Treating Common Illnesses In Kids(?)

Both of my kids are sick with a cold/flu-type thing. I've never been the type to run to the doc at the first sign of a cough. Or even the second or third. In fact, it doesn't occur to me to head to the doc's unless things start to make me nervous, like DD's one and only ear infection (knock on wood.) I treat the symptoms myself, with whatever I feel is needed at the time. Now, I grew up with a doc. I use traditional medicines. I have given my thanks to Infant and Children's and regular Tylenol again and again. I have used decongestant on my children a couple of times. Only when I could just cry from hearing one or both of them suffer so much with breathing that one or both couldn't sleep, and everyone was tired, sick, sore and miserable. I quickly agreed to antibiotics for the ear infection that the doc said would usually be left to run its course but in this case... I use Hyland's homeopathic flu tablets sometimes. And when they arrive, I will try using my new collection of essential oils. (A bunch of bologna? Who knows? Keep posted for my EO trials!)

The question is, at what point do you decide to treat something? Are some symptoms treated and others not? I know that with congestion and runny noses in kids it is generally recommended by the docs and pharmacists to let it alone. The idea as I understand it is that it is generally better to let the nose run and get the junk out of the body rather than dry it up and risk a sinus infection. Fevers are there for a reason, but at which point do you decide that it's gotten high enough? Or that the kid/s are miserable enough to warrant intervention? At which point do the kids stay home from school? Does any symptom warrant a day of rest? Or does the kid have to be positively pathetic? If a kid is home from school, is a small period of time outside warranted? Or is the kid stuck inside all day?

Being relatively new to the child in school phenomenon, I question the go to school/stay home thing frequently. There are days I keep DD home, then decide that she would have been just fine at school. There are days I send her, then feel awful when she comes home looking completely worn out.

And one more thought. If a child is working her/his heart out to convince you that she/he is too sick for school, how do you decide if she/he is full of the dickens? Yesterday hubby and I thought that DD was hamming it up to get out of a field trip tomorrow that she has been very anxious about. Then last night she coughed so hard, a couple of times, that she made herself physically sick. She sure didn't fake that! She and DS have the same bug, and both are plenty sick and feel miserable, but they present in completely different ways. DD's energy, at least this time around, has remained high, and she is all over the house and asks to go outside. DS is content to sit and play quietly. He is needier than usual, asking to be held and asking to nurse more than usual. Very different.

So what do you think? What do you (or would you) do?