Tutoring Among the Sick

Based on very recent tutoring experiences and the choices and challenges that were presented, I was highly motivated to create this post in the hope of helping other tutors. When encountering sick clients or their family the stakes can be high, in both health and financial costs, and decisions may need to be made quickly while minimising offence. While it may seem simple to avoid the sick and reschedule, this isn’t always the case and surprises and resistance can occur.

Here we shall discuss tutoring among the sick. Firstly, entering a home and finding a member of the household ill with something very contagious, next declining to tutor the very sick even while parents are insisting, and thirdly managing client offence.

The Sick Household Member

You arrive to tutor the student/s but a member of the family, whom you are not tutoring, is extremely sick with something very contagious. You must decide how dangerous this is to you, and by extension all other students and family you will encounter after the session. If contact is minimal of course the tutoring can go ahead, otherwise you may need to excuse yourself. This carries a high risk of offending the sick and other members of the household, especially if their patience has been worn away by pain and disturbed sleep.

We should always call ahead prior to a session. This is to ensure the session is on and to check if there is any new information we need to know, but this is no guarantee you will be told about contagious persons in the home. Therefore this surprise can await even a diligent tutor.

If contact is minimal (and the sick family member will probably wish to rest) the tutoring may go ahead. It is important to not use the areas the sick person has been laying or lounging upon, sitting at or eating at. Even so, this is where a very beneficial item all tutors should carry will come in handy—hand sanitiser. I carry a very strong hand sanitiser in my tutoring bag at all times. Use at the beginning of the lesson, try to touch very little furniture or items that are not your own and use it liberally at the end the sessions right before departing.

Following these steps there is still another obstacle the tutor can face other than using a door handle to leave. This is the receiving of payment. Much is done online these days, but for cash and receipt work this presents further difficulties. For the receipt it is best to not trouble the afflicted and have another family sign for it. For money, this presents a problem, but not an insurmountable one.

Receive the payment, thank them and put it aside from your other funds. This cannot be passed to others as a part of change and you will have to clean your hands after handling it. Upon returning home or to an office, make use of hand sanitiser or Dettol, water, a sink and clean the money. Taking such steps has prevented this tutor from contracting the flu from a parent who looked near death upon handing the money to me. It is better to be safe than sorry, and it is important to always manage your own affairs and your health while you are out tutoring.

Declining to Tutor Sick Students

Calling ahead prior to the tuition you discover your students (and perhaps their siblings) are sick. They may be recovering, they may be contagious but they may also infect you and all of your students. This is why tutoring such students presents very high risk and should not be taken lightly or done.

There are two further reasons not to tutor the sick. There is little point tutoring the sick when they will have trouble focusing because their body is suffering or in the process of recovering. Secondly, making $100 from a lengthy session is not worth it if you later lose $400 due to sickness and cancellations. The current session is not the only session in the future, other students are put at risk by tutoring the sick and it can remove a week or more of earnings from a truly sick tutor. Of course tutors also have lives outside of work, and we do not want to hamper them by needlessly falling sick or passing sickness on to family and loved ones.

It is obvious the session should be cancelled, but this can become complicated. Parents or the clients themselves may insist they “only have a fever”, their temperature is going down or that they are “getting better”. An eagerness and willingness for tuition is admirable, but it is a constant risk until the disease or virus has passed. Even if a tutor is careful and sanitises their hands, writing equipment and books infection may occur during the session during conversation.

Therefore a tutor should cancel when students or siblings of the student are seriously ill (due to their constant contact), or still recovering from illnesses.

Parental Insistence and Offence

Realising the household is sick you wish to cancel. In this case you have many reasons to cancel but there is opposition to your decision from a client. This is a challenge for a tutor, and quite different to the normal day-to-day of lesson preparation, motivating students and teaching them. If you back down from your decision they will not respect you or what you say in the future, but by not relenting your risk offending a client. How are we then to proceed?

After you have discovered the student/s are sick, all claims that day that it is now okay, that it isn’t so serious, that the student’s temperature has suddenly stabilised should be taken with a grain of salt. Clearly, they want you to tutor even at the risk to yourself and others. If you know that the flu (or worse) has taken hold in the members of a household you should be extremely cautious of tutoring them at all. If you decide to not go ahead with the tuition it is the professional act to clearly communicate your decision with reasons if requested, organise the next session (ideally next week) and thank them for their time or wish them the best. Your decision communicated in a professional manner, is a position you have to adhere to, especially when you are very certain there is a health risk posed to you and your other students with something that could be easily transmitted.

A parent of the client, via phone call or message, may attempt to override your decision and insist you come. They may not take your cancellation seriously, or they may be forceful and assert that it is their judgement call to make, your decision is unwarranted, your rationale baseless. To back down is to face serious risks. Of course you should also be conscious that this discussion is causing offence as it continues, tempers can flare, and you should bow out from the discussion respectfully. People do not like being treated poorly due to sickness, and can react badly if they feel their family is being ignored or marginalised. Share your reasons, but if a client is becoming agitated, do not share your emotions and needlessly argue. We are in sensitive times of quick communication of thoughts, concerns and emotion and it is important to not escalate or argue. You are clear, you know what must be done and you respectfully listen to what they say, but do not argue or relent and expose yourself to a house in the grip of sickness.

This decision may be criticised. If they disagree it is likely they will be critical and may use emotional appeals, appeal to their own authority over yours or seek confrontation to push their way. However, that is not what is most important, and argument helps no one. Instead by staying healthy and non-contagious you show your full commitment to providing excellent tuition, and as you actively lower the risk of your students being exposed to sickness you demonstrate that you care about their health and well-being. That is what is important.