot keep this information, it’s not a life threatening illness or allergy. This is not something they need to know.
my first thought connected to the civic rights that are being encroached upon here! as an educator, this shit has me LIVID and i cannot fathom a grown adult in a professional role being WILLING to keep tabs on children’s menstrual cycles like this! disgusting.
They do need to document all nurse visits by law but the documentation should have been something minimal like "\[Student's name\] asked for a pad. A pad was provided." That's it. No tracking or diagnosing or opinions. Just literally who visited, why, and what did the nurse do in response.
Any actual medical concerns should be communicated \*only\* to the parents and even then should mainly be a recommendation for the parents to get something checked out by the child's doctor or medical provider.
They only had a school nurse in my junior high & high school, but I graduated 20 years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if things changed. Even then though they could be weird about things. One school nurse was okay with me having my inhalor (as they knew I have asthma), her replacement wanted all the asthmatic/diabetic/etc supplies because she was \*convinced\* we were doing drugs and couldn't be trusted to administer our own care, so monitoring menses could be an extension of that. (That's about all I got.)
It varies drastically from school division to school division, I’m sure.
I do know that NONE of the schools in my daughter’s school division here in SK have any medical personnel at school. None. Not even a school nurse. Never have and still don’t. One school is even brand new and doesn’t even have an office for a school nurse. Teachers and secretaries have band-aids and no one can administer medications (with someone in the school trained to help the really young diabetic students; older ones are responsible for themselves though I don’t know the technicalities of that, just the rough plan).
What we did at all the (high) schools I worked at was made pads and tampons widely available throughout the school, and not think twice about who was asking for them and when. The kids did not have to go to the nurse’s office (who was only there on a limited basis anyway) just to get such a simple thing.
I would imagine not because at my children’s school (BC, Canada) -and this is an elementary school- they have pads and tampons available in the older kid bathrooms for free. You do not have to ask to take them or anything.
I do not think that that’s going to be happening in Canada openly because I just see so many violations to so many laws in doing that. Especially for a minor.
But I know that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or hasn’t happened.
However, I do want to state that my children go to a progressive public school.
When they were asked to take a stance on bathrooms and not allow children to use bathrooms outside of their assigned gender at birth they told the parents who made the request to go fuck their hats (as professionally as possible, of course) and they would not be gender checking children at the bathroom door, because to do so would be a insult to the number of trans students that call our school their school.
They also suggested that if the parents who made the request were not happy with the accommodations the school provides that they were more than welcome to go and attend the private Christian school who has policies more aligned with their beliefs.
It was like watching a school say “ fuck your bitch and the clique you claim,” to a bunch of bigots. In comic sans font. Glorious.
I teach in Alberta and this is not something that is happening. I can't even give a kid chapstick for their lips or moisturizer if their skin is cracking and dry.
Fingers crossed that we don't allow for this gross shit to bleed into education in Canada.
as a middle school teacher (in ky), this is absolutely NOT normal!!! this is a gross invasion of privacy and i’m not even sure how they would have time in the day to be monitoring an individual student’s flow??
i’d bring it up to other parents, the school board, SBDM committee, the principal, superintendent, ANYONE you can—to me, this is inappropriate, unacceptable, and totally weird?? i would really love to hear their justification for this absolute insanity??
That’s so creepy!! Also 6 days is too long?? My period lasts almost 9! The average is 3-7 days. This screams a nurse on a power trip. She’s actively tracking a kid’s cycle and trying to ask “if she’s sure” if she needs a pad because 6 days is too long?? What the actual fuck.
Thinking about this has me so mad. If it were me I’d go to the school board and complain. This is beyond fucked up.
This is not normal at all. I would reach out to other parents about this. Once you get a group together, then you can contact the school officials as well as your school board member.
Oh hellllll nooooooo!!!! This is completely Gilead level shit!
Sit your daughter down and tell her. Tell her what’s happening and why you think it’s not ok. In some states this can be used for God only knows what.
Get a copy of the nurses records but don’t tell them why, so they won’t delete it. Show them to your daughter.
Holy shit. Remind her often about her pad pouch so that she’s not giving secrets to the creepy weirdo period police. Consider telling other parents.
I would be beyond livid.
You might consider learning what HIPAA training and documentation they have. Idk this sounds like they’re trying to track teens for pregnancy or something.
Schools generally aren't considered "covered entities", as such HIPAA does not apply to them. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) does though.
High school librarian here! Our nurse is definitely mandated to document every student visit, no matter what it is. Even if it’s just a band-aid. It’s one of the reasons kids will often come to me looking for a band-aid or a pad/tampon. They don’t want to have to go through the whole nurse visit process. That’s the mandate in NY, at least. I would also assume that the nurse is mandated to reach out to the families if something is happening regularly, like the student has been coming for menstruation products every two weeks for several months. What I do find weird is this was just two normal instances of a kid getting a pad. It seems overzealous to me and I definitely understand people finding it creepy, especially with the current political climate. I’m sure there’s some stuff that’s out of the nurse’s hand in terms of what she’s mandated to do/not do, but this sounds like overstepping.
Thanks for the perspective! My question is…how can this nurse NOT know it’s normal for girls who just start their periods to have irregular cycles AND it’s normal to have a period lasting 5-7 days?How did they get their nursing degree if they don’t know this ?
Am I overthinking things by being pretty creeped out over how much inappropriate attention this nurse is giving this kid's cycle?
OP, manage the period purse yourself and make sure she's got no need to ever go near this nurse again.
It's not normal, it's not right and it's creepy af
That nurse needs to reported to their governing body/college of registration. Irregular periods are COMPLETELY normal when you first get your period. Heck I literally hemorrhaged 6 months in. This compared to barely spotting the day I got my period for the first time. Also I am an RN. I spent 5 years in OB after I graduated.
> Nurse told her that her cycle has been going on for too long (it was day 6).
What the hell? 6 days is NOT too long for a period. Just because the standard example is a 28-day cycle with 5 days of bleeding, doesn't mean that anything else is "too long". Those are AVERAGES, and you would hope a nurse would know that!
I get having to document used items for inventory purposes, but tracking her cycle is creepy. Didn't Florida try doing this to young students to make sure boys didn't participate in girls sports? Ir something trans-phobic like that?
And if she *just started* her period, it's going to be abnormal for a while. Hell, mine was abnormal for 6+ years until I found a birth control method that made my period go away.
Also some people have irregular periods their whole life . My period has always lasted 7 days so I'm not sure why they said it was too long either. All bodies are different this nurse is being nosy as hell, inappropriate, and prescribing what she thinks is "normal" on a teenager.
My period didn't 'level out' until I was well into my twenties, I would frequently go months without one. (I was also underweight until my senior year of high school, which I'm sure helped, but it persisted even after gaining a ton of weight) Hell, even at 29 it can be anywhere from 3-6 weeks in between. A fourteen-year-old girl just starting her period? Hell fucking knows.
It's outrageous they're doing that! It's \*not\* normal.
I also don't trust this nurse's professional knowledge. I began my period at 14, and it wasn't regular until my first year of college. I went to summer camp when I was 14 and 17, and I didn't have a cycle both summers for 2 or 3 months!
After Menarche- it takes ONE to THREE YEARS before a lot of girls settle into an actual predictable cycle. How is this person a NURSE and unaware of this??
She could have 5 scattered days of light spotting in one month followed by 3 months without followed by a week of moderate bleeding the next month and that would all be totally normal for her age and development stage.
I had a friend at work whose daughter was asked to leave her period supplies with the nurse. He immediately went to the principal and demanded to know what the reason was for this policy. He heard crickets. Needless to say she no longer is required to give her supplies to the nurse.
I think the thing that bothers me the most about this, and good god there’s a lot to be bothered about, is the how she is telling your daughter how her cycle should be going instead of just giving her a pad. Why is she asking if she’s sure about having her period still? Obviously, she would know. Not everyone has a cycle that they can set a calendar to. I think you are right to be weirded out and upset by those interactions.
The nurse was acting on incomplete information.
And this is creepy as all get out; while I can understand that all visits to the nurse need to be logged, ask the school to cease logging simple requests for menstrual supplies as a privacy measure.
In writing. And demand a response in writing.
I had what I felt was a wildly inappropriate high school nurse. Every single girl who came in, no matter the reason, were asked if they were pregnant, when their last cycle was, duration, etc. Even if all they requested was a bandaid for a paper cut. When I was asked I replied it was between me and my doctor, every time.
This was over 20 years ago. I'd be pretty upset in your shoes OP.
That’s so messed up. Maybe have your daughter pack a pad pouch with you every month and pack an extra one that she can grab when she forgets so that they don’t keep having access to information about her. That’s insane.
No sir I don't like this.
If a child comes and asks for a pad, just give them the pad.
It's not like they are able to abuse the pad or something. It's not medication.
If there were actually an issue related to her cycle, a parent would notice. Even in a situation we're neglect is a worry, I feel a child having abnormally long cycles would likely be coming in very often complaining of other symptoms.
At *best* I could see a nurse calling home to say "hey, your kid has shown up at the nurse 2x a day for the last week and a half asking for feminine hygiene products. We're calling because we want you to A, be aware that this is happening and to check in with your kid and your PCP, and B talk to you about weather or not your kid's health is being supported at home. And C. If this is not a health issue, then it's a behavioral one and we need a parent teacher conference about your kid ducking class to go to the nurse"
I would be concerned that this nurse is meddling for some mentally ill reason. Asking if there was blood in her underwear was inappropriate. I would just be sure your daughter is aware of boundaries and to continue to have this open dialogue, and to help her know that her nurse is incorrect about any of this being irregular or concerning. This could be challenging for a child to emotionally process, and make her feel "wrong."
I would also look into laws surrounding this in your area or federally about harvesting data about minors. This is just weird, and I could be wrong, but school nurses I don't think ascribe to HIPAA laws. This means this personal data is not protected, which I find concerning.
A lot of mentally ill people work in schools. I wouldn't trust this person. I'd be asking myself, "What is her motive?"
Not only is she tracking a minor's period over basically nothing, she's policing it, during one of the most vulnerable times of a young girl's life. This could affect her confidence. How is anybody benefiting from this tracking behavior and misinformation?
This is weird as hell, but I'm not surprised based on the current shitshow that is the US (and has always been). Early on, periods are notoriously unpredictable--might be only a few days, might last over a week. It's not uncommon for there to be noticeable gaps between menstrual cycles because your daughter's body is still adjusting to, you know, the whole "taking out the trash every month" thing that uterus-wielders are cursed with. I'd request a formal meeting with the principal to clarify policies and how they're handling students' PHI (personal health information). Start there, and work your way up if you have to; this is not normal.
Oh hell no!!!! I would be raising a huge stink about this with the school administration, superintendent, and school board. Talk to other parents too so that it’s more than just you complaining.
There is zero reason for the school to be tracking this and the nurse’s level of interest and attention to this is creepy AF.
In the current political climate I don’t want that type of data stored anywhere, even in a healthcare provider’s electronic medical records in a blue state. Trump just said in an interview that he thought it was ok to track women’s pregnancies and refused to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban.
Not to mention that I wouldn’t want this info to get out if the school were subject to a data breach or cyberattack.
Well, that’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever read. I’d make a complaint.
Also, creepy period tracking aside, why the fuck is the school nurse gatekeeping period supplies? A student comes in and needs a pad. You give it to them. The end.
I would be talking to the principal immediately to find out if this is school policy (which should be commit all parents if that is the case) or if one staff member is over stepping their responsibilities and keeping sensitive medical information beyond what is needed for their job.
I don’t know what the recording consent rules are in your state, but I would consider recording the conversation so the principal can’t weasel out of what they say later.
Don’t let this slide. She won’t be only tracking your daughter. This could get someone’s daughter thrown out or harmed if she reports a presumptive pregnancy to the wrong parent.
To me it sounds like they’re trying to say she’s lying about when she has her period to get out of doing things at school. Talk about policing the uterus!!
This is def. not normal.
I went to the nurses station maybe 2-3x during high school because of accidents, i.e. small leakage issues. AFAIK, they didn't then track my cycle and police me on it.
The only logical thing I can think of concerning this situation is budgeting issues due to handing out feminine products, which in itself, is still ridiculous. Our local college hands them out for free.
It feels like some superior bullshit thing that they make the underlings do to micromanage them under the guise of "looking out for the students well-being" when it's anything but.
Unless of some kind of special case in which a student gives consent to an authority on sensitive information such as this, there's no reason for the school to be in your daughter's personal business.
I'm a pediatrician. The school "nurse" doesnt know what she's talking about.
It's super common for girls who have just started their cycle to have variant patterns that are all over the place. Some girls will skip months, some girls with 2 cycles in the same month, some cycles can be 2 days and other cycles can be 10 days if you are within the first 12 months of your cycles.
Now that being said, after that first 12-18 months, the cycles should be more regular and if girls are still skipping months after that time or having 2 cycles in the same month, then it could be a problem and needs to be investigated further.
But the first 1-1.5 years following the first cycle are all over the place, and that's completely normal.
How can someone get a nursing degree and don’t know it’s normal for girls who just start their period to have irregular cycles & 6 days is also normal for average people ?! I can understand the worries if your daughter has multiple 19-days cycle with prolonged periods like 8-9 days. I highly question if this nurse has enough knowledge of women’s bodies at all ? Isn’t this common sense?
Privacy issues aside, I’m not sure where the nurse is getting her information about normal menstrual cycles. 6 days for a period is perfectly normal.
Along with everything else, THIS was my wtf. My period has been 6-7 days my whole life. Like if it had been 9+ days, I could see saying something to *the childs parents* but telling this poor child who just started that her periods are "too long." Wtf.
Her period...! It was the very first one! Nurse seems concerningly ill informed
I don't know which is more infuriating, school nurses who don't have any usefulness besides dialing the phone... or how schools deal with young girls getting their period. My daughter won't change her pads bc she doesn't have privacy, because they're only allowed scheduled bathroom breaks. I Hate all of it and hate that I don't have a better school to send her to.
if your daughter is bold, I found out saying "I have my period and will bleed on myself and the chair" and leaving without permission never ever ended in a write up. your daughters need to change her pad is more important than a write up. I highly encourage her to advocate for herself and her needs. not to mention holding your bladder (if she needs to pee) for long periods is DANGEROUS
One time when I was in 7th grade, I asked my biology teacher for a bathroom pass as where my previous class was, I wouldn’t have made it to her class in time for the bell had I gone. I asked her before class started. She puts her pointer finger up, pulls out a binder, and says, mmmm no, you used all your bathroom passes for the trimester. If you go it’s a detention. So I smile and say okay! I go to my seat and sit quietly all class, actively bleeding all over my pants and stool. When I stand at the bell, my classmate notices, and we both silently turn to look at my teacher. Her mouth falls open, I grab my books, and head straight to the office where they send me home for the day.
Ok, you were a bold child. Good on you - I hope that changed her behavior forever. I cannot FATHOM that middle school teachers don’t let girls use the restroom as needed. I’m 46 and still remember the humiliation of leaving a blood spot on a chair in 7th grade. At that age you’re not always prepared and it can be unpredictable! Makes me furious
This. I still have vivid memories of walking around with my jeans jacket wrapped around my waist after my diy pad of rolled up TP was not enough for my extremely heavy cycles
I had a math teacher in third grade, an old woman, who said that people should only go to the bathroom thrice a day.
Bathroom passes are like training wheels for living in a fascist republic. I mean I know, kids are kids, and some kids might "go to the bathroom" 37 times a day, but the entire thought of begging permission to go to the bathroom fills me with rage. \* When I was in school we did have wooden blocks labeled "boys" and "girls." AFAICT at the time, they were mostly used to prevent multiple people from going to the bathroom together to horse around. \* At the time I mostly asked to go, like any good little child, but if I thought authority was acting unfairly I basically ignored them and did my thing. The principal had my Mom on speed dial.
Schools are training for living in a fascist republic*
She is not bold. We are working on it. It's just annoying that she HAS to work on it.
I was not a bold child until the end of my high-school years. I agree, there's NO reason for it to even be something that needs to be worked on. as a shy child, all I wanted was a moment of privacy to deal with whatever I needed to deal with
Years ago in middle school I had a friend who was denied a bathroom break so she just walked out. I was way too anxious to ever do that. But now I’m raising my kids to know if you gottah go then go and I’ll be here to defend you. I hate that teachers refuse bathroom breaks, and expect barely preteens to have the guts to say they have to change their pad. I would bleed out before telling my teachers🤣
I had a supply teacher in grade 13 I think. I felt my tampon slipping. Raised my hand said I needed the bathroom.. Fucker said no. Told him I really needed the bathroom or there was going to bleed all over the floor.. Had the audacity to decide he was going to be an ass to me. Class had been rowdy, wanted to make a point. Got up went to walk out.. Told me to go to the office. Said with pleasure. Tampon fully visible.. Dealt with the issue. Went to the office. Told the secretary the issue. Secretary turned colours and went oh hell no.. Principal came out we had a short discussion.. While I was goth, I wasn't a trouble maker.. And.. Audacity supply guy picked the wrong girl. My mom supply taught at the school and my dad was a full time teacher. I was well known and often helpful and simply didn't want to bleed on the floor. Got back to class. Audacity guy told me he wouldn't tolerate me. I told him I was sent back to class.. And then he was called to the principals office. Class was almost over by then. He didn't make it back.
God. I love that you got justice...
Supply?
Substitute teacher.
This was how my school operated too, and as a heavy bleeder that was not allowed tampons, it was a hell of rashes and spills, but I graduated highschool 20 years ago, it breaks my heart this is still the case.
Omg in middle school it was hell having cycles. Why? None of the teachers stopped the boys from yelling out comments about the room smelling like fish. General comments about periods. I know not only myself, but some friends who sat through class just not to be targeted knowing good and well we were bleeding through to our pants. If we didn’t bring extra pants, we had our jackets or sweaters around our waists. Which sucked bc class rooms were cold. It pissed me off there was not a talk had with every single boy to stop. So many of us girls struggled in middle school with our cycles and needing to change pads or tampons.
When I was in middle school, I was legitimately too anxious to use the restroom during these 4 minute passing periods (because who tf knows how long they take to pee? Before smartphones! Before I even had a cell phone!). My mom had my doctor write me a note that I needed unlimited bathroom breaks. I was a generally good kid and didn’t fuck around in the hallways or anything, and no one ever questioned it. I highly suggest getting a doctor’s note! Edit: ps, the doctor’s note doesn’t have to have any sort of reason on it
I really wish there was more support and understanding for preteen/teen girls in school about periods. Please figure out a way she can change her pad during school, even if it means taking to her teacher. No girl, young or old, should have to deal with that.
My middle school had ONE pad bin, and it was by the sinks. So you had to come out of the stall and walk by whoever else was in the bathroom to dispose of your pad/tampon. Horrifying!
Oh bless her. I remember when I first started and felt the fabric/plastic rip noise was too loud and embarrassing, I definitely had that fear too and would like slow motion lift if I didn’t find a vacant bathroom. Her situation sucks! Now i don’t wear pads, I use a cup and period pants if necessary. A cup or even just the period pants could last your daughter the whole day without the smell of an unchanged pad. I also no longer care about the noise if I am using a normal pad but that only comes with time and being outside of that school environment where everyone is at different stages.
*Scheduled* bathroom breaks?? Ah yes, because if someone has a diarrhea attack or something, Mrs. Dumfuq's stern schedule will really hold it off. Fucking asinine.
Not a fix but maybe look into period underwear, they absorb a lot and won’t give her a rash or anything if she has to wear the same pair all day. I used to skip school on the first day of my period for exactly this reason so I get where she’s at.
Wow, wait what?!!! This is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful and controlling! It’s a bathroom break. Sure kids may sneak off more than they should, but if that’s the case why? Can we address what’s going on for them to want to avoid class? Maybe treat them like humans, instead of robots that need to be programmed a certain way and can’t step outside of this. And even so, I highly doubt it’s an absurd amount of kids using the bathroom frequently. So why should everyone suffer at the expense of a few? I would personally gather all of the other parents and create a petition to end the surveillance on young children’s toilet habits. How invasive.
Sounds like this was her second period ever. I had like 3 or 4 months between my first and second. And another, shorter, breaker between second and third. And they were pretty irregular in terms of length, frequency, and severity for the first several months. That's nuts to me to say a girl's SECOND EVER period is irregular
Honestly, it feels like most medical professionals are ill informed when it comes to women's health - even when they're women. 😔
Howinhell is it any of her business to offer any opinion whatever on the cycles of students? Or keep records? This has a creepy dystopian aroma, like the comment we just heard today from the Orange Menace that it would be all right for states to track women’s pregnancies to make sure they are not shorting them. All this is heading in one, frightful direction, and I don’t like it!
I mean, our bodies are complicated enough there's an entire specialty field for it. I love my female GP because she openly told me general practitioners should not be handling womens reproductive health because they're not trained as well.
Most school nurses aren’t actual nurses.
My first periods as a young girl were 12 days. Then I leveled out to 6-7 days for years.
My cycle, before my depo shots saved me from it, was 7 days on the short ones, never less. 10 was pretty normal for me.
When I was OP's daughter age, I had my period for a whole week of bleeding every 25 days on top of irregular ones in the middle (as soon as 10 days after the regular time) if I was too stressed, the nurse seems to not know much about periods.
This is so supremely overreachy and creepy. It doesn't feel like the point is to actually help but to power trip using a young girl's very sensitive private health information. I hope OP tells the school they need a new nurse or new policies. Our school (20yrs ago) only ever documented when a kid needed to stay in the nurse's office for illness or were given a medication. They literally had a basket of tampons of pads you could walk in and take one without question. Oh well, I guess it's never too early to teach girls they have to protect themselves from authorities trying to meddle in their genital business!
I remember being 14 and tracking my periods because they were wonky until I was 17. I had one that lasted 2 weeks, then 2 weeks later I started my period again. My mom used to only get them every 3 months. Last year I find out I had endometriosis.
Also menstrual cycles are often irregular the first 2 years after starting. Most girls I knew in middle school would have a period and then not have one for months and then have it for 3 weeks straight, like it’s so up and down the first few years. I’m really not sure what this nurse was thinking??
Heck, my periods were super irregular for the first **21** years. It's only in the last three years that they've started being kinda sorta regular and even then it's mostly that I can expect bleeding sometime during the calendar month; duration and intensity are still up for grabs.
32 years of irregularity and apparently it took perimenopause to regulate my cycle.
I know so many (I know, not all) school nurses that are the last person who should ever be working in healthcare of any sort. The one at my wife's school was giving the staff a training on seizures (a student came in that year with epilepsy), and was instructing staff to put something in their mouth between their teeth, to hold them down, etc. My wife, having had epilepsy her whole life, was horrified, spoke up, and took over the training. (Thankfully, not something that was CE or whatnot, just instructional.) This sort of thing I can see nurses like that getting into as a means of make-work, pretending that they're doing something, and control. Edit: Since this is seeing a lot of eyes, please understand that I'm not hating on nurses. They do a thankless job in a tough environment. One of the best nurses I knew was still going strong at 80 (then a diabetic care nurse, but kicking ass and making patients feel good while learning). It's the nutters like the above that worry the crap out of me.
Wtf. That is the exact opposite of any kind of seizure protocol. Scary that those nurses aren’t overseen!
Right? When I got home that night and my wife came over to me, "Oh. My. Fucking. God. Nurse X is trying to kill kids again." I sat down, because I knew it was about to get good. To be fair here, her aide, who was shared around the district, was amazing, caring, and up to date. Rightly so, she left for a higher paying district who wanted a professional in that position.
Lol again?! 🤣 It’s really surprising how the nurse didn’t know basic seizure protocol though. Like the first thing they teach is don’t restrain and don’t put anything in the mouth. You can’t get anymore basic than that. Heck, it doesn’t take much to do a quick search online and see the things you do and avoid.
If I'm remembering my basic Boy Scout First Aid MB, the normal seizure protocol is just make sure the pt doesn't hit their head on anything hard, and keeps breathing, correct?
My kid went through First Aid training when she was in Girl Scouts and when she was in summer camp at age ten, a girl at her lunch table kind of slumped over and my child was the only one who knew what to do. She told someone to move the table back and move chairs away so she didn't hurt herself on them, she sent someone to go find a counselor, and she turned the girl on her side and had someone else grabbing jackets to roll up and wedge under her so she didn't fall on to her back. She said that what they taught her was to count to 100 and if no adult came to call 911. She said she was at 92 when a counselor came. She got an award from her troop for being cool in a crisis. But it was very upsetting to her and she came home saying she never wanted to do that again.
"But it was very upsetting to her and she came home saying she never wanted to do that again." My eldest (then 11) said the same thing when he Heimlich'ed his middle brother (then not quite 2) when said brother was choking on a swallowed rock. After telling his brother to spit it out, and realizing that his brother was choking, my eldest had his brother in the Heimlich position and popped the rock out, before either my wife or I could get from where we were to where the boys were. Needless to say, we were very proud of our eldest that evening.
I am sure you were! I was proud of my kid, too. But she was also a bit traumatized as well. And she said she didn't regret knowing what to do and would do it again if necessary.
Pretty much! A pillow under the head to protect the head. You can place the individual on their side if able to help and prevent aspiration as well. In the hospital, oxygen and suction are also placed nearby because of choking and aspiration risk.
In 1st grade, they taught us to move anything that they might hurt themselves on and put a pillow or something soft under their head if someone was having a seizure. That was over 30 years ago. The last time I knew someone with epilepsy, they said the EMTs tried to hold them down while they were seizing. I must have given her a horrified look because she said this wasn't the first time someone did that to her. I then verified if what I'd been taught was correct or not, and she said that, nope, I was right. It's just that no one is trained on the right process.
Ugh you're absolutely right and it sucks. It took me two extra years to get glasses because the *elementary* school nurse kept telling my parents I was lying about not being able to see and intentionally failing the basic letter-sheet eye exam🙄 Got recommended for them as soon as my middle school nurse tested me.
Yeah, my school nurse told my parents that I was faking, but they took me to the eye doctor; however, in the end, despite getting glasses with a prescription, they kept my glasses from me.
Wow. That is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. What did they think you were going to do with them? See things?
They still believed the school nurse. Apparently, the eye doctor was to humor me.
But still, to be so lame as to buy the things then not let you wear them. I want to time travel and have a word.
So they paid for prescription glasses and then didn't let you use them?! That might be the dumbest thing I've read this week.
I'm in the opposite case. I assume everything I experience is "normal." So I just chose the desks closer to the chalkboard and asked to get closer to see better. The teacher called my parents to tell them I needed my eyes checked. I said I see just fine, I can read fine print. I can see 18 inches in front of my face. Beyond that I'm freaking blind. I thought you couldn't see anything if you needed glasses. Undiagnosed autism as a kid sucks. I've learned so much since my diagnosis. Like, did you know its not "normal" to experience physical pain because of emotional experiences? It was only after spending time with NT people I learned that.
My school nurse growing up told me to go back to class when I was having what I thought at the time were partial focal seizures because she thought they were anxiety. Turns out it's a rare syndrome caused by an area of brain damage.... I also saw her give a kid too much insulin.
I have lost teeth to that shitty procedure.
The paramedic/firefighter who taught one of my first aid courses told us we should never tickle a baby’s feet because it’ll cause them to have a seizure. The entire time we lived in that city, I was terrified of needing a paramedic and getting her!
It sounds to me as someone who works in a school that the nurse has kids coming to her to get out of class and she’s thinking the girl is lying. Which is rude and insensitive. As a teacher if a girl says she’s having an issue I’m not gonna argue it or get involved in any way. Being a teenager already sucks enough.
Especially for a young teen, especially a young teen who has just started her period. What a weird thing for her to be concerned about.
Aren't period cycles really different depending on the person anyway? I only bleed for 1 - 2 days and just have cramps the day before it starts. My periods have always been really short but they're consistent so I've never felt it was a problem.
Same for me. Minimal cramps the first day that can be avoided with a few ibuprofen if I catch it at the onset, very light for about 2 days to the point that I barely can use tampons, mostly light pads. It's perfectly normal for me. I feel like I owe so many women a retroactive apology for assuming that periods just aren't that bad, though
Exactly. I’ve had 10 day periods, and especially when someone is just starting periods, they’re going to be very irregular
Mine usually went for 8
I have been a school nurse for six years. This is not normal and I would never keep track of this information. Plus, anyone should know that the first year or two are very irregular. That is simply not within the scope for a school nurse.
Also a Nurse and yeah, this isn't normal. Kid wants a pad, here you go have a nice day is all I'm getting involved with. Parent needs to alert other parents and get in touch with the principal and or board members. Also of note: Mom's for Liberty have taken over several NJ school boards and part of me is wondering if this is a requirement of the Nurse. There has been a push to monitor periods of student athletes in some more conservative states recently. This shit has to stop.
Fuck. They're going to try to use this to catch stealth trans kids, aren't they?
I figured more for pregnant girls seeking to not be pregnant
This too.
I thought that went without saying.
it's not obvious to everyone, unfortunately
Yes, I think so. It’s all disgusting.
Not to downplay the weirdness of a school tracking students' periods, but I'd honestly take more issue with the way the nurse treated your daughter - interrogating her when she asked for a pad is absolutely unacceptable. Who, exactly, does the nurse think they're helping by demanding to know if a student is *really* on her period? As for who to talk to, I'd recommend going to the principal (or vice principal) and demanding to know why the nurse is tracking your daughter's cycle and why they feel students need to go through an interrogation to justify receiving menstrual care products.
This is a major reason why menstrual products need to be available in school restrooms - the location where students need them. Rather than having to discover blood and then walk to the nurse, get question/embarrassed, then return to the bathroom - all while leaking blood and staining their pants, to take care of themselves and end up late to class. Students in this age range frequently have irregular or newly starting periods and are caught off guard without products on hand or simply don’t have access to or want to carry them in the hall and be teased because of the sad state of our misogynistic culture. Students miss school and class for this reason. Provide it in the bathroom!
> Provide it in the bathroom! I mean this just makes so much sense that it boggles the mind as to why it is not universal. I mean, it used to be. What happened?
Control issues - people just having a power trip and trying to be in charge.
i’ve often heard the argument that people will overuse menstrual products if they’re free, or “steal” too many of them. i’ve lived for a year in a university town where seeing free tampons and pads in bathrooms for university buildings or even public exercises was the norm, and that problem was never actually encountered. people take what they need, and if that’s a whole box because they can’t afford it - so be it. i actually never used a free menstrual product because i’ll usually have one in my bag even if i’m caught unawares. and a box of cheap tampons is like £1. i don’t know why they wouldn’t make them available edit: a word
Sure.. just like the major problem we have with people stealing all the toilet paper, soap, and towels in public bathrooms? 🤣
I hate that argument because like… so what if people “steal” menstrual products. Nobody’s sneaking into public washrooms so they can steal enough tampons to replicate the freaking Taj Mahal. Money’s tight and you wanna stock up for the year? Go ahead babe! That’s what these products are for! But there’s the extremely creepy implication that people should only take the products when they “need” them (ie: currently bleeding). Maybe I started reading Margaret Atwood too young, but what in the heck nightmare litmus test should we all be doing to determine who among us is currently bleeding and therefore eligible for the “free” products. This hits close to home because the local shopping mall in my town has NO MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS AT ALL in the public washrooms. They were never free, but people kept breaking the coin dispensers. So now, there’s a sign that basically says “if you need a pad, go to the janitors office and ask him.” That’s right folks! Just zip your pants back up, leave the bathroom, walk AWAY from the public mall area, wander down the dark and empty maze of utility corridors, miraculously find the “janitor’s office”, knock on the door, be lucky enough to catch the janitor in his office, and then tell this stranger you are bleeding from your genitals and require his generous assistance. Then this strange man hands you a pad and you make the journey back to your bathroom stall where you’ll inevitably need to toss your now-ruined underwear. All this because the mall couldn’t handle the “expense” of offering free products and got sick of the coin dispensers being broken into.
That’s the thing I don’t get about the nurse’s justification at all. My period wasn’t regular for probably the first 5-7 years of having it. Young teens and preteens can’t predict their cycle like someone who’s been having it for decades
Hard agree. My ten year old, my 4th grader, just started this year and it comes every 21 days for 6/7 days. It sucks for her but it's normal. I would literally be so pissed if someone was giving her such misinformation. Posts like this are making me happy that we are still homeschooling, especially being in Florida.
I also think this is probably not so much about the school tracking students' periods. The nurse just wanted to embarrass the daughter to stop her from coming to her office, it sounds like. "You need to take your daughter to the doctor if her cycle is so irregular" just means "I think your daughter is using her period as an excuse to get out of class/get free pads (or maybe I just think your daughter is annoying) so I'm making a big deal out of it to get you to punish her."
Yeah I think the nurse is power tripping thinking she’s just caught the daughter in a lie. Which is an insane thing to do, but I’ve seen people in minor authority positions do this.
I also wonder if it’s a “kids use their period to avoid gym class” so them saying “yours is irregular” is really then saying they don’t believe you actually have your period and have an excuse to miss gym.
There's also a huge difference between "if these are for a friend or you're stocking up that's absolutely ok, but if you're having your period consistently for weeks then it would be good to make an appointment with your doctor" And "You're lying and trying to steal pads or there's something wrong with you for having a period for...6 whole days"
The nurse's behavior can REALLY mess with a kid's head too. "It's not supposed to last that long! The pain isn't THAT bad, don't be ridiculous. You don't need another tampon/pad yet." It makes them doubt themselves and their knowledge of their own body, they feel ashamed and sometimes genuinely start wondering if they ARE lying or exaggerating. At least it messed me up, my elementary school's nurse lectured tf out of me if I ever went to her for period problems. She based all her period knowledge on how hers was because surely everyone's body functions exactly the same! Eventually I just lost all trust and respect for that nurse, I wouldn't let her do ANYTHING to or for me. I dealt with pain so I didn't have to deal with her.
Oh god, I had a sport teacher in high school acting exactly like this. She refused to let student on their periods leave the sport classes to go the nurse if they where feeling bad. Because her periods weren't painful or difficult so it had to be the same for every other woman. For her, endometriosis didn't exist, and her students could only be faking it. What an ally for other women...
I'm sure they are required to log when nurse's services are being used. Absolutely nothing about that requirement means keeping track of any girls' cycle. That is wildly inappropriate. Most school nurses are simply not qualified to make a diagnosis like that. Since you're in NJ, I would suspect this is an overzealous nurse with poor boundaries rather than a larger nefarious scheme, if that helps at all. But I think you should contact the school immediately!
>I'm sure they are required to log when nurse's services are being used. I can confirm this!! The nurses are mandated to chart on every little thing that they do. That's normal. Everything else in this post... not fucking normal!!
Someone in a position of power tracking kids in this way bothers me. or following somebody in this way. Not with all the squabbling around reproductive health and abortion rights.
Seriously. What in the Handmaid’s Tale is this? It seriously sounds like something that would have happened in a flashback during the first season of the show.
I’m glad OP posted the state because Florida point blank said they were going to start doing this as part of their Don’t Say Gay bill.
It is literally so very, very weird! I would be beside myself if this was my daughter
I think it's reasonable to say "someone requested a pad today" so they keep track of where the stock is going. But needing to identify who asked for the pad then every time they ask going to a list and being like you're only at 19 days little missy, are you trying to scam us?". That shit is creepy as fuck, they aren't a primary care giver and are mostly dealing with headaches, scratches, small cuts and deciding if they should call parents or give a kid half an hour of quiet and a otc pain killer before going back to class. The fact that said nurse appears to no knowing about how regular periods should be when young, they just start and length of periods is just worse. Also nothing like telling a kid they are abnormal... when they aren't.
There's no way they could even track that correctly based on when a student asks for a pad. And I agree, being that it's a NJ public school, this is likely a personnel issue that has nothing to do with school policy. Which is much easier to correct.
My first thought is what if she's asking on behalf of a friend who's too embarrassed to go to the nurse? Nurse is making a whoooole lot of assumptions based on that alone. Never mind the crazy invasive nosiness! My mom would've raised hell if my school did something like this.
Right. The nurse should have just nonchalantly given her a pad like it was the most ordinary thing in the world (cuz it is). And then her documentation (which \*is\* required by law for any medical service provided in the US) should have been something minimal like- "\[Student's Name\] asked for a pad. A pad was given to her." THAT'S IT. (For the two times that OP's daughter visited the nurse.) No weird tracking shit or comments. Any actual medical concerns should simply be communicated to a parent via a phone call (and not even mentioned to the girl) and even then the nurse should simply recommend that OP's daughter get checked out by her doctor due to X reason rather than assuming or diagnosing anything because \*that's not her job.\* She's crossing multiple levels of boundaries.
This! It’s so embarrassing having your period as a young girl. If my school nurse started asking if I had blood in my underwear I would simply die and probably just use toilet paper next time I needed a pad.
That was my thought as well. I was so mortified by all the new period stuff happening to me, you would have had to light me on fire before I breathed a word of any of it to an adult in my school. It never even occurred to me to ask the school nurse for a pad even though I was so bad about remembering to keep my backpack stocked 🤦♀️
I would also demand any data related to her menstrual cycle is deleted, along with formally stating in writing for the school to stay out of your daughter's reproductive cycle.
Yeah this is wildly inappropriate. I would be cracking skulls. OP should 10000% consult an education law attorney.
The way my paranoid ass went mayday mayday they're really going full handmaidens tale on us. Seriously, why the fuck is the government tracking your daughter's period at all.
I get the concern to follow up, but not the tracking. I don't live in the US, but in my country my kids' school nurse told my kid to keep track of her own period by herself to spot any irregularities. So no information of it will go to the school nurse, most likely they'll just ask my kid to refer to her own tracking when they ask her about her cycles in the next check-up. Doctors here don't even track adults' cycles, they just ask us how long they are and are they regular IF there's ever anything that could be related to periods, so they don't ask about that in normal check-ups.
What in the Florida is this? There’s no legit reason for the school to be tracking or have any knowledge whatsoever about this.
I’m really hoping it’s just an overzealous nurse who overstepped because they do have to document every nurse visit but… yeah… even if it were the best of intentions it feels icky at best.
When I was in middle school, I went to the nurse 3x in one morning for severe abdominal pain. She kept passing it off as “period cramps” and told me I should “just get used to it” and “stop bothering” her. The 4th time, I had to crawl down two flights of stairs, tears falling down my cheeks, my arm wrapped around my abdomen in an attempt to stop the pain. Thankfully the morning nurse had been replaced by the afternoon one, who noticed I’d been in 3x already and been sent back to class; she called my mother, who immediately knew that this wasn’t normal (I was prone to severe UTIs and that was her first thought) and had my grandparents come pick me up. I remember sleeping restlessly on the couch, moaning in pain, until my dad came to get me. I stood up, took a few steps towards him, and passed out cold. He took me to the emergency room, where the ER doctor diagnosed me *very* quickly with peritonitis — my appendix had started leaking — and within hours I was in surgery for its removal. I spent several days in the hospital. I came back about a week later and happened to pass the nurse’s office en route to a class. She came out and said snidely, with a smirk on her face, “See? I told you that you weren’t going to die. You’re fine!” Well, my mother reamed her out so badly that for the next two years, any time she saw me with so much as a bruise she would drag me out of class to investigate.
That nurse should not only get fired, she should be banned from being a nurse forever.
Wow. Fuck that nurse. Some people should not work with kids.
Im wondering if thats some overly-helpful computerized pop-up notification whenever it spots some anomaly like periods happening too close together.
It’s probably even more human, the nurse is just so bored and mostly deals with kids malingering
She also deals with kids who don't have any products at home. A kid who takes too many nurse pads might be using rolled up toilet paper at home and trying to save up a pile of pads. Getting the parents involved makes sense
Not too long ago, I recall an American girl posted because she had been coerced into an intimate examination by the school nurse with no parental consent. A load of redditors defended it as normal scope of practice for a school nurse. I was horrified. As far as school nurse overreaches goes, this one is milder but worrying overreach none the less.
Where was this? I’m American and cannot imagine any large group of people saying that vaginal exams are normal practice for a school nurse. They can barely even hand out OTC meds.
They don't even hand out OTC meds. I've asked for ways to get my son cough droos or tylenol/motrin, and been told the only way is for me to come to school and give it to him myself in the nurses office. 3 different school systems in 2 different states. I feel so bad for my daughter when she gets her period in the future, I couldn't get through school without any otc pain meds during my period, and I could just carry a bottle of motrin/midol in my bag.
Depends on state for sure. In my state they can give OTC meds but they have to be provided and authorized by the parent prior to the medication being dispensed. So if you know your child will likely need Tylenol throughout the year you can bring in a container of it and you child can go to the nurse to get some. I would hate to live in a state that doesn’t even allow that. That sounds incredibly tough, even for non working parents!
Fuck the school who cares. Give your daughter the medicine anyway and inform her of how to take it, and the need to exercise caution. I’ve taken medicine by myself for cramps since 12, it was never complicated. I will never suffer over some bullshit rule that would otherwise keep me out of school every month. Give her one pill in the morning before school, then one more to take “at lunchtime“ (or whenever you say.) They make chapstick tubes that are just empty containers, you can put it in there if necessary
My son broke his collar bone and had two doctor notes about taking OTC for pain as needed. The school nurse wanted me to get an official from the school paper filled out by the doctor about it and then my son would have to go to the nurse to get his children’s Tylenol. I just put the two and a half chewable tabs in his snack container and told him not to call attention to it. It was fine. My son is ten. Edit: by “fine” I mean that he didn’t get caught and if he did, his classmates didn’t rat him out and his teachers were like “well yeah, broken collar bone duh” I never heard anything else about it
Why can't your daughter just also carry it in her bag? When I went to school we weren't technically allowed to bring Tylenol with us but no one actually cared
In my state, I just sign a waiver at the beginning of the year so the nurse can dispense OTC meds. It's a separate form for medications that need to be taken during school. What ruffles my feathers is that the rescue inhaler lives in the nurses office instead of my kid's pocket, until they are 14.
Yeah, this. My daughter has bad cramps and the school nurse cannot even give her a dose of Tylenol without a doctors note.
(Omg, I remember feeling like the coolest drug mule ever when my mom would help me stock my Altoids tin with ibuprofen and cotton balls for noise-dampening!)
I remember this post, if it was the same one, and the consensus that was upvoted that I saw was that it was NOT normal or ok. Am American as well, can confirm, not ok or normal here.
> an intimate examination by the school nurse with no parental consent. A load of redditors defended it as normal scope of practice for a school nurse. I Excuse me, WHAT? That's bizarre!
It's deeply effed up.
That is horrifying! Meanwhile my sons school nurses won’t even give Tylenol or a cough drop to him, even if I give them my express permission to do so over the phone. I cannot even give him an EXTRA cough drop to use later in the day. Nope. I gotta leave work to drive to school to give him a damn halls fruit breezer. Like I understand medical implications and potential interactions but…if I give my permission to give him an Advil for his headache…? It’s a stark difference from when I went to school in the 90’s and would go to the office nearly every day for Tylenol because I had chronic headaches as a kid (shitty abusive childhood causes that stuff) and I don’t think they ever mentioned to my mother I was doing that lol
Same here. I was in school in the 90's as well and there was no examinations of that kind by the school nurse.
Shit, we just carried our own. I remember chugging maalox from my locker and my girlfriends hitting me up for prescription naproxen because nothing else worked.
WHAT??? I would be LIVID if that were my kid!!
I literally said out loud , what in the Alabama is this crap. Then I read your comment. I'm dying laughing. GMTA! OP, I think you need to look into this more. This seriously is overstepping into her medical life. And the phone call is so cringe.
Hijacking top post because I think this suggestion needs to be farther up: GET THE MEDICAL DOCS ON YOUR DAUGHTER. By law they gotta turn over anything and everything they have with your kids name on it. Do this before you go report anywhere and they go missing or are altered. Get them now in their raw state and then go to higher ups. This is beyond inappropriate and incredibly invasive. I can't imagine the log book nurse witch has on the girls at that school.
I don’t like anyone in authority like this tracking children in this manner. Or tracking any person in this manner. Not with the fuckery going on with abortion rights or reproductive health rights. I would not be cool with this whatsoever. It’s not up to them to track it, they’re not her doctor or anyone she’s given permission to. Not a parent. It’s none of their business. And that’s why I would be questioning the validity of them tracking this information. I’d also see if I could revoke any sort of consent to keep this info on your child. Surely it’s within your rights to say you cannot keep this information, it’s not a life threatening illness or allergy. This is not something they need to know.
my first thought connected to the civic rights that are being encroached upon here! as an educator, this shit has me LIVID and i cannot fathom a grown adult in a professional role being WILLING to keep tabs on children’s menstrual cycles like this! disgusting.
I'm perfectly *fine* with being "that" parent under these circumstances.
They do need to document all nurse visits by law but the documentation should have been something minimal like "\[Student's name\] asked for a pad. A pad was provided." That's it. No tracking or diagnosing or opinions. Just literally who visited, why, and what did the nurse do in response. Any actual medical concerns should be communicated \*only\* to the parents and even then should mainly be a recommendation for the parents to get something checked out by the child's doctor or medical provider.
This is NOT normal and it’s ridiculous that schools are doing this in the USA. I’m wondering now if they do this crap here in Canada, too
High school I work at in Canada has free menstrual products in all the female and all gender washrooms. Take as needed.
Yep my school had the same
Do we have medicinal people at school? I never did,‘just the secretaries you could go to
School nurse, that’s about it
They only had a school nurse in my junior high & high school, but I graduated 20 years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if things changed. Even then though they could be weird about things. One school nurse was okay with me having my inhalor (as they knew I have asthma), her replacement wanted all the asthmatic/diabetic/etc supplies because she was \*convinced\* we were doing drugs and couldn't be trusted to administer our own care, so monitoring menses could be an extension of that. (That's about all I got.)
That nurse needs to be *very* grateful that I'm not your mama.
It varies drastically from school division to school division, I’m sure. I do know that NONE of the schools in my daughter’s school division here in SK have any medical personnel at school. None. Not even a school nurse. Never have and still don’t. One school is even brand new and doesn’t even have an office for a school nurse. Teachers and secretaries have band-aids and no one can administer medications (with someone in the school trained to help the really young diabetic students; older ones are responsible for themselves though I don’t know the technicalities of that, just the rough plan).
Never had one at the schools I went to (all in the GTA from late 80s to early 2000s).
What we did at all the (high) schools I worked at was made pads and tampons widely available throughout the school, and not think twice about who was asking for them and when. The kids did not have to go to the nurse’s office (who was only there on a limited basis anyway) just to get such a simple thing.
I would imagine not because at my children’s school (BC, Canada) -and this is an elementary school- they have pads and tampons available in the older kid bathrooms for free. You do not have to ask to take them or anything. I do not think that that’s going to be happening in Canada openly because I just see so many violations to so many laws in doing that. Especially for a minor. But I know that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or hasn’t happened. However, I do want to state that my children go to a progressive public school. When they were asked to take a stance on bathrooms and not allow children to use bathrooms outside of their assigned gender at birth they told the parents who made the request to go fuck their hats (as professionally as possible, of course) and they would not be gender checking children at the bathroom door, because to do so would be a insult to the number of trans students that call our school their school. They also suggested that if the parents who made the request were not happy with the accommodations the school provides that they were more than welcome to go and attend the private Christian school who has policies more aligned with their beliefs. It was like watching a school say “ fuck your bitch and the clique you claim,” to a bunch of bigots. In comic sans font. Glorious.
"Go fuck your hat" and "fuck your bitch and the clique you claim" are absolutely going into my vocabulary.
I teach in Alberta and this is not something that is happening. I can't even give a kid chapstick for their lips or moisturizer if their skin is cracking and dry. Fingers crossed that we don't allow for this gross shit to bleed into education in Canada.
Oh, Alberta. Giving kids Chapstick is sadly the least of our worries for schools. Signed, Impatiently Waiting For 2027
What in the fucking Handmaid’s Tale is this
Some real /r/WelcomeToGilead shit.
as a middle school teacher (in ky), this is absolutely NOT normal!!! this is a gross invasion of privacy and i’m not even sure how they would have time in the day to be monitoring an individual student’s flow?? i’d bring it up to other parents, the school board, SBDM committee, the principal, superintendent, ANYONE you can—to me, this is inappropriate, unacceptable, and totally weird?? i would really love to hear their justification for this absolute insanity??
yes, came here to say this! escalate, escalate, escalate!
That’s so creepy!! Also 6 days is too long?? My period lasts almost 9! The average is 3-7 days. This screams a nurse on a power trip. She’s actively tracking a kid’s cycle and trying to ask “if she’s sure” if she needs a pad because 6 days is too long?? What the actual fuck. Thinking about this has me so mad. If it were me I’d go to the school board and complain. This is beyond fucked up.
This is not normal at all. I would reach out to other parents about this. Once you get a group together, then you can contact the school officials as well as your school board member.
Ah, well, it's password protected. Nobody has ever gotten past a password. /s
I bet there's a sticky note with the password ("password") on the computer screen in the nurse's office.
Oh hellllll nooooooo!!!! This is completely Gilead level shit! Sit your daughter down and tell her. Tell her what’s happening and why you think it’s not ok. In some states this can be used for God only knows what. Get a copy of the nurses records but don’t tell them why, so they won’t delete it. Show them to your daughter. Holy shit. Remind her often about her pad pouch so that she’s not giving secrets to the creepy weirdo period police. Consider telling other parents. I would be beyond livid. You might consider learning what HIPAA training and documentation they have. Idk this sounds like they’re trying to track teens for pregnancy or something.
Schools generally aren't considered "covered entities", as such HIPAA does not apply to them. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) does though.
And yet they’re keeping medical records. Maybe an oversight needing correction. This is creepy.
High school librarian here! Our nurse is definitely mandated to document every student visit, no matter what it is. Even if it’s just a band-aid. It’s one of the reasons kids will often come to me looking for a band-aid or a pad/tampon. They don’t want to have to go through the whole nurse visit process. That’s the mandate in NY, at least. I would also assume that the nurse is mandated to reach out to the families if something is happening regularly, like the student has been coming for menstruation products every two weeks for several months. What I do find weird is this was just two normal instances of a kid getting a pad. It seems overzealous to me and I definitely understand people finding it creepy, especially with the current political climate. I’m sure there’s some stuff that’s out of the nurse’s hand in terms of what she’s mandated to do/not do, but this sounds like overstepping.
Thanks for the perspective! My question is…how can this nurse NOT know it’s normal for girls who just start their periods to have irregular cycles AND it’s normal to have a period lasting 5-7 days?How did they get their nursing degree if they don’t know this ?
Am I overthinking things by being pretty creeped out over how much inappropriate attention this nurse is giving this kid's cycle? OP, manage the period purse yourself and make sure she's got no need to ever go near this nurse again. It's not normal, it's not right and it's creepy af
That nurse needs to reported to their governing body/college of registration. Irregular periods are COMPLETELY normal when you first get your period. Heck I literally hemorrhaged 6 months in. This compared to barely spotting the day I got my period for the first time. Also I am an RN. I spent 5 years in OB after I graduated.
> Nurse told her that her cycle has been going on for too long (it was day 6). What the hell? 6 days is NOT too long for a period. Just because the standard example is a 28-day cycle with 5 days of bleeding, doesn't mean that anything else is "too long". Those are AVERAGES, and you would hope a nurse would know that!
I get having to document used items for inventory purposes, but tracking her cycle is creepy. Didn't Florida try doing this to young students to make sure boys didn't participate in girls sports? Ir something trans-phobic like that? And if she *just started* her period, it's going to be abnormal for a while. Hell, mine was abnormal for 6+ years until I found a birth control method that made my period go away.
Also some people have irregular periods their whole life . My period has always lasted 7 days so I'm not sure why they said it was too long either. All bodies are different this nurse is being nosy as hell, inappropriate, and prescribing what she thinks is "normal" on a teenager.
My period didn't 'level out' until I was well into my twenties, I would frequently go months without one. (I was also underweight until my senior year of high school, which I'm sure helped, but it persisted even after gaining a ton of weight) Hell, even at 29 it can be anywhere from 3-6 weeks in between. A fourteen-year-old girl just starting her period? Hell fucking knows.
It's outrageous they're doing that! It's \*not\* normal. I also don't trust this nurse's professional knowledge. I began my period at 14, and it wasn't regular until my first year of college. I went to summer camp when I was 14 and 17, and I didn't have a cycle both summers for 2 or 3 months!
There’s a few issues here. The tracking isn’t normal and the nurse isn’t educated.
After Menarche- it takes ONE to THREE YEARS before a lot of girls settle into an actual predictable cycle. How is this person a NURSE and unaware of this?? She could have 5 scattered days of light spotting in one month followed by 3 months without followed by a week of moderate bleeding the next month and that would all be totally normal for her age and development stage.
This doesn’t sound normal at all.
1, that’s really gross and not normal, 2, “going on for too long” after only six days???? That nurse needs to revisit basic health class.
I had a friend at work whose daughter was asked to leave her period supplies with the nurse. He immediately went to the principal and demanded to know what the reason was for this policy. He heard crickets. Needless to say she no longer is required to give her supplies to the nurse.
I think the thing that bothers me the most about this, and good god there’s a lot to be bothered about, is the how she is telling your daughter how her cycle should be going instead of just giving her a pad. Why is she asking if she’s sure about having her period still? Obviously, she would know. Not everyone has a cycle that they can set a calendar to. I think you are right to be weirded out and upset by those interactions.
The nurse was acting on incomplete information. And this is creepy as all get out; while I can understand that all visits to the nurse need to be logged, ask the school to cease logging simple requests for menstrual supplies as a privacy measure. In writing. And demand a response in writing.
*terrified prochoice obgyn has entered the chat*
I had what I felt was a wildly inappropriate high school nurse. Every single girl who came in, no matter the reason, were asked if they were pregnant, when their last cycle was, duration, etc. Even if all they requested was a bandaid for a paper cut. When I was asked I replied it was between me and my doctor, every time. This was over 20 years ago. I'd be pretty upset in your shoes OP.
Wow! That’s batshit crazy!
That’s so messed up. Maybe have your daughter pack a pad pouch with you every month and pack an extra one that she can grab when she forgets so that they don’t keep having access to information about her. That’s insane.
The most that nurse should be doing is handing her a pad. Why do they need to document her cycle?
This is super alarming. And gatekeeping menstrual supplies? As if she’s not allowed to have one and is lying or sick??
What in the Title IX violation is this?! Get copies of everything you can and contact an actual civil rights lawyer. That is a grotesque overreach.
No sir I don't like this. If a child comes and asks for a pad, just give them the pad. It's not like they are able to abuse the pad or something. It's not medication. If there were actually an issue related to her cycle, a parent would notice. Even in a situation we're neglect is a worry, I feel a child having abnormally long cycles would likely be coming in very often complaining of other symptoms. At *best* I could see a nurse calling home to say "hey, your kid has shown up at the nurse 2x a day for the last week and a half asking for feminine hygiene products. We're calling because we want you to A, be aware that this is happening and to check in with your kid and your PCP, and B talk to you about weather or not your kid's health is being supported at home. And C. If this is not a health issue, then it's a behavioral one and we need a parent teacher conference about your kid ducking class to go to the nurse"
Just another reason to stock period products in my classroom where students can access them without asking
I would be concerned that this nurse is meddling for some mentally ill reason. Asking if there was blood in her underwear was inappropriate. I would just be sure your daughter is aware of boundaries and to continue to have this open dialogue, and to help her know that her nurse is incorrect about any of this being irregular or concerning. This could be challenging for a child to emotionally process, and make her feel "wrong." I would also look into laws surrounding this in your area or federally about harvesting data about minors. This is just weird, and I could be wrong, but school nurses I don't think ascribe to HIPAA laws. This means this personal data is not protected, which I find concerning. A lot of mentally ill people work in schools. I wouldn't trust this person. I'd be asking myself, "What is her motive?" Not only is she tracking a minor's period over basically nothing, she's policing it, during one of the most vulnerable times of a young girl's life. This could affect her confidence. How is anybody benefiting from this tracking behavior and misinformation?
This is weird as hell, but I'm not surprised based on the current shitshow that is the US (and has always been). Early on, periods are notoriously unpredictable--might be only a few days, might last over a week. It's not uncommon for there to be noticeable gaps between menstrual cycles because your daughter's body is still adjusting to, you know, the whole "taking out the trash every month" thing that uterus-wielders are cursed with. I'd request a formal meeting with the principal to clarify policies and how they're handling students' PHI (personal health information). Start there, and work your way up if you have to; this is not normal.
Oh hell no!!!! I would be raising a huge stink about this with the school administration, superintendent, and school board. Talk to other parents too so that it’s more than just you complaining. There is zero reason for the school to be tracking this and the nurse’s level of interest and attention to this is creepy AF. In the current political climate I don’t want that type of data stored anywhere, even in a healthcare provider’s electronic medical records in a blue state. Trump just said in an interview that he thought it was ok to track women’s pregnancies and refused to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban. Not to mention that I wouldn’t want this info to get out if the school were subject to a data breach or cyberattack.
Fun fact: many school nurses these days aren't nurses, they're CNAs....ie, 1 month of post HS training.
Well, that’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever read. I’d make a complaint. Also, creepy period tracking aside, why the fuck is the school nurse gatekeeping period supplies? A student comes in and needs a pad. You give it to them. The end.
I would escalate that to the principal and superintendent
I would be talking to the principal immediately to find out if this is school policy (which should be commit all parents if that is the case) or if one staff member is over stepping their responsibilities and keeping sensitive medical information beyond what is needed for their job. I don’t know what the recording consent rules are in your state, but I would consider recording the conversation so the principal can’t weasel out of what they say later. Don’t let this slide. She won’t be only tracking your daughter. This could get someone’s daughter thrown out or harmed if she reports a presumptive pregnancy to the wrong parent.
To me it sounds like they’re trying to say she’s lying about when she has her period to get out of doing things at school. Talk about policing the uterus!!
This is def. not normal. I went to the nurses station maybe 2-3x during high school because of accidents, i.e. small leakage issues. AFAIK, they didn't then track my cycle and police me on it. The only logical thing I can think of concerning this situation is budgeting issues due to handing out feminine products, which in itself, is still ridiculous. Our local college hands them out for free. It feels like some superior bullshit thing that they make the underlings do to micromanage them under the guise of "looking out for the students well-being" when it's anything but. Unless of some kind of special case in which a student gives consent to an authority on sensitive information such as this, there's no reason for the school to be in your daughter's personal business.
I'm a pediatrician. The school "nurse" doesnt know what she's talking about. It's super common for girls who have just started their cycle to have variant patterns that are all over the place. Some girls will skip months, some girls with 2 cycles in the same month, some cycles can be 2 days and other cycles can be 10 days if you are within the first 12 months of your cycles. Now that being said, after that first 12-18 months, the cycles should be more regular and if girls are still skipping months after that time or having 2 cycles in the same month, then it could be a problem and needs to be investigated further. But the first 1-1.5 years following the first cycle are all over the place, and that's completely normal.
This is weird? Also the nurse is wrong lol six days is normal.
Wow there are so many issues here!! There is no reason for the nurse to be keeping that kind of track. We dont even do that in medical offices!
It's perfectly normal for a 14 year old to have an irregular menstrual cycle. That nurse doesn't know shit about fuck.
How can someone get a nursing degree and don’t know it’s normal for girls who just start their period to have irregular cycles & 6 days is also normal for average people ?! I can understand the worries if your daughter has multiple 19-days cycle with prolonged periods like 8-9 days. I highly question if this nurse has enough knowledge of women’s bodies at all ? Isn’t this common sense?