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Restricting peanuts in school b/c of allergies
Posted by calais50 • 10/15/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: peanut allery
My kids' school (as well as a lot of others) requests that parents not send foods with peanuts for their children's snack or lunch because a few children have allergies. My son's dad sent him some peanut butter crackers for a snack, and the teacher had my son go sit and eat the crackers in a secluded part of the room.
This policy seems a little bit of an over kill to me. This means no more peanut butter sandwiches or other commonplace foods. Am I being insensitive or is this policy too strict?
User Comments
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What .. no more PBJ ? Seems like overkill to me. If one can not live in a room with a peanut eater, they should quit whining and move in to a bubble or help improve the gene pool and die off. ;-) -
Does Jimmy Carter knows this? ...-
LOL!
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This policy may seem a bit severe, but considering peanut allergies are one of the most severe allergies there are, it actually makes sense. Although it's sad for your son that he had to be singled out, had he innocently given a PB cracker to a child with a peanut allergy the results could have been catastrophic. When they're dealing with side effects like, oh, say, imminent death, better to err on the side of caution!
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When did kids become such pansies that they can't be around a peanut? Seriously, I do not remember this being a big deal when I was in school and yet today, it is everywhere! Both of my children came home on the first day of school with notes saying no peanuts.
Perhaps they should start a school just for the peanut afflicted?-
It wasn't a big deal when we were kids. But neither was asthma. Both have become a huge deal, with serious consequences.
None of my kids have peanut allergies, but we know a ton of people whose kids do have them. Yes, it's a pain, but it's so prevalent now that it's part of the daily routine. Part of play dates and school lunches.
Schools are trying to be cautious and they should. Inhalers and other asthma treatments are left with the school nurse. Etc. And yes, foods that you can bring into the class are limited. And sure that's a bummer to some degree.
Not sure what's going on, but with all the processed foods, microwaves, chemicals in the air and in products, things have changed. We need to change with that.
Having said that, it's too bad that Calais50's teachers couldn't come up with a better solution than sitting him by himself. Shame on them!! -
Oh, yes, great idea. Let's spend millions of dollars and require families from all over to commute great distances in order to protect our children's very important right to carry peanuts to school. -
@bringbackpluto: It just makes me wonder what the hell is in food nowadays that we have so many children with issues. Kind of scary.
@MadameX: Oh god. It was just a joke. I'd actually prefer we tie them up and throw them in the closet during school hours. -
I am with Suzie on this.. the more you protect the more these things will worsen. I have never heard of anyone die of a peanut before. Is this the warning that human species are devolving to something much weaker? Beware, the bacterial kingdom is watching you with the longing eyes of a wolf -
You may not have heard of it, but I have seen a child have to get a shot to save her life when she accidentally came into contact with nuts in a cake. Had I known of her nut allergy, I'd have made it without, which is a very small sacrifice to make to save the poor thing a lot of pain. Thank heavens they carried the medicine with them. -
Now I officially no longer blame people of being conspiracy theorists.. Why this happens ONLY IN USA???
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allergies are really bad these days.... and just the indirect touch of peanut butter can be problematic. Airlines stop serving peanuts for the similar reasons. -
I was given peanuts on a flight just last month.
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When you weigh the issues--no more PBJ in the classroom versus children dropping dead from trace contact with peanut ingredients--it doesn't seem like overkill at all. It's true that only about 100 people a year die from peanut allergy in the U.S., but most of those are from accidental exposure. It's one of the few food allergies that tends to be so severe that even something like a child not washing his hands thoroughly and then joining hands with an allergic child unaware of the traces on his hands could be fatal.
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Yes, it is scary.
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My son's good friend has a peanut allergy, and the school did two things.
First, they informed the other parents in the class. Knowledge is power, especially when parents provide snacks for school events and parties.
Second, they encouraged parents to find healthy alternatives -- like fruits and vegetables -- to bring for snacks when they could. My son brought home a list of suggestions that was really helpful.
Sure, there was no peanut-butter cracker based segregation. (That strikes me as ridiculous.) But there was an attempt to educate parents and seek alternative solutions that would work for all the kids. -
We didn't use to have this situation because:
1. Kids with such allergies died young from exposure to the allergin.
2. We were just kids ourselves, so our parents probably didn't bother telling us why there was no peanut products in our lunches (if we noticed the absence at all).
I feel for the parents of such allergic kids, I really do. But I also think it should be incumbant on the parents to adjust their and their kids' lives for the problem rather than expect a dozen or two other families to adjust for them.
Our family encountered this classmate-is-allergic situation a couple years ago. I made a few blog posts on our experience:
www.totalbullgrit.com/2007/08/31/peanut-allergies/
www.totalbullgrit.com/2007/09/05/peanut-allergies-post-script/
www.totalbullgrit.com/2007/11/11/oops-peanuts/
"Am I being insensitive or is this policy too strict?"
I think the school is probably being too strict. If the child is so sensitive to peanuts that some anywhere in the school could affect him/her, then he/she should not be in the school. I can see restricting one classroom, or isolating the few allergic students, but restricting the whole school or isolating another student are signs that the school is scared.-
So you think the family of the allergic child should "adjust their lives" to the extent of taking the child out of school and home-schooling or hiring a full-time tutor for him for 13 years of schooling as opposed to asking other people to "adjust their lives" by eliminating one food product during a segment of the day?
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"eliminating one food product"
Severe peanut allergy, like the one who used to be in my son's class, meant eliminating all food with peanuts as an ingredient. That's far more than one food product. Really, I was surprised at how many foods had a peanut component.
"So you think the family of the allergic child should "adjust their lives" to the extent "
If the allergy is severe enough that everyone around you has to adjust their lives to accommodate you, then you need to adjust your life enough to lessen the impact on other people. Sounds like simple fairness and politeness to me.
As an analogy, if you have a weakened immune system, to the point that others could easily pass you an illness, then which is more fair: you wear a mask to protect yourself, or everyone around you wear a mask to protect you. -
@Bullgrit: Both of my kids are in classes with peanut allergy kids. I was also amazed at how many things contain traces of peanuts (none of which I can send to school now). I did my shopping early and stocked up on numerous snacks for school. Sadly, more than half those snacks contain traces of peanuts and can't be sent to school.
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Considering that the allergy could have been triggered by your son simply by having some peanut butter on his hand and touching the other child, I don't think requesting your son to eat his snack in a different part of the room was unreasonable. Asking him to leave the room would have been, though. Would you want to know that your kid was put in a position where he needed to use an epi-pen to survive the day because another kid had something to which he was allergic?
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This is a very scary allergy. We had a boy in my school who would go into respiratory distress just from smelling peanuts. -
Good Lord! It's not like all the other families must adjust their entire daily living routine, it's one simple change to protect a child who is not old enough to take the responsibility for his own medical condition. The other kids may eat as many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as they want as soon as they get home!
It would be sad if that child had to be home-schooled and miss out on all the socialization just because the other parents are freaking out that they can't put a pb&j in their kids lunch. -
Bullgrit......
"Kids with such allergies died off....""
Not sure where or when you grew up, but.....
I grew up in the late 60s, 70s, early 80s and I can tell you that of the 600 kids in my graduating class, maybe one had a peanut allergy. Now, it's 1 in 20, maybe more.
OH, and everyone seemed to survive OK.-
"I grew up in the late 60s, 70s, early 80s and I can tell you that of the 600 kids in my graduating class, maybe one had a peanut allergy. Now, it's 1 in 20, maybe more."
I was born 1967.
You can say that of the 600 kids in your graduating class there was "maybe one" with a peanut allergy? So you really don't know for sure. That's it, you don't know. As a teenager, you didn't know who had a peanut allergy. Unless it was a close friend, how/why would you know? Ask a teeanger now how many kids in his graduating class have a peanut allergy -- they don't know now any more than you knew then.
"Now, it's 1 in 20, maybe more."
Really? 1 in 20? You know this how?
According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (www3.niaid.nih.gov/)
Allergy to peanuts in the general population is 0.6 percent with the rate in children under age 18 (0.8 percent) slightly different from adults (0.6 percent).
That's 8 kids in 1,000. So in your graduating class, there might have been 4 or 5 kids with a peanut allergy. And not all the allergic kids have it severe enough to be affected by peanuts merely in their environment. Most with the allergy only react if they eat peanuts, and even then the symptoms could be mild enough to pass as just some "regular" illness.
"Johnny got sick yesterday afternoon and went home." You, as just a student in the school, would probably never know he got sick from eating a peanut butter cracker.
"OH, and everyone seemed to survive OK."
Except for the ones that didn't surive -- and you wouldn't know why they didn't survive. Besides most allergies are not that severe, and those with the severe allergies knew/know how to avoid the allergin.
I prefer facts and common sense over anecdotal hyperbole.
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Why don't we eliminate all food and just turn to Soylent Green? And if we find out people are allergic to Soylent Green, we can turn to Soylent Blue, and so on, and so on, and so on...-
Until we are all killed by allergies and the last man alive is The Omega Man...
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Does Omega Man have super powers?
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Nope, but I first saw him in "Soylent Green"...
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I'm torn between two sides on this issue... My son, only being 3, goes to preschool two days a week but they have the same policy.
The Firefighter/Paramedic in me says "You know what, food allergies have been around forever. Why are we making a big stink about it now. Train teachers and students to use an EpiPen (epinephrine) and teach those afflicted to be careful about what they eat".
The concerned parent in me says "if that was my kid I'd want him exposed to food stuffs like that as little as possible and am grateful that the school board has made it an issue". -
I don't think it's overkill. I wish airlines would ban them.
I'm allergic to nuts. If anyone opened a packet of nuts within about 15 feet of me, I would immediately start getting symptoms of anaphylaxis - itchy eyes, hives on my skin. I once used the remote control in my mum's living room to change the channel. She had eaten nuts the previous night while using the remote. And I ended up in hospital for the day! (Though I think that one was because I must have touched my hand to my mouth. I could probably have controlled it with my epipen and antihistamines if I hadn't actually ingested any. but any intake of it means i have to get to hospital asap).
It has taken me about 20 years to work out my limitations, but there are still times I end up at hospital. So I think the school is right to try to educate and try to avoid at such an early stage.
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