School nut allergy policy

[PigeonPairinSomerset]

I’m fully prepared to back down on this one but keen to know if anyone supports my view - our school has a nut free policy which I know is common. I am aware how severe these allergies can be in some cases. At our school however , there are children who would only have an allergic reaction if they actually ate food containing nuts. Some of my children’s favourite foods are peanut butter and houmous, which they can’t have in their packed lunches. AIBU to think that the school could just encourage kids not to share food? And for the parents of those affected kids to teach their kids not to eat their friends’ food?! I feel like some really healthy options for my kids are now off the table.

Hay, stuff the child that has allergies , doesnt matter if they have a reaction or DIE

Just so your child can have some peanut butter!!!!!

I think it must be impossible to have a truly nut free school. I can't see how it can policed or enforced.I understand how dangerous nut allergies are and therefore I think that is important to have a protocol for those children who are allergic should they be exposed and also for them to fully aware not to eat food other than what they are allocated either by a parent or a school.

Risk vs benefit. Their child could die, your child could have to wait till they get home to have a peanut butter sandwich.

Is the risk to that child's life really worth your child not having to wait a few hours for a bit of peanut butter?

This is why it's normally just primary schools who ban nuts. High schools often don't, as the kids do multiple things, buy there own food from local shops, are old enough to know not to share food and its more common now to have children with not just nut allergies.

They do tend to be nut free in the kitchens though and are often able to cater for gluten free as well.

At primary I would say you need to put up with it, children are not always great at not being careful with not sharing and allergies can go from not needing an epie pen to needing one without warning. My kids had one child in there class who couldn't even be in the same room as someone with peanuts and you don't know as they are not your children.

FFS, your DC are only in school 6h per day. They surely can cope if the lunchbox doesn't contain nuts!!!

One of my children attends a school which has no but allergy policy. One of her friends is allergic. They are all very careful but this child has ended up in hospital a couple of times. I think ita a shame, my fave food is chocolate, I can go a day without it, askibg peopke not to eat nuts at lunchtime, not that hard!

Exactly this.
My daughter has a peanut allergy, and carries epipens. She is 7 and very sensible, but is contact allergic, so avoiding sharing food isn't enough.
I think unless you have a child with an allergy, it's very easy to minimise the seriousness of it. As a parent, it's utterly terrifying.

I am someone with an allergy. It’s not about the risk of you eating it - it’s about the risk of you having nuts on your hand and then touching the keyboard / pencil / table I then touch after. This is enough that I’d be then ill

Outside of school young children can be more closely supervised to ensure they don't eat anything they shouldn't, hands are washed, surfaces wiped etc.

I understand the reasons nut free schools aren't recommended and if OP were a parent posting about her concern that her allergic DC's school was cleaning it's policy then I'd be pointing out all the reasons. One of my DC is allergic to peanuts, her school is nut free but if they changed that I'd be fine with that if they had sensible precautions in place.

However, wanting your non-allergic child's school to change their policy so you can send peanut butter sandwiches is something else. Like I said earlier, OP doesn't really get a say in this, it should be up to the teachers who need to care for the allergic children in a busy classroom of young DC.

Peanut butter isn't very healthy really.

Your DC can eat foods containing nuts at breakfast, after school, evening meals and snacks, weekends and holidays…

YABU to think your DC’s love of nut-containing foods trumps those who may die or become seriously ill because of it.

Just adhere to the school policies. It's not rocket science... the school will do their diligence - at my DC primary school a child with egg allergy was given Tuna Mayonnaise sandwich from the fre school meal menu. 🤦🏻‍♀️
Obviously the offending item was then removed for all pupils.

Ignorance goes a long way ... just don't be THE one.

As @TheSerenePinkOrca said in her post above yours, hummus does (usually) contain sesame "which is a known allergen to some, but as is celery, egg, fish, milk, soya etc... so where do you draw the line? Unless the school has specifically said they have a child with a sesame seed allergy then it's fine to take hummus."

I think this is a reasonable point to make, as all we know from the OP is that the school has banned "nuts". We don't have full details of the policy. Does this cover tree nuts? Peanuts? It's probably reasonable to assume it covers both if the policy is so vague as to just say "nuts". But it seems unreasonably cautious to assume that all seeds (NB, not nuts) are also banned.

Yes, it is fairly common for children with peanut allergies to be allergic to sesame. But AFAIK the OP hasn't been informed that there are pupils with peanut allergies, still less that sesame is an issue. She's just been told "no nuts". The school - and more to the point, the allergic child(ren) and their parents - shouldn't be relying on everyone knowing/guessing/assuming that a reference to "nuts" includes other common non-nut allergens....

I think it is because of the sesame

There have been some studies done on the effectiveness of these kinds of policies, and surprise surprise, they are not very effective.

The main issue is that even with the policy, and even with parental good will, it's easy to make mistakes. So the child has pb at home and it's on a book that comes to school, an item has nuts but the parent doesn't realize and sends it, etc. it's just very difficult to control so many people and for them all to pay attention reliably. If you are depending on that happening, you've created a dangerous situation.

What seems to work better is to have a specific area, say a certain table, for kids who have the very serious allergies where it's important that there is zero contact. It's much easier to reliably control a small area with a small number of people.

This is all before you get into the problem where you can start to have other parents who want their own kids allergies catered for, so you have more and more types of food that aren't allowed, which really does start to impinge on what others can eat. My kids school for a while also banned eggs, and dairy. That didn't last long though, once they tried to ban dairy many parents pulled them up on it. At which point they had to revisit their approach to allergies altogether.

The problem with encouraging them not to share is that kids don’t always listen or follow instructions, and given the outcome would be serious illness or even death, it’s probably best to err on the side of an outright ban.

Op you need to educate yourself more about peanut allergy. The protein that is what causes the allergy is a very robust protein and can be left on surfaces or can be airbourne a child can therefore react even if they haven't eaten peanuts. Children can die from peanut allergies. Your are being un reasonable

Imagine wishing death on someone else's child

It's more important in primary schools as young children may not understand what is/isn't a peanut so there's more chance of cross contamination. My dd2 has a peanut allergy, she is 3 she knows she can't have wants but she doesn't even know what a peanut is/looks like. I can't simply ask her not to eat peanut butter from her friends sandwich box. When she's older she'll will obviously be more aware and I assume she'll just avoid places with a high risk of peanuts

You are completely unreasonable and should think yourself lucky that it's not your kids with the life threatening allergy while some other parents think their precious little darlings preference for peanut butter is more important then the life of someone's child.

You should take a look at yourself.

AIBU to think that the school could just encourage kids not to share food?

What about if the school encouraged the kids not to share food, but they did anyway and your child ended up giving some of their sandwich to a child with a peanut allergy who then died?

Would you accept any kind of responsibility or would you try to blame the poor midday assistant in minimum wage trying to feed and look after 30 four year olds whilst they eat? Would you want that level of responsibility as a lunchtime supervisor? I don’t think anyone would.

You sound very selfish and entitled and somewhat lazy to think that your choice of a quick lunch is more important than the health of other children and possibly staff.

This.
As someone who suffers from allergies, it won't kill you to not take nuts or hummus.
Whereas you taking them could literally do just that.
Why would you risk that?

@TheSerenePinkOrca The basis of hummus is chickpea which, like peanut, is a legume rather than a true nut. Many people who are allergic to peanut are also allergic to chickpea (also green peas, lentils, etc). So while the objection to hummus here may be because it also typically contains sesame, that might not be the only reason.

To the OP: YABVU. Imagine what it is like to be the parent of a child with serious food allergies. You barely breathe while they’re out of your sight, because contact with a food that for most is ordinary and innocuous could end their life in a truly hideous way. Just imagine that for a moment. Your convenience doesn’t come close to balancing that risk.

You need to stick to the schools rules despite the fact allergy U.K. don’t agree with the nut free policy.

Tho I do wonder about secondary schools they are not nut free and the peanut powder or whatever would still be rubbed into desks and door handles and such but that’s never an issue…