Posted on 01/04/2005 7:54:07 AM PST by TheBigB
YORKTOWN, Ind. — Savannah Dowling is a typical 8-year-old girl; much of her protein comes from peanut butter sandwiches.
However, if she wants to bring one to Central Indiana's Pleasant View Elementary School, she has to eat it at a special table in the cafeteria to accommodate one first grader with a severe allergy. Soon she'll have to take her lunch to an area the school is calling the "peanut gallery" so the one child with the peanut allergy isn't affected.
"I don't think everybody should have to suffer because of one kid," said Mike Raper, a critic of the idea and fiancé of Savannah's mother. "I think it's a terrible precedent. Basically, because there's nowhere to draw the line. You've got people allergic to milk, wheat. My own son's diabetic. There's just no where to draw that line."
School Superintendent Mary Ann Irwin called it "one of the most challenging" accommodations the school has made for its students.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"If this allergic kid goes all thru skrewel without having to exercise prudence regarding peanut butter, WHAT WILL HE DO WHEN HE GRADUATES TO THE REAL WORLD?"
The child in question is a first grader. First graders are prone to fits of poor judgement. For some, that means eating glue or things that they pull out of their nose. For this child, eating a bite of a friend's PB sandwich could be fatal.
Of course, you could be right, maybe we should also put unlabeled bottles of drain cleaner, pesticides, paint thinner, etc. on the cafeteria tables as well. After all, those kids will have to deal with those things when they graduate, might as well weed them out now...
Personally, I can't imagine the stress the parents feel sending their first grade child out every day hoping he will remember the rules about food, wondering when the school/hospital will call to tell them he might not survive trading lunches with a buddy.
Should everyone else be highly incovenienced, probably not. Put the kid at a table where no PB is allowed. Problem solved with minimal inconvenience to anyone.
Before I respond to you, please tell me you read my entire post.<<<
I did! Did I misunderstand your point?
The kids maturing much sooner than in times past has been blamed on hormone fed animals - namely the fastfood hamburger. Funny though, those burgers don't help me with my batting average.
Before I respond to you, please tell me you read my entire post.<<<
I did! Did I misunderstand your point?
DARN! I DID! So Sorry...I thought you were being sarcastic!
First, this child is not a "Special Needs" child. He has an allergy, in which 99% of us have some type of allergy.
For the handicap aspect, which I really do not want to divert this topic to, is necessary for some circumstances, not all. Many times we go overboard. But making a little accomidation for someone is not going cause the world to stop.
In my sons situation, he will be treated as any other child, with the exception of doing an activity that would cause him an injury. And he may need extra attention for learning,in which he will have, but not to the extent this causes problems for others in the classroom.
Peanut allergies are a relatively recent phenomenon. They first started popping up from January 1977 to January 1981. The number of cases worsened in 1994, then increased substantially this past July. In fact, one reason why the President selected only Bill Clinton and his father to head up the fund raising appeal for the tsunami victims was to avoid a peanut allergy epidemic.
I guess we just agree to disagree, then. I think calling a minor inconvenience "suffering" is silly, and encourages an environment where everyone maximizes their complaints instead of ignoring things that are not, actually, painful or incapacitating.
He's not going to ZOT the school into common sense, so what's gained by encouraging his girlfriend's daughter to cry, "But I'm a victim, TOOO!"?
Thank you for apologizing.
LOL! You are right. Wendy's single with cheese has never helped me get more buff.
They really hype soy for women, but I avoid it. These soy products are new and I don't think people really know all the effects on peoples bodies yet.
I just wanted to make sure you understood what I said. Sometimes we tend to glance over a post and think we are a 1000 word per minute readers
Oh Boy! I'm guilty of that one way too often. I'll take better care in future posts.
Sorry but being allergic to some food is not a badge of honor or some kind of claim to fame. It's a sign of weakness and physical ailments. If anyone should be segregated it should be the allergic.
I know I'll get flamed from this, but for what it's worth, here is my 2 cents...
Segregating one child to eat alone because he/she has an allergey doesn't seem like a viable option to me. It seems like a punishment to have to be separated from the rest of the children. Allergies can have life-threatening consequences -- I know from experience with my own child. I learned that even smelling an allergen can cause serious events if a person is that sensitive.
A peanut gallery for those, plural, who have pbj sandwiches makes a little more sense as they will not have to eat alone -- theoretically -- unless only one child brings pbj on any given day. It also may be a bit easier to pack a lunch without peanut butter so not to populate the peanut gallery. The allergic child does not have the option to leave the allergy at home.
LOL, get in line right behind me.
Your ideas are good! I really think it is more of an issue with the parents than the kids. Most kids (I hope)are thoughtful of others problems. A boy in my daughters 3rd grade class is allergic to peanuts. When we were shopping for Christmas party candy, she wanted to make sure that all the candy we got was peanut free. That way he had candy to eat too! Perhaps it is just my daughter, but I don't think so! I think kids are more thoughtful than we give them credit for!!
Peoples freedoms are not usually stripped all at once. Chip, chip, chip. It's all part of a larger issue of government control. If people don't speak up, they lose their rights, as has happened in many schools where there is a kid with a peanut allergy.
I have no beef with you deciding not to stand up for loss of liberty. Most won't. I see it every day. One small example - Merry Christmas
Exposure from soy is thought to be much higher. Then again, they feed soy to livestock, too.
Besides, estrogens should only make GIRLS mature faster, not boys. It would retard the masculine development of boys. Hence perhaps the rise in homosexuality?
Excessive soy intake can indeed cause hormonal issues, for both males and females.
People in Asian countries, which radical vegetarians hold up as examples of soy consumption, actually take in very little soy. If anything it's in the form of natural soybeans (edamame) or small amounts of tofu...not the heavily processed soy milk, and soy crumbles, and soy cheese. Phytoestrogens aren't necessarily a good thing to have too much of.
This is purely anecdotal but I know several vegetarian or vegan women who consume a lot of soy, who have had infertility or PCOS. When I was a vegetarian/vegan I had hormonal imbalances - when I stopped overloading on soy and started eating meat and eggs/dairy again, this naturally corrected itself. Although I still enjoy the occasional Boca Burger, that's it for soy consumption.
"Taking parental responsibility for my own child's well-being rather than hand it off to the Government; IMAGINE that!"
Bingo.
I know the mother said her child's allergy is extreme but I have a hard time believing that some kid sitting down the table eating a peanut butter sandwich would make her son drop dead. If so, he shouldn't even be in the cafeteria.
That's interesting. I know no one, and I mean no one out of thousands of people I am acquainted with, who has ever come close to dropping dead from a peanut allergy. Complete, and utter, overreaction to a .01% of the population sort of problem.
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