To think this 'nut free policy' is OTT for a school

[MerryMarigold]

So, letter home about next term's 'nut free' policy and I think it's a bit extreme but tell me what you think. In packed lunches (I will have 3 having packed lunch next year), we are not allowed to include:

• Fruit and cereal bars which contain nuts
• Sesame seed rolls
• Nutella
• Peanut butter
• Cakes made with nuts
• Muesli bars
• Baklava/ Nougat/ Turkish Delight
• Any packets of nuts

I would assume we are not allowed to give them pistachios in a Tupperware box either.

Anyway, my point is that how can they police it this closely? I know some kids cannot come into ANY contact with nuts, but for example, my kids would have nuts in granola at breakfast and probably not always wash their hands before school (if they remembered to clean their teeth when they first get up). I also refuse to check the ingredient list of everything I put into a packed lunch for 3 children so there are bound to be nuts in something they end up having.

Nuts are very healthy and nutritious, so we basically need to swap nut based products for something less healthy. I am most upset about the Muesli bars and no cakes made with nuts. Ds1 is a major food-refuser. He has never managed school dinners and food at home is an issue too. He nearly always has a muesli bar in his lunch, which I suppose I will need to substitute with biscuits. And sometimes I would include cakes made with nuts just to up his nutrition at lunchtime a bit. He doesn't like any form of meat, fish or cheese in his sandwiches.

I do sympathise that there are (a very few) people who have a 'life threatening reaction to nut products' (quoted on the 'nut free policy' letter). However, I would assume they do carry an epi-pen as it is impossible to create a completely nut free environment in a large school of children who are eating nuts at least at home. So, in reality it is not life threatening unless there is a child who has an unknown severe nut allergy. I would even be compassionate if it was stated that a child (without mentioning names) had had a reaction several times in school, but I very much doubt a child has reacted at school, and there may not even be a child with a severe nut allergy, so this is just scare mongering really.

SO, I do need to feel more positive about this and the extra work it will cause me, the extra moaning from my child and the reduction in nutrition. Please tell me off gently! I've had a bad night with not much sleep though, so please bear with me.

I don't think it is rare to have an allergy that doesn't require you to have contact for a reaction. I have one to horses. I only have to be in a room with someone/something that has recently had contact with a horse to experience a very severe allergic reaction, including asthma as well as wheezing, running eyes and nose and insane levels of sneezing - not anaphylaxis and not life-threatening (apart from the asthma part) but very very unpleasant nonetheless. I don't know why horsey people hang out in pubs so much but they have ruined a fair number of nights out and delicious meals for me over the past thirty years or so. I do take anti-histamines, btw. They just don't cut it with the horse thing.

My son has a severe dairy allergy (not life threatening luckily) however I think its going to be really hard to keep him away from it when he starts school. As a mum with a child with an allergy I think the school are doing the right thing if there's a child starting with a nut allergy it's horrible watching your child be so poorly from eating certain things. Yabu it's quite easy to quickly check ingredients on things trust me it's a daily thing in my house

I really don't know if your comment is completely selfish or just absolutely naive. Either way, carrying an epipen does not guarantee that your life is safe if you are an allergy sufferer. People can and have DIED as a result of consuming these products even after being Injected with a pen. For you to make a huge fuss over your children's nutrition for ONE meal in an entire day is absolutely bewildering to me. Particularly as there are obviously nut free options to everything you describe above and other healthy alternatives to nuts.

I would like to hope that with a nut ban that no parent would be selfish enough to purchase a product that says "fruit and nut" and send it to the school where my daughter is at risk and may not realise in that moment that she cannot eat something everyone else is trying. Especially if it is something like Nutella where it would not be clear to her. For you to spend 5 seconds looking at the BOLDED ingredients on a handful of products to reduce the risk to my daughters life is really not something I feel is a lot to ask.

Having said all of this I still absolutely advise her she can never eat anything anyone offers her even if she eats it every single day at home. But sending a 4 year old on a school trip when you will not be there to watch what she is doing is pretty traumatising and I actually find your attitude to how serious that is quite upsetting. It will not stop people sending nuts in to the school, the point is everyone is that little bit more careful or aware so if you are making flapjacks then don't put bloody nuts in them! unless you want to be the cause of someone's child's death (and yes, it is that serious).

I cannot believe despite all the education and news out there you would actually spit your dummy out over your child's nutrition versus someone's child's life. SO glad my daughter doesn't attend the school your children do!!

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3682659.stm

"An allergy expert says almost every school in the country now has at least one pupil with a nut allergy - compared with a generation ago when this would have been a rarity."

I had a child in my reception class who was severely allergic to nuts, citrus fruit and pva glue! The pva glue was discovered on his first day at school when he suffered a life threatening reaction in my classroom. We have him 2 epipens and he was still in a bad way when the ambulance got to him. Imagine the lengths we had to go to at the school to keep him safe and we still didn't always succeed. A child suffering a true severe allergic reaction is horrifying for bystanders..imagine how hard life is for them and their parents.

DH worked with someone a few years ago who had to be bluelighted to hospital with anaphylactic shock after someone peeled an orange on the other side of a large canteen. Fortunately she recovered (epipen kept her alive until the medics arrived) but still scary for everyone. They knew she was allergic to oranges, but the person with the orange hadn't realized eating one on the other side of a big room would cause a problem.

Oh my god!
You have no idea if a child coming in to the school has an allergy or not, but are essentially challenge the rules?!
I LOVE nuts (!) & find the no nuts rules deeply frustrating, but I totally respect those rules. I know plenty of children with severe nut allergies & don't trust young children not to share food (or have hygiene standards)
Just think how you would feel sending your child who has a severe (read fatal) nut allergy to school where you can't protect them from the touch of someone who has just eaten nuts. I don't know that I could do that with either of mine at 4y old.

YABU you clearly haven't ever experienced the heartache of worrying about your child being poisoned by something everyone else sees as benign. It's hellish. Luckily my daughter grew out of her allergies but it's left me with a great deal of empathy for those effected. It's awful. You say that children are eating nuts at home etc, imagine being a parent of a severely allergic child knowing that. Knowing that despite the schools best intentions and rules to attempt to make a safe environment all it takes is a friend having had nut granola for breakfast and then giving them a hug to kill or severely injure your child. Your kids right to cereal bars does not override someone's right not to have anaphylaxis.

so is this a debate about potentially saving a child's life? what would you rather stress about...a life threatening allergy or a fussy eater?

YABU completely. I have a child who has a severe nut allergy. One day he was at school and a little girl had a nut mix snack she was playing with my son and she put her hand up to his face as they were carrying on, he went into anaphylactic shock. The school have epi-pens for him but he still had to go to hospital. You MUST go to hospital if you go into anaphylactic shock even if you have an epi-pen. I only live down the road from the school so was able to run up when the school called me. To see your child lying there struggling to breath and his mouth turning blue is the most terrifying ordeal, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Our school had a nut free policy at the time but for some reason this parent chose to ignore it. I had also heard through the grapevine that the parent of the child who took the nut snack into school was complaining because she was unable to give her child healthy snacks at school because of this policy (whether this is true or not I don't know).

There are other things you can give you child other than nuts.

I have a friend who is this allergic to almost every nut. It's life threatening. Just having an epi pen sometime just does not cut it. Whenever he is over we ensure we don't have nuts around.

My daughter is allergic to
Cats
Dog saliva
Tomatoes in all forms
Oranges and pineapple
Paprika
Dust
And any products with parabens.
She also had a reaction this evening to a blow up air bed so she may be allergic to pvc

not unexpected babybarrister since this is the view of allergy UK.

the people on this thread who seem to be most vehemently in favour of the ban seem to be those who don't have anaphylactic children or have this reaction themselves.

No one is saying that anaphylactic shock isn't serious or that it can kill you. no one is saying that having this or having a child with this isn't an awful life changing condition because it is. it is horrible.

but the crux of the argument is that you cant trust people to be that careful and you lull yourself and your children into a false sense of security if you tell them that this or that environment is nut free. also the analogy up thread about their being a top trumps of allergies did really make me laugh. I have lost count of the number of times over the years when I have told people about my allergies - those relevant to the situation not the full list obviously - and they have turned round and said "oh good at least its not a peanut allergy" as if somehow the anaphylactic shock you get is shock-lite if it isn't from peanuts.

this would be a whole different thread if the school had said no nuts, no berries, no dairy and no eggs. Be really honest, if you send your child to school with a packed lunch could you do no nuts, dairy, eggs or berries every day?

My children attend a nut free school. Personally it is no bother as mine have school Lunch.
However, when I went to summer day camps people with nut allergies had lunch at one end of the room and those who had any trace of nut would be at the other.
This was 20 years ago, but if it worked then why can't it work now?

I find it incredibly sad that so many people care more about spending a few minutes thinking about the contents of their children's lunch boxes than other children's health. Ds1 has a severe nut allergy, his school does not ban nuts, which works for us.
But for reasons we don't know a child's parents/ doctor/ school nurse have decided that asking parents not to send their child in with nuts is the best policy.
Ds's pre-school sent a letter home saying something similar and it was heartbreaking for me to overhear a group of parents moaning about it. Then one day, despite having told him constantly to only eat his own food, DS (aged 4) accepted a biscuit from another child. Luckily his mother has complied & had no nuts in.
Even if only 10% of parents bother, imo that's 10% lower chance of me receiving a phone call saying DS is in the back of an ambulance.

I have lost count of the number of times over the years when I have told people about my allergies - those relevant to the situation not the full list obviously - and they have turned round and said "oh good at least its not a peanut allergy" as if somehow the anaphylactic shock you get is shock-lite if it isn't from peanuts.

I have a severe peanut allergy but peanuts have accounted for only a minority of the life-threatening reactions I've had over the years. In fact my most serious reaction - I had no BP by the time the paramedics treated me - was to an environmental allergen, possibly poisonous caterpillars, although we're not sure. My second most serious reaction was to honey (or rather, to the pollens in untreated honey).

In comparison to environmental allergens, peanuts are easy to avoid. In the last 15-20 years (since awareness and labelling improved) I've had one proper peanut reaction and it was entirely my own fault. Because the risk has decreased, so has my own vigilence (I'm much more careful about mustard, my other bad food allergy).

bagofmashings it shouldn't be possible for a seriously allergic 4 year old to take a biscuit from another child - this is exactly the sort of lapse of vigilence that nut bans encourage.

Why is it a problem if the parents know X has a nut allergy? I know people have said about privacy etc but surely it is better not to hide a nut allergy?

I do think parents are more likely to accept a nut ban without fuss if the letter specifically states that a child is joining with a severe nut allergy. They don't beef to know which one, although the child's classmates should probably be told.

Being near someone eating a nut wont cause anaphylaxis. Even a nuts touching skin wont cause anaphylaxis. It has to be injested or touching mucas membrane.

So breathing in air with nut oil then?

Or child A has nuts for lunch, doesn't wash their hands and holds hands with child B in the playground. Child B picks his nose and there you are contact with a mucus membrane.

I'm puzzled as to why it's nuts that schools tend to ban when some people have severe and potentially fatal allergies to dairy, eggs, berries etc.

I am wondering whether banning nuts is trendy but banning dairy isn't.

YABU. I can't believe you even posted this, what is wrong with you?

DS has a boy in his class who is allergic to nuts and we are careful about what we send in as we are aware he could die if we send in nuts by accident.

I can't get my head round the attitude that you think it's inconvenient so you don't even want to try. This is another child's life we are taking about FFS.

Jesus, I really don't get why people have a problem with no but products in school. It's ONE meal of the day, for which other healthy products can substitute nuts.

Neither my children nor I have but allergies, but DD's closest friend has so I understand the issue. That so many on here think the list is OTT is fucking shameful; nut allergies are not some made up 'woo' thing to inconvenience parents. Some people really need to grow up and realise that the health of another child, as well as their own, is important too.

*nut. Stupid phone!

This is another child's life we are taking about FFS.

And yet major allergy organisations don't recommend bans...

I was diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy at the age of 2. I've survived 51 years so far, but not without a few very close calls. I must have learned to read by examining packaging labels and certainly never put anything in my mouth without knowing what it was, which meant saying no to many tempting foods. The real danger lies with accidental contact, whether by breathing in what others have ingested, false information on menus or packaging, all sorts of hidden danger. Plane journeys are a huge risk, for example. And believe me, whenever anyone is thoughtful and caring enough to avoid consuming peanuts in public, I'm extremely grateful. I don't demand it - how could I? - but I certainly appreciate it.