my in laws are literally trying to kill my son.

[keresley]

I have posted before about my in laws inability to understand my son's life threatening allergy to nuts. Since then, my husband sat down with them and spoke for a long while about the risks etc and we really thought that we had reached an understanding. We have just come back from a family holiday - inlaws plus 3 uncles and their partners- all my husbands side. On this holiday my inlaws intentionally brought nuts into the house (in the form of sweets). My partner and I immediately removed the sweets with nuts in and left the ones that were nut free. A partner of the uncle then brought nut cluster cereal into the house and made a huge fuss when we asked if she could store it in her car while we replaced her cereal with a nut free alternative. The upshot of these 2 events was the majority of the family turning on us saying that it was other peoples holiday and they should be able to do what they like. We had extensive conversations trying to explain how unsafe this was for our son etc etc. My in-laws kept saying " we know nuts will kill him but we will never stop having nuts around him". 2 of the uncles joined in saying we were the ones being unreasonable. This continued for 5 days- after which we had to leave the holiday house we were in as it was just too unsafe for our son to be there anymore. Now we have my husband's family blaming us for ruining the holiday and saying we were selfish for leaving. what do you think?

As others have indicated, it is surely so much easier (had they been co-operative) for there to simply be NO nuts in the property, rather than that being a constant concern for the immediate parents (given the rest seemed incapable of giving a toss about his welfare).

Attitude of the MIL seems to be 'to hell with what it might do to him, we like nuts'. Understand the views about parents' / child's responsibility to be concerned about what's eaten, but FFS if the MIL and others in partner's family cannot do without for only 7 days, then I think they're being unreasonable.

How about a parallel... Let's say they all smoke. Would it be acceptable (for those saying OP is BU) for them to say 'no matter it may be harmful, we're going to smoke' ?

If you say yes, then I think you're daft. If you say no, they should not smoke in his presence, then I'd say that doing without nuts is something they could put up with, just for a week, just as they would need to make other arrangements if they smoke.

I teach my chilren not to play with sharp knives but even so I don't leave them lying around.

Hanaboo 'i think that the problem most parents have is not having high enough expectations of their own children'
Oh for goodness sake, we are talking about life and death here. Of course parents of children with life threatening allergies train their children as soon as they can. Do you really expect them to be relaxed about mouth poppable substances hanging around the living area with a 4 year old?
I think that because your child is not allergic to anything you are not really in a position to comment.

Keresley - I think it was a perfectly reasonable request, you werent asking them not to eat nuts, but just to store them somewhere save.

I would expect adults to be able to comprehend this.

Gosh the boy is only 4 not 14, he is still a young boy with limits due to age, and his parents have to act on his behalf. of course in time he will learn what foods he can or cannot have and will have to control his own environment but he is barely out of nappies for feck sake.

WebDude exactly, and nicotine is addictive, nuts not quite so much
(although I'm pregnant at the moment, and do dream of stuffing my face in a huge bag of KP...)

Dittany I think Hanaboo is either on the wind or she is jsut very stupid.

Hanaboo 'I think that the problem most parents have is not having high enough expectations of their own children' to be honest comes across as very patronising of the op's parenting

Ditch the IL's they are dreadful, they dont deserve to see him with that attitude.

They sound mad. Just don't go on holiday with them again.

Dittany, you are missing the point. It has nothing to do with boot camp. As I child I learnt very early on the seriousness of what I did/ate etc.
Unfortunately it makes you/ 4 yr olds grow up much more quickly.

I'm sure it does Oblomov, but if they don't?

I know that its not fatal and not serious, but i have sever Eczema which is made worse be excessive sweets and choccies, i had a blatant disregard for my health as a child and still do and would take every opportunity to scoff a box of choccies, thus making my face swell the size of a pumpkin and my skin comming out in angry rash. As your child is still only 4 you cannot trust him 100% even if they seem to be a lot older than their years, they are still little and need parent to look out for them, gosh its difficult as adults to do that. I heard that even some adults/teens with fatal nut allergies can get it wrong, let alone a young child.

Dear oh dear, if parents of a child with a life threatening allergy are not allowed to be a litte over anxious...

Shineon...have to agree though...the quote does sound a little odd. I think I am fighting my own battle here!

I think the OP sounds a bit melodramatic. Not in the fact that she doesn't want nuts in the house - it's fair enough to be ultra-cautious if you have a child with a life-threatening allergy - but because she seems to be deliberately reading something into a situation that isn't there. Thread title - 'My in-laws are literally trying to kill my son' - er, no they're not, they're just not being as cautious as she (not unreasonably) would like them to be.
Which makes it quite easy to see why her family would be rolling her eyes around her and not taking her concerns as seriously as they might.

I can't believe I am still posting on this thread but it's driving me barmy.

Look, the situation is NOT that the in-laws were insisting that a bowl of chocolates containing nuts was left within reach of a four year old, and then insisted that the four year old was left alone with them unsupervised with only his own underdeveloped willpower to save him.

The problem was that the OP is insisting that other people do not bring nut products into the same holiday home that her son is in, in case he gets hold of them.

Some of us, like me, whose children are allergic to things like milk, which NO ONE WILL EVER AGREE TO STOP HAVING AROUND (caps intentional!), are suggesting that the onus is on the parents to make sure that the child is not able to get hold of the dangerous foodstuffs. Not on the child, on the parents.

In an ideal world this would be aided by the following reasonable expectations of others:

• people the child comes into contact with keeping the food they eat which is dangerous to the child out of its reach
• the child itself learning not to accept food from anyone but its mum and dad
• food providers giving clear and helpful information

Anyone acquainted with food allergies would agree I think that those three reasonable things others can do to help the parents protect the child often do not happen, for various reasons.

IMO asking eight adults to make a dietary change for a week is not altogether unreasonable.

IMO refusing to make a dietary change for a week is not altogether unreasonable.

Letting the situation deteriorate into "you've ruined the holiday" and "you are trying to kill my son" is highly unreasonable on both parts.

OP, one of the saddest things about food allergies is that it really can affect the child's social life. You have to start getting risks into perspective otherwise he will never be able to go to anyone's house for tea, and he will miss out.

I think you should go back to the Doctor and get him/her to give you advice as to whether you really have to ban nuts from the whole building.

And avoid family holidays. They are shit and always end in blazing rows, food allergies or not.

Absolutely Shiney and Kathy... There's no way on earth this is the truth...
So she's already had this experience on a previous holiday, her child is going to die if he catches a sniff of nut cluster,
the inlaws have no regard for the son at all and would rather he was ill than give up their cereal....
Just don't believe it..
I think it's much more likely he will suffer if he actually eats a nut, OP has been so overly dramatic and hysterical that no-one is listening to her and a bloody awful holiday was had by all...
OP if you'd like some practical advice on living with an anaphylactic child, there are plenty of people here who would be more than happy to help.

Shiney, you say "However, I find it hard to believe that any GPs would say the words ' we know it will kill him but we won't stop. '"

They did not say that. What they said is [from the OP] - " we know nuts will kill him but we will never stop having nuts around him".

The two things are different.

Milk, Egg or Nuts could kill my DS1. But I have milk and eggs around him (not nuts as I am still BF DS2)

The GPs are saying that they want to be able to still eat nuts themselves.

One lick of ice cream closed my DS1's throat once. My DD sits next to him eating ice cream. It took a long time for me to trust her not to make a mess and get any of it near him - and you should have heard me yell at her when she wiped her chops on the sodding towel, which he could have used, the other day. But I do trust her. I have to get it into perspective, because he encounters ice cream everywhere. It does scare the pants off me. But it certainly does not mean that I am careless of my son's life. The worry is with me every day, and I am regarded as a neurotic fusspot by all the other mums.

It's more about the fact that they don't take the allergy seriously rather than the specific incidents on the holiday. You should def avoid all future holidays and if they fail to appreciate the seriousness of it all then avoid all contact with them.

My MIL recently gave DS a bit of banana from a plate that had nuts all over it saying it was alright as that particular piece did not have any nuts on it. My DS is allergic to all nuts - we were very lucky, he did not react, but it was pure luck. It all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to stop her, she was even going to give him a second piece but we were able to stop her. She gave the excuse that she didn't know how bad it was despite us telling us several times how serious it was and had already gone grocery shopping with me and had watched me check all the labels whilst i explained that he couldn't even have traces. I would never leave my DS alone with her as I can't trust her to take his health seriously.

I think the moral really is that if you go on holiday with anyone outside your immediate family, in-laws or friends, you need to agree the ground-rules in advance.