Is eating Peanut butter before school breaking the ‘nut free’ rules ??

[RenaissanceGraffiti]

Dd has ARFID and autism so has a limited diet . Breakfast is always peanut butter on toast.
School is nut free and one day dd last week dd had gone in and said she had PB when they’d been chatting about breakfast - after school the TA said as there’s a child in the class with a nut allergy can we give dd a different breakfast ?? Surely this isn’t breaking the rules !!

No they can't tell you what to feed her at home. Especially with her restrictive diet. As long as she brushes her teeth, and washes her hands afterwards, it's fine.

An ARFID child may die from malnutrition. I’d the bar is set only at ‘may die’.

The school needs to find ways of managing the allergy that don’t remove a nutritious foodstuff from a child’s already very restricted diet.

One of my close friends has an extremely severe nut allergy. He has nearly died on at least 2 occasions.

When we see them, we don't eat nuts for 24 hours or so beforehand. And if they come to us, I wouldn't have nuts in the kitchen.

No, they probably can't force you to stop. But you have the choice not to put another child at risk of serious harm.

But if that was necessary, the school should communicate it widely. Not ad hoc to individual children who happen to mention they had PB that morning. Every single other child in the class may have also had PB but just not mentioned it. Which suggests it's not actually the policy.

I think for a child without their own dietary restrictions, I would be quite happy to avoid peanut butter for breakfast if there really was a seriously allergic child in the class. However in this case, I don't see why another child's medical needs trump your DD's medical needs ie this being the only safe breakfast food for her. I'd explicitly explain this to the teacher, explain the clothes/hygiene precautions you're taking and suggests they keep the children separate for the first couple of hours where possible. And then I'd continue giving her peanut butter tbh. The child obviously hasn't had a reaction yet so whatever you're doing is working.

It's not really about following rules, it's more about being a caring and considerate person..

I don’t have enough eye rolls for this snipe 🤦🏻‍♀️

No. Even if you said you agreed to it, there's no way they can control it and would have no proof of it.

You're fine OP. School have absolutely no say over what your child eats in their own home.

I also don't know anyone with allergies who would expect this level of restriction either. It's always people who aren't allergic who think this level of control over other people is somehow acceptable.

No milk in your tea at breakfast and the whole school day during term time, 5 days a week??
Really?

And you’d be happy for your dc to never have breakfast either? 5 days a week during the whole if term time
Never mind the impact on their health , difficulty in concentrating and learning etc… (remember that’s the reason why school offer breakfast - because if the impact on learning).

I think if the allergy was that serious wouldn't the parents have asked the school to make this request clear to ALL parents when their child joined the school/class?.
It was just by chance that you child mentioned what they ate, there must be others who are having nut products before school who they don't know about

I think you are taking all reasonable precautions, and wouldn't worry. I say that as someone who deals with life threatening anaphylaxis in my DS. Cashew allergy is more severe than peanut allergy generally but peanut allergy is more common. Plenty up to date and recent information on this fact sheet.

www.anaphylaxis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Peanuts-and-tree-nuts-V10.pdf

Think it's more common for teenagers to get reactions from kissing someone who has eaten peanut butter or similar allergens.

@RudsyFarmer it really wasn't meant as a snipe. I apologised in a later post for not initially understanding it wasn't as easy for the OP. I was clumsy with my posting but I meant no harm.

But that makes sense when for the majority of allergens it’s ingestion that creates the problem. Even if it’s a contact allergy you drinking a cup of tea in the morning is unlikely to trigger a reaction unless you pour the milk over your hands and don’t wash them!

taking precautions is sensible but they have to be proportionate.

shouting about how ‘this child might die’ is not helpful.

The fact is that you cannot keep a child with the kind of allergy safe by restricting the diets of their classmates outside school.

That is not a reasonable adjustment. Nor is is likely to be effective as you’ll still have to manage it in case someone has misunderstood or slipped up or whatever.

What if you’ve got a potentially deadly peanut allergy and a potentially deadly dairy allergy in the same class? Are you going to insist that everyone ensures they haven’t consumed any of these allergens within 24 hours of being in school just in case they kill a child with their breath?

The school and the terrified parents need to figure out feasible ways of managing the allergy.

A TA telling an autistic child with ARFID that they can’t eat their safe foods because it’ll harm a classmate is not an OK way to manage this.

Not giving your child Pb a couple of times a week is completely different to not being allowed it every single morning before school. That's ridiculous OP where does it end?

do you have any evidence an ARFID child has ever died of malnutrition because they missed breakfast 5 @IncomingTraffic? I'm assuming op would have mentioned if missing breakfast meant her child doesn't eat all day as that would obviously make quite a large difference. It's far far from ideal but the two are not comparable.

sometimes on MN I am literally amazed at what people think is a reasonable response.

Letting children go hungry is just ‘not ideal’.

Or… maybe a school environment is simply unable to meet the needs of a child who has an allergy this severe? Indeed, any space where they may encounter other people.

I’m glad you apologised as I read it an pulled this face 🥴

Do you think that Amy Pay should have just stayed at home, rather than trying to go out, live her life and have friends and a career?

Or my friend, who I've seen turn green, swell up and stop breathing at a party when canapés with nuts were being handed around?

You think people with health conditions should just be shut off from the world, rather than other people show a bit of consideration?

Even without your daughter's food issues the TA was being unreasonable.

The child has to learn to cope with everyday life, the can't stop people they sit next to on the bus, stand beside in a queue etc eating nuts beforehand.

Even without your daughter's food issues the TA was being unreasonable.

The child has to learn to cope with everyday life, the can't stop people they sit next to on the bus, stand beside in a queue etc eating nuts beforehand.

this is way beyond ‘show a bit of consideration’.

if you have to control what people are hours before they encounter you, you are going to have to make significant adjustments to your life.

That is just how it is. It’s terrible. But honestly, controlling breakfast in 31 other households is completely unrealistic and unreasonable. if that’s the requirement, then unfortunately there is no way to include the child with the allergy.