Kids taking their own temperature

How things have changed . . .

I was visiting a friend of mine the other day and her 13 y/o son wasn't feeling well.

She told him to "Go take your temperature . . . "

He came back with a digital thermometer in his hand and sat down on the chair --- putting the thermometer in his mouth.

About a minute later it beeped, he took it out of his mouth and read it --- 101.2.

He went back to his room and that was the end of it.

Certainly not the way it was done years ago, and definitely not the stuff that fantasy stories are made of.

Any parents care to comment? Anybody still taking their children's temperatures?

While my children are grown, the new way is just fine.

I don't think any kids will be complaining of the "new" way.

I suspect our daughter doesn't remember rectal temps as stopped when very little and now its simply hand on the forehead and if feels hot its an oral thermometer.

When I grew up (1970s-1980s) the most common way of taking temperatures in France was rectal, for adults and children alike; and it was the only method allowed in hospital. Yet nobody would ever think of taking a kid's rectal temperature unless the kid was really young (below the age 6 maybe). All I recall was being given a thermometer by my mother or the nurse, and having to insert it under bedsheets or bed covers for privacy (except in one occasion when my mother took my temperature herself).

I see no reason why a kid old enough would have the thermometer inserted by somebody else than himself or herself.

Nowadays, with electronic thermometers, things are easier, be it for rectal or oral. No risks of breaking glass, spilling mercury, and no need to hold it for 3 minutes.

(I bet one reason for rectal temperatures on children is that it's easier to have the thermometer held properly in the rectum for 3 minutes than it being correctly held in the mouth, under the tongue, by a child, who will be tempted to open the mouth, will move, etc. But now with electronic it's 10 seconds...)