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.

My kids' primary school is nut-free as there are 2 children with such severe allergies that they have to have epipens within 30 seconds of them at all times. Two classrooms are also kiwi-free.

My DD1 happens to be cows' milk protein intolerant/allergic (depends on which doctor I'm talking to) and a terminally fussy eater so for the last two years of primary school, her lunch was a plain bagel with no filling, an apple and a bottle of water or similar. Surprisingly, she survived.

Do you want to be the one that may cause a child our even a teacher or helper to have a severe, possibly life threatening reaction instead of reading an ingredients list, which you could do when you buy, put in cupboard etc, not as you pop into their lunches to make it quicker?

I also don't think you should assume they have epi pens as I believe they have to be of a certain age and ability to gain and use one (not sure on this.)

Assuming the ban is due to a severely allergic child then The measures are justified. I once worked in a youth hostel and we did a special deep clean and banned nuts from the kitchen for a week so a severely allergic child could come on a school trip with us. The parents explained afterwards that their child had been hospitalised a few times due to the alergy and this was the first trip they had been on and without the school, other parents and us going the extra mile they'd not be able to give their child a normal life.

eyebrows maybe because a child won't die if it's exposed to dairy? Nuts are completely different to any other allergy in that sense.

Can I just correct this. It is perfectly possible to die from an anaphylactic reaction to dairy.

I'm honestly quite surprised at some peoples reactions to this. I think until you have a child with allergies you cannot understand the difficulty that is every day life. My DS has a few severe allergies, nuts being one of them. Asking for parents to check a few packages for nuts, so school is a little bit of a safer environment for some children whilst they there isn't really asking for much.

I don't understand why parents get their knickers in a twist about one short meal in the middle of the day.
You can stuff your child on whatever they can eat for breakfast, after school snack, high tea, dinner and supper, and at weekends and holidays, it can be one long scoff-fest.
So why so much angst over one lunchbox? Stuff it with whatever is acceptable to the school and your child and don't witter about the reduction in nutrition. Think of it as a hearty snack.
Teach him to wash his hands, we do in school before snack and lunch.
No, children don't carry an epipen with them, it's usually in the school office as it needs administering by an adult. No, children often don't realise what's happening if they have a reaction, nor do their friends. They just start to suffocate right there, and the MDS have seconds/minutes to react.
I'm unsure how effective nut bans are in primary, there are for and against camps within the 'children with allergies' community as well as the 'Oh dear, how inconvenient for me' crowd. That's a different argument and a long-running one.
I've had epipen training every year, never had to use it, but the training videos are scary enough for me to try and prevent me ever having to use one by being pre-emptive.

My DD school is also nut free, I have no problem with this at all, nut allergies can be fatal and I consider myself very lucky that DD has no allergies and we can swan around the world without worrying about accidental exposure to nuts/citrus/kiwi etc that are potentially life threatening. My mum has to carry an epipen so I can empathise to a degree. We eat Nutella/peanut butter/ nuts etc at home if we want.

We have the same thing at my DC school and any other primary that I know. The schools are all nut free.

I have a friend whose dd is severely allergic to peanuts. The first time she had an attack was at school (and she ended in A&E with good swelling on her face and restricted breathing), a school that is nut free. She certainly hadn't eaten any nut herself. But she still reacted, probably by touching the table where there was nut on before.
So yes it can happen even if there was when there is no one with said nut allergy.

Her dd is now in secondary. She never has school lunches. She is eating a packed lunch, put some sort of table cloth on the table first, just in case and is taking a lot of other precautions.
Why is it not necessary to be as careful in secondary school? Because very simply, the children are old enough to look after themselves and be careful/take a lot of precautions whereas you can't ask that from a 8yo. The risks are just too big.

I'll come across much crazier ideas during the time your dcs are at primary ime.

I don't understand how they can do it for multiple food groups though?

As a child I used to highly allergic to dairy ( especially cheese), and carried an Epi pen until around 10.

But if a school had one child allergic to dairy, one gluten and one nuts, they can hardly ban all of those can they? That would really limit what people could take for lunch

I have a 4yo and a 2yo and the 4yo doesn't particularly like whole nuts and the 2yo is too young to have them so the only thing on that list that is a hardship for us (sending nut free items to nursery) is peanut butter. I'd have to watch myself with sesame seed rolls as we buy them for burgers and use them left over for sandwiches.

I never make cakes with whole nuts and I don't send cake to nursery anyway (why are you sending cake for school lunch? surely they aren't allowed sweet baked goods anyway?). Ditto muesli bars, full of sugar, though they sadly like the Nakd ones that are very pricey, those are kept for treats. Same thing with Nutella (and other brands) and those sweets mentioned. Why would you be sending those to school for lunches or snacks?

They will survive with crisps instead of nuts if they HAVE to have a savoury snack - or popcorn is pretty healthy, mini Cheddars etc.

If your children (like mine) are addicted to peanut/nut butter then you can get a sunflower butter instead.

DN has a severe allergy to Nuts (and other items which we take for granted) and carrys an epi-pen.

Her school asked DS if she could take DN home for school dinners and if she was unable to, DN was allowed to choose a friend and go into a classroom to have lunch.

I know for sure my DS would not feel comfortable allowing DN into the lunch hall on the basis of a letter like this.

I'm another who was under the impression that advice from allergy organisations (one linked to upthread) was that nut bans in schools weren't recommended.

In fact I remember being shot down in flames on a similar thread to this a couple of years ago because I thought the most sensible thing was to have a nut ban. I was inundated the posts saying that this didn't reflect real life and that a child who gets used to assuming an environment is nut-free won't learn how to manage the risk themselves.

Before everyone piles in again, I'm not posting about the rightness or wrongness of a nut ban, just really confused at how contradictory the message is.

This may sound a bit harsh but perhaps the kids with nut allergies should eat their lunches somewhere where they can have a better eye kept on them. I think it is unreasonable to expect every single parent with a child at the school to have to go to great lengths to prevent nuts being in their child's lunch. I also think that if kids have got allergies they should be better educated about not touching other children's food.

Dr - lots of bread for example will contain traces of nuts or dairy, many items contain stuf people wouldn't think about.

Hence I think it's impossible for a school for be nut free. Someone could send in a cheese sandwich with bread made in but environment and some crisps containing a nut oil and wouldn't even consider they are breaking the rules as it doesn't look to be a nut product ( or dairy/ or whatever allergy).

Slightly off topic but why do some parents make such a performance of preparing a packed lunch? Reception children have small stomachs so a sandwich or wrap (ham/cheese/ cucumber/tomato/lettuce), piece of fruit, yoghurt, plus water is perfectly adequate to keep them going till pick up time. Even older children really will survive not having any kind of nut related food at lunchtime.

DD1 has multiple severe, potentially fatal allergies. Nuts is one of them. Her primary school introduced a nut free environment because primary children find it more difficult to remember about this than secondary pupils. Just being in a room with nuts could have caused DD1 to have a reaction. She did carry an adrenalin pen, but a lot of people do not realise that this is not always a life saver. It doesn't matter if you are fit and healthy if you have a bad reaction. It can kill in as little as 30 seconds. Anaphylaxis can cause organ failure.

I'm sorry your child is a fussy eater, but that really is your problem. Stop pandering to it quite so much. When you have a child who has a severely restricted diet because of allergies, a fussy child seems like a non-problem. YABU.

What he might very well do, though, is borrow a pen I've been using, when I've been eating nuts, and get the oils on his skin.
I would like to think that if an adult knows of the risk of borrowing such things from somebody they make sure that they don't borrow things from other people.

The reason that nut bans are more common than other food bans in that the amounts that a person can react to with nuts can be tiny.

I have a child who is anaphylactic to eggs in my class and the whole school has an egg ban. No eggs are to be brought in to school and no eggs are used in the school lunches. Despite this he has had three anaphylactic reactions this year.

OP and others who think that an epi-pen is a simple way to counteract an allergic reaction....

I have a DH with serious allergies, and this is what happens during an allergic reaction:

• the person becomes unwell, a rash spreads visibly all over the body, you can see the rash spread that's who quick it goes

• person gets dizzy, disoriented and starts swelling up all over

• person now needs eli-pen straight away (the above can happen in minutes)

• whilst waiting for the eli-pen to kick in, the person may start to struggle for breath and become unconscious

• if there is another person present, he should hopefully have called an ambulance right now explaining it is matter of life and death

• The epi-pen kicks in, giving everyone some breathing space, the person may still be unconscious and needs to be put in the recovery position

• an ambulance will take the person to hospital

The epi-pen will have given the allergic person the extra 20 minutes needed to get him medical attention to save his life.

but it is NOT a simple solution or an actual medicine, it just buys you some time.

It is fucking scary to see someone in anaphylactic shock, and for whatever reason, more people have allergies these days.

It is NOT being dramatic, or hypochondriac, but a nut allergy can KILL very quickly.

So a no-nut policy is surely not a big deal, and your kids can surely survive school hours without nuts. They can eat a big bag of peanuts when they come home.

Feeling all shaky now at reliving these horrible episodes, but hope it may help some people understand what anaphylactic shock is. Really, you cannot image how scary it is. Even with an epi-pen and with someone else being there to call 999.

The question you need to ask yourself is if your peanut butter & jam sandwich or whatever worth more than a child's life?
Is that same nut food worth your child living with the fact they killed their friend for the rest of their life?

For those wondering why nuts but not other allergens like dairy are banned, I have a theory. It is just a theory though..

When DD was milk allergic cross contamination wasn't an issue as long as crockery etc was clean. I always thought that is because nut particles and oils dissipate easily and cling to things more than other allergens, and perhaps less is needed to trigger a reaction?

All those people saying the child with an allergy should be taught to manage the risks; do you let your 5 year old walk to school alone, using the crossings? Have a cupboard full of tasty treats and snacks and expect them to not poach if it's accessible? Let your 8 year old stay home alone after explaining the rules to them?
Keeping yourself safe often requires a level of maturity and self-awareness that many primary children don't have.

Persian, I have seen that done in a school where the existing nut ban was ignored (packed lunch). The poor child had to be removed immediately to eat their lunch elsewhere. How embarrassing and stigmatising for them. Imagine if it were every day!

And if there is no nut ban then it could be on the hands of other pupils, on desks, toilet doors, pencils, balls in the playground.......... Removing a child from the dining hall will not prevent anaphalaxis

Absolutely yabu
Think for a minute about how the parent of a child with food allergies has to think and stress what to give their child ? As another poster said all an epi pen does is buy time I have no wish to have a child with a severe allergy but I found out the hard way and it was terrifying give your children what you want at home and keep to the school rules
This isn't some middle class affectation or food choice or intolerance it's a medical health need this makes me so mad the lack of understanding
And me me me attitude

I think it's unreasonable to expose a child to risk of death at school. Simples. YABU OP.