I wanted to get peoples opinions and thoughts on a certain subject. The subject being nuts. As in peanuts, almonds...etc. What is your opinion or experiences about having a nut free school? We here in Raymond have a nut conscious school but it's not completely nut free. There was some discussion on the subject today and parented pre-school. My thoughts are that it can be stressful and or frustrating for a little child to understand why they can't take a peanut butter sandwich to school because there is another child in their class that is allergic (weather it be minor or severe allergies) to nuts. On the other hand I could understand that if that were my child I would appreciate the support. So what's the solution? Where is the middle ground on an issue like this? How do you not alienate other kids' choices because of a few other kids? Anyway, that's my question for today.
3 years ago
5 comments:
I don't have any nut allergies in my family, so I can't really empathize with families who do, but we DO have a nut free school here and it has caused some irritations for me. We also have an EGG free school, it seems. I used to send hard boiled eggs to school for the kids, but I was told to stop sending any eggs to school (in sandwiches or otherwise) UGH!
It's a fine line because you can't really ostracize (sp?) the kids with allergies by making them sit somewhere else (it would hurt their feelings), but MY kids are also frustrated by all of the limitations being placed on them. Let me rephrase - I'M frustrated!
I wish I knew the answer to this. I guess if my child had a deadly allergy I would expect that they would have a safe environment at school. I'm interested to see what responses you get here.
That's crazy! Egg free as well!! I've never even heard of that. The next thing it will be is wheat free, dairy free, etc etc and then what are people going to do. It just doesn't seem fair that becuase some kids have an allergy that everyone should be....well, it just seems like gone are the days when you didn't have to worry about what you sent your kids to school with. And it is frustrating. Tanner isn't even in mainstream school and it's something that I think about a lot for when the day does come that he is in the mainstream school system.
Are you ready for my post-like comment? Hey - you asked for it! :)
Let me first say that I don't have any nut allergies and neither does anyone in my family. Also, that my son LOVES peanut butter sandwiches and other peanut related snacks and I have already found it difficult to find other snacks to send to school. HOWEVER - I 100%, completely understand about having nut free schools. It's not like the kids with the nut allergies get the sniffles if they accidentally eat or touch some nut products. Some kids could DIE if they are even in the vicinity of nuts. And it's not that uncommon. I think that we as parents should just accept that nuts are an unacceptable thing to send to school, get over it and teach our kids to be kind and sympathetic to other children - NO MATTER WHAT THEIR DIFFERENCES. Seriously - it may be inconvenient, but it's not the end of the world.
As for other allergies - eggs, dairy, wheat etc., unless there is a fatal allergy and the child involved doesn't even have to ingest the food to be affected, then that's probably being a little too cautious.
Anyway - I guess what I am saying is, put yourself in the other people's shoes - parent and child. What may be slightly irritating to us is probably extremely irritating to them, but more importantly, it's a matter of life or death. When you weigh that with irritation - which one wins?
Oh, that was viscious Jamie! lol. I understand both sides. I just wonder if there IS a middleground and/or solution for this problem. Of course I would never intentionally send my child to school if we were asked not to, but is there a better soloution? Is there a happy medium? Could there be a nut free room, maybe, for those with severe, life and death allergies? I don't know. I'd sure like to hear peoples suggestions and opinions on if there even is a possible solution. Maybe people should start complaining to some of the companies that there aren't enough nut free snacks on the market. Tanner also loves a lot of things with nuts in it and truthfully, it's one of the biggest sorces of protien for him because he doesn't eat meat very willingly. Ham is about the only other kind of meat he'll eat. So what happens if he gets bored with ham and wants peanut butter? I pray that he'll outgrow this and start eating more meat but I don't know for sure that he will. I also think that the consideration thing (or rather the sympathetic thing) goes both ways. It shouldn't just be the children that DON'T have nut allergies that should be considerate and/or sympathetic but also the children that do have allergies should also be taught to be responsible for being more aware. I feel it's a 2 way street. The responsibility shouldn't be on just one group of people. It needs to be a whole group effort. I'm not saying that kids without nut allergies should ignore or not care or not be sympathetic towards children who do have the severe nut allergy, but is there a way that both can co-exist in the same school?
P.S. I would for sure choose irritation over life and death.
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