mums going ga ga as nursery says no nuts/products

[thekidsrule]

hi,this isnt about me but happened at my sons nursery today and not sure if the parents ABU

as we collected are children a worker asked all parents NOT to include any nut products in their childs packed lunches as they now have a child with a nut allergy

Two of the parents went mad and were very rude to the worker about the ban

can see both sides but as my son dosent take in these products (peanut butter) etc it wont effect me and is probably why i cant make an opinion on this

so do you think the two parents who object to the ban are BU

ok... but it being airborne isn't actually the point is it?
because most schools/nurseries have a ban regardless of whether the child is contact allergic

I wouldn't mind as much if the bans were in place due to a very,. very severe allergy that could be prompted by being in the same room as a peanut, but the vast majority are NOT!

plus, this also brings us back to the point of... how do you stop other children eating nuts before school? if an allergy was severe enough that it could be triggered by being in the same room as some peanut butter then you would have to ban children from eating it for breakfast in case some was still on them

"plus, this also brings us back to the point of... how do you stop other children eating nuts before school? if an allergy was severe enough that it could be triggered by being in the same room as some peanut butter then you would have to ban children from eating it for breakfast in case some was still on them"

The point is, though, it is very very easy not to send your child in to school with nut based products. I doubt it would adversely affect a (bar the child with SNs who only eats peanut butter). It is an easy thing to remove from the environment. Of course there is the risk of accidental exposure via nutella on toast for breakfast but isn't that why the child is sent in with an epi pen - in case of unavoidable exposure?

Toughasoldboots -that's a difficult one!

I do remember being so pleased to see the nut allergic child safe and well at school after he'd been to DSs party :)

My DCs schools and nurseries have always had a nut ban, an my eldest is 15. I also know a child who had an anaphylactic shock from an empty outer box from Crunchy Nut Cornflakes (before they changed the name and presumably the formula).
Why we have so many more allergic kids in the UK, and whether we are treating allergy properly is a separate issue. Maybe they should be introduced to allergens, but in a medically controlled environment.

My DS's school was nut free and they were very, very proud of this and how lunches were policed etc. Good, right? ........ except the class guinea pig was fed peanuts. My DS has a peanut allergy.

The parents narked at nuts being banned are BU. It is more important for the allergic child to have a safe environment than those other children to eat nuts. How anyone can think differently is beyond me.

The problem is as has been said here that it doesn't seem to stop at just banning things in school - it affects in some cases what people can do at home. So, it affects breakfast, it affects shampoo, soap, presumably some types of body lotion etc. As NiceDad says that is the tail wagging the dog.

Whilst I would be happy not to send in peanut butter sandwiches, I'd be damned if I had to police what my shampoo was made of, or not let ds have peanut butter/crunchy nut cornflakes/nutella for breakfast. That is going too far. If the allergies are that bad, then presumably, we then extend nut bans to supermarkets, cafes, restaurants etc. Where does it stop?

I'm going to go back to my first point. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of banning nuts or any other foodstuff, the mothers were utterly in the wrong for having a go at the nursery employee, who was only the messenger, passing on nursery policy. Nursery employees are paid to take care of their children, not to take their abuse/rudeness if they don't like nursery policy.

scaryteacher - Who is asking you to stop using (e.g.) nut products at home?

My earlier suggestion that mainstream school is not suitable for someone with such a severe allergy that touching a surface could trigger it does not mean I meant they should go to a special school for challenged kids.

What i mean is that its blatantly unfair on the overall majority to make them all change their lives because of a single child's allergy. Perhaps a common sense solution would be to home school.

Otherwise how on earth can you police such a ban. Realistically its impossible. As others have said, what if I wash my child's hair in a shampoo which has say coconut oil? Or I buy them a chocolate bar which has trace elements and wasn't documented. In a school of 200 kids, how do you know who it was? Who is "responsible"? The school? The child? The parent? The manufacturer? The cleaner of the machine which made the chocolate?

Common sense dictates a ban is ultimately futile and gives worse than no security, a false sense of security.

If my child was run over tomorrow, I would not insist cars be banned.

If any nursery worker tried to stop my little Frogmella taking in her daily king size Snickers.... I don't think I would be responsible for my actions.

Let's take your analogy of a car accident further, NiceGuy. You state that, if your child was killed by a car, you wouldn't want all cars banned. I accept that. But wouldn't you be looking at the factors involved, to see if it was possible to reduce the risk of a similar accident happening to another child?

For example, if speed had been a factor, you might consider campaigning for speed bumps, or a proper pedestrian crossing to allow children to cross a fast road safely, or maybe for a lower speed limit - ie 20mph in an area where there are lots of children around - near a school, perhaps.

Or if some particular aspect of vehicle design had made the accident worse, or had contributed to it's happening in the first place, you might want that particular design feature modified, if you felt it would be a risk to other children.

It is widely accepted that it is a bad idea to drive under the influence of alchohol, as this can lead to tragedy. Presumeably the drink-driving laws came about because people saw alchohol as a factor in road deaths/accidents, and thought it was a good idea to try to reduce one potential contributory factor.

Making it illegal to drive drunk, or putting speed restrictions in place, or building a new pedestrian crossing will not stop ALL road deaths, but it will stop some happening - and that is surely a good thing.

In the same way, banning nuts in school will reduce the risk factor for nut allergic children - it won't stop all allergic reactions, and it won't change the risk factors outside school, but it will help a bit - and I can see how someone with a nut-allergic child would think that was a good idea.

Stanhousemuir - someone mentioned upthread that they'd been asked to not feed their kids anything with nuts or traces thereof for breakfast, as even that would affect the child with the allergy in their school.

Point is, where do you stop?

You stop at the school gates, you can't control what they do at home, but you can control what is in school.

The risks will always be present the task is where possible to reduce that risk

Peanuts aren't nuts anyway. They're legumes.

Scary - I reckon its perfectly reasonable to ask parents to cooperate in helping to minimise the risk to a vulnerable child. What isn't reasonable is to assume 100% compliance, and certainly not to depend on it.

At DDs last school there was a boy with some condition which left him with a severely compromised immune system. We were sent a letter asking us to ensure all our kids had had their vaccinations, and to keep them off school if they had been exposed to chickenpox. No enforcement - just an entirely reasonable request to minimise the chances of this poor lad picking up an infection which he couldn't deal with.

The school where a friends DD attends has a ban on strawberries due to allergies.

Our school doesn't actually have anything banned, if they did I'd happily remove items from DD's lunch box, but my worry would be things in other foods that I hadn't thought about iyswim. E.G easy to remember not to send a packet of nuts, but if you don't live with an allergy everyday, how easy would it be to forget to check something didn't have a nut oil in it.

I know its not the same as being allergic to something, but I remember being very surprised that Fanta wasn't suitable for vegetarians. As somebody pointed out earlier down the thread, its surprising what is in some foods (e.g. milk powder in crisps).

ggy2, I think you should change your name. You think that it is better that a severely allergic child be holed up at home rather than poor little Tarquin having to forgo his peanut butter sandwich?

The car accident/ban cars analogy is flawed, as DavidTennantsGirl says. A "nut ban" is the equivalent of putting in speed bumps. You can't prevent every exposuure but you can minimise the risks.

We've had nut bans all through infant and juniors and I've willingly complied. I have no problem with it - it must be very worrying.

But when dd went up to senior school last Sept nothing was mentioned about nuts. Not a dicky bird.

I was wondering about this the other day. What happens to those with nut allergies when the daily environment they're in isn't controllable when they're just out and about ie the cinema etc? And why no nut ban in senior schools too?

TIJASN: I think it's because as a child gets older they become more capable of dealing with their allergies themselves (see posts higher up the thread about why bans might not be a good thing). It's different in nurseries where the children have not yet learned enough to self-police; this is when it is important to consider and minimise risks.

babybarrister - I'm sorry but I still can't quite figure out why you have such an issue with 'banning', particularly when you're child has such severe allergies. Surely trying to remove problematic allergens as far as possible from the environment will help to reduce the risk with your child. I accept that vigilance is important as well.

And I don't think anyone is saying that nut allergies are worse than any other serious food allergies.

Happy for you, baby barrister, my DD will eat anything and doesn't understand her allergies. She is 4.7. Not all are as fortunate as you.