Nightmare lunch box type ban at school

[lunchme]

DS is 7 and attends a special school.

They have a new pupil coming in and the new list of banned foods are things containing -

Peanuts
Cashews
Sesame
Milk
Wheat
Barley
Almond
Pork

They announced this on our class up this afternoon and no further instruction! But they insist on DS having packed lunch and not school dinners since he likes lunches better because he's seen other kids having crisps etc

My DS has an allergy of sesame and his other classmate was peanuts. The other allergies are all from one child

This isn't to slag off a poor child. I just wish they'd give more notice than a Thursday afternoon

Minimal experience, not no experience at all. Therefore I didn't claim to be an expert on the topic. I am genuinely curious what happens as these kids enter and navigate adulthood with such restricted eating. But I guess that's for another thread.

Thanks for the post, makes sense 😀

You’d be amazed at what some children survive eating. Also you’d be amazed at how some children would literally starve if their safe food was not available or need to be admitted to hospital. I think people assume that children with restricted diets would just eat something else if they were hungry enough- sadly that’s often not true.

So they really would starve themselves? Is there no solution for these kids? Therapy etc? That's really shit for them. I admit I don't have much experience in this, but it must be bloody hard.

This is completely unreasonable of the school and I wouldn’t be doing it. I wouldn’t have time to make alternative lunches or time to check all ingredients and I wouldn’t want that responsibility when it isn’t my child. I would also have a big problem with no milk. Dairy is recommended and there’s no way I’d cut it out of packed lunches. Alternative products are also more expensive so unless the school is going to pay for them then no. They will have to come up with an alternative, child eats in a different room.

They are adults and can choose their own food. My brother eats mainly pasta. Is it the best thing for him, nutritionally speaking? No. But he’s a grown man and has the capacity to make his own choices about food. That’s what he chooses.

He also wasn’t diagnosed with his very clear and apparent ASD until the age of 17, so his school experience was endless bullying (up to and including being almost hanged in the gymnasium with the ropes), and teachers saying things like ‘He’s a bit odd’, and ‘he doesn’t like speaking in front of the class, but if you shout at him until he cries, he can do it then’ (both verbatim quotes from parents evenings). Thankfully children like him are often spotted earlier now - although getting them the correct support is as much of a battle as ever.

Our school doesn't allow bananas due to a nursery child being allergic. Nursery is in a totally separate building.

Yes, they really will starve themselves.
Yes, there is therapy, undertaken with an Occupational Therapist and a Dietician. It's slow and tiny steps myself and partner and have been undertaking for years, requires shedloads of patience and no forcing or punishment.
My son is in mainstream and I live in constant fear that a teacher/well-meaning adult in school will undo all our hard work in minutes by forcing my son to touch/pick up/ eat something he doesn't feel happy about.
My son will physically gag just looking at something someone expects him to eat and it isn't one of his trusted foods.

As parents, I can assure you we feel guilt, we beat ourselves up as to what we did wrong. This is my third child and my only child with an eating disorder, so eventually you figure out that you did nothing wrong, but that's not without being made to feel like a failure by nurses, doctors, healthcare staff, family and fellow parents.

But, in discussing matters at length with my son he has recognised he is lacking in iron and some vitamins, he is a very intelligent 11-year-old and has with our help managed to start drinking an iron supplement daily for one week and a vitamin supplement the other week. You never know, in two years time he might actually manage both supplements in one day, and not diluted in so much water, but he is amazing for having got this far with the supplements.

He has other issues too, so often life is about dealing with one issue at a time, it's taken 11 years to get him happy and settled to the fact school has to be 'endured' (his words). My hope is that as he matures, he will look and see other foods around him he might like to try but I'm not going to hold my breath.

The school need to rethink this
There is no way that children with additional needs should have their diet changed to accommodate 1 pupil
Christ it can take years to get them to try something new, children I know would starve if you took that away from them
Sympathy for that poor child but other pupils needs are a factor too

If they had so many serious allergies then I’d probably be asking for it, as otherwise there’s just too high a chance that they get exposed to something.

Eating time is 20 mins max. School can assign a 1-2-1 and/or a friend with a compatible lunch. They can sit in a nice room. If the child wanted school dinners they would have to provide it so they could do it for 2

Its unmanageable and unenforceable - and frankly far to risky to assume no-ones going to accidentally butter their wheatfree porridge bread or dob a bit of salami on their quinoa.....

One of my sisters has coeliac, and one of my children has multiple allergies.
We were specifically told it would be unhealthy for those of us without coeliac to eat free-from foods as they contain more preservatives, fewer nutrients and fibre and higher calories. They're also much more expensive and don't taste as good.
So I wouldn't be happy putting my child on a free-from diet if they were not allergic. The school needs to find another alternative.

We use wheat, gluten free, almond, oat, and coconut flour interchangeably and it has never been an issue. For pasta and noddles we use wheat, lentil, buckwheat and rice.

We started our toddler off on wheat at five months old to test for allergies and then at a year old we introduced other flours, and it hasn't been an issue.

I completely understand that finding alternatives to wheat can be really difficult and I also understand that introducing new foods to a child with special needs can be difficult if not impossible. Again, I don't know the food needs of the OP child as she didn't say in her first post. I was simply providing a little advice based on what we do to make things easier and the OP can take or not take any advice posted here.

Eating a diet rich in vegetables, fruit, and protein and low in wheat is how we eat in my family. We like to cook, try new recipes and our toddler likes to help. We try new muffin and bread recipes a few times per month and my toddler loves helping with the prep and baking and its a great opportunity to teach measuring, talk about the ingredients, etc. I do find it easy to find new recipes and cook those. I have a couple websites that I trust when it comes to recipes and I love reading cookbook and coming up with new things for my family to eat. That is what works for me and my family. If that doesn't work for you then don't do it.

You come across as a little bit smug, tbh, rosewater.

My children are NT, and even then, when they had stress in school they insisted on the same, predictable and safe for them food.

Take that food away and you have a stressed out, unhappy child. I cannot even begin to imagine what it is for parents with children who have sensory issues and are particular about their food.

Yes, we all know that a diet rich in veg is the best, and thank you for letting us know just how well you are doing, but sometimes that is just not possible.

A Jewish person at a non-denominational school would never ask for pork products not to be eaten by other children. That assumption is absolute nonsense.

rosewater20
This is difficult but can be done with some planning and might end up being much healthier overall. In your position, I would make a schedule where you pack the same lunch on specific days that way it becomes automated. For instance: Monday = homemade dairy and wheat-free muffin with sliced cucumber & tomato and fruit. Tuesday = lentil pasta (we use a brand of pasta that is just made from lentils), veggies and fruit. Wednesday = roasted squash with quinoa, etc.

If your child has restricted eating then this will clearly be very difficult and in that case the school needs to help provide a work around. Good luck!

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So you think an entire school has to change their weekly food shop, menu plan etc for one child, instead of the school working out a safe plan for the child who has allergies

Well that would rule out my sun eating at school, he has ARFID and all his safe lunches would be excluded!

It is a special school, there will be plenty of kids there with restricted diets, autistic eating, full ARFID and the rest: they should be well within their ability to sort this.

Mine has had. LOT of therapy and medication and now eats enough (at age 12 he was under 4st), but yes, itself likely his diet will always be restricted. Hopefully not as bad as it is when hesitant stressed and anxious (dx: autism, ARFID, ocd, avoidant anxiety) but it might be. His lunch options each day are a Tesco savers tin of beans and sausages, or a single marmite sandwich on white bread, or an attack a snack but the latter two often don’t get eaten. He is almost 15 now. He has a fruit winder with it, thats a recent huge win.

My daughter is 10 and has a peanut allergy (randomly appeared in 2021 after she had Covid) I found out when she had a fit in the M&M shop! One day a classmate came to school wearing a blazer and had eaten nuts the evening before. Her allergy is anaphylactic and she has epi pens. She was administered those in school and I arrived before the ambulance …. Of course she was fine and I appreciate that is sadly not always the case BUT I do not enforce endless rules on what others consume near her …. I manage her safety the best I can and use medical intervention as required. I appreciate not the same for all .

Dd is allergic to some airborne stuff. Avoiding those things seems fair enough...maybe by moving children to different rooms. Bloody nightmare if you have children on a restricted diet. School need to do a bit more work on this.

(I know a child who would have spectacular meltdowns when hungry and these could put their/others life at risk due to their impulsive behaviour (running into traffic if not restrained and violence /self harm in meltdown) )

It is bloody hard when you are dealing with kids with special needs as all these parents are, possibly with their own disabilities too. Life as a carer is exhausting and many are barely coping, often as a single parent. If you've never had to deal with 6 hour post school meltdowns, trying to keep a child safe, then cook and bath child, then clear up the results of the meltdown you can't really say it's not hard.

Absolutely would be happy for my child to be separated as it's bloody safer. (Anaphylactic child)

plain crisps it is then. Until someone declares they have airborne allergy to salt & potatoes, that is

I can imagine. I have reason to know that bananas bounce at least 3 feet high and 6 foot in distance when launched at speed.

Especially as small exposure to peanuts regularly can stop children developing anaphylaxis to them (was on Radio 4 science program a while back but I can't remember which one) I took note as my child has some reaction to peanuts but not anaphylaxis (that's pistachios and possibly cashews) we are a peanut eating house so she is exposed to them regularly in the environment. I probably ought to follow this up reading scientific literature...it was really surprising! I hope I'm not misremembering

She was stuck on a lower rung of the milk ladder but has now started eating a bit of cheese.
Allergies are weird and often counterintuitive and changing regularly.