Is Your Kid Sick or Just Faking It?

It's the height of cold and flu season, so you're not surprised when your school-age child wakes up sniffling, coughing, and moaning that he just doesn't feel well enough to go to school.

Sometimes, it's clear that your child has cold symptoms or flu symptoms and needs to be taken to the doctor. Other times, illness in kids is not so easy to figure out. Your child may not look so sick to you. So before you grab the thermometer, heat up the chicken soup, and call your boss, you might want to consider the possibility that something besides germs is invading your home.

Yes, we're talking deception. Faking it.  Playing hooky, a la Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Just as Matthew Broderick, the lead actor in the hit 1986 movie, decided to give himself a glorious day off (including a spin around Chicago in a "borrowed" Ferrari), there is the possibility your student is faking it -- for attention, the thrill of it, or a zillion other reasons.

At some point during their school days, up to 10% of kids try to dupe their parents into letting them stay home by feigning illness, experts estimate. Sometimes, the guise is relatively innocent; but sometimes it masks serious problems, such as anxiety, depression, or their wish to avoid a bully at school.

WebMD asked three experts who've seen their share of faking -- a pediatrician, a child and adolescent psychologist, and a former school nurse -- to clue us in on how clueless parents can decide: Does your baby need chicken soup, or marching orders to get to school? Of course, if your child looks and acts truly sick, it's time to call the doctor or take them to urgent care.

But if you have your doubts and are trying to decide if the illness is really called "don't-want-to-go-to-school-itis," here are our experts' four best tips, short of hooking up a lie detector:

(Do you know when your kids are faking sick? Share your stories on WebMD's Parenting: Preschoolers and Grade Schoolers message board.)

1. Check Out the Medical Evidence

Common flu symptoms include fever, extreme fatigue, dry cough, and body aches. Cold symptoms are typically milder, including a runny or stuffy nose. Taking the body temperature is a good first step, says JoAnn Rohyans, MD, a pediatrician in private practice who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, and a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Normal body temperature varies, she says. It can be about 97 degrees in the morning and higher later. "Ninety-nine degrees at the end of the day is still normal," she says. Pediatricians generally don't consider a fever significant until temperature rises above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

You can check out your kid's throat and tonsils if that's the origin of complaints, Rohyans says, but in her experience parents think tonsils look awful when they're actually normal. "Tonsils that are sick look like moldy strawberries or raw hamburger," she tells WebMD.