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 ...
It would be more convenient of the onus was placed on the individual with the allergy to protect him/her self, and to ask the community for support. What is going on here is the onus in placed on the community to make sure nobody ever gets near the kid with a PB&J sandwich. For example, I am allergic to a lot of things. I don't think any of them are life threatening, although shellfish might be if it were to get worse the next time. I make a point of avoiding shellfish, and people around me know not to put it in the fofod that they serve me. However, I don't demand that everywhere I go that nobody else is allowed to eat shellfish.
IMHO, I completely agree with you. I know of one kid whose mother was a drunk (I suspect a little Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) who really needed Ritalin. I mean, the difference between him medicated, and not medicated, was astonishing. He's grown out of it, and is very well-adjusted, and doing great in college.
I think that Ritalin is making a huge mountain out of a molehill. The few kids that need it, really need it. The rest just need some parenting.
And, to stick on-topic at least a little.....this peanut allergy thing is life-threatening, and new. However, I don't see what's wrong with setting up a 'peanut-free' zone in the caf. I figure that it's easier to keep peanut products out of a small area, than try and contain them to a larger one - Simple, sensible, easy. Naturally, the school's administrators do the opposite.
"You HAD to blow a well-reasoned comment with crap like this, didn't you?"
Given the tone of the post I was responding to I don't think the comment was at all unreasonable.
I suppose. Maybe an emoticon was necessary there. Sorry if I misread it.
"However, I don't demand that everywhere I go that nobody else is allowed to eat shellfish."
And I don't demand that nobody else be able to eat wheat, rye or barley around me, except that it is limited to certain area of the kitchen at home to reduce the numbers of crumbs. From what I read, people at this school are still allowed to eat peanuts and peanut butter, but only in a certain area.
I do think they did things bass-akwards. They should have a table for this child and if others want to eat with him/her, they must be peanut free to do so.
Fine, the point is though, that the kids who are eating PB&J are engaged in a normal behavior. Rather than forcing them to sit at a special table, their should be a PB&J free table for the kids with the allergies.
"If a child grows up expecting everyone else to protect them from contact with peanuts, and doesn't learn how to protect themselves, what happens when they come into contact with people that don't know they have a peanut allergy?"
I can absolutely guarantee you the child is being taught to protect himself. But this is a first grader. I taught my first grader about the danger of vehicle traffic, but that doesn't mean I let him cross or play in it because eventually he would be exposed to it.
As I said before, if my child had a life-threatening allergy, I would make all efforts to home school for at least the first few years. That, however, would insulate him even more from peanut eaters.
"Fine, the point is though, that the kids who are eating PB&J are engaged in a normal behavior. Rather than forcing them to sit at a special table, their should be a PB&J free table for the kids with the allergies."
I didn't say it too clearly, but that's what I meant in the last paragraph of my last post.
I used to have a latex allergy. When I'd use dish gloves, and touch my eyes later, they'd swell shut. It took 4 months before I realized what it was, but I'll be damned if I was going to let that allergy ruin my life. I continued to use the gloves and then deliberately touched my eyes afterwards. I nearly went blind and to this day I can't wear contacts and am no longer a candidate for laser eye correction. Eventually, I gave up and just washed the dishes without gloves (today, I have my kids do it) but I gave those gloves a lesson in persistence they'll not soon forget, and I'm better the man for it.
Owl_Eagle
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"
Well then, maybe he should keep his fingers out of the other kids' sandwiches.
If you've noticed my tagline...6 years ago, while working as a school crossing guard, ALL my hair fell out. (doctors call it alopecia which means "your hair fell.") I had always worn hats, but when the kids started to notice, some asked if I had cancer. I reassured them that I was very healthy and this can sometimes happen to anyone. I figured, if someday there is a bald student in school, I helped to ease any stigma.
See my post #207. Peanut allergy is not new but it may be increasing.
WHOA! Let's not jump to conclusions about segregation, isolation, etc. The allergic child does not have to eat alone, just monitor those around him. In the same way, who said a ham and cheese eater can't eat with his friends in the peanut gallery?
Most did die earlier of "congestion" or some undiagnosed illness. I had a friend just drop dead from an allergy (don't know what it was), his roommate (college) said he suddenly couldn't breathe, by the time the ambulence got there, he was dead. This was some time back and allergy diagnosis and treatment wasn't as good as now. (Ambulence response wasn't as good either, most likely.)
Exactly! I say slip a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in the kid's lunch bag each day, then up it to two when he can handle the first one, and get him over it that way. Besides, as recent research has shown, 97.839% of all allergies are psychosomatic, so slip the kid some PB without him knowing about it, and chances are he'll be fine!
"Or perhaps many of them are fabricated. I know a family whose child is suddenly deathly allergic to peanuts and the other children must be controlled for her sake.
Odd she didn't have this deadly problem for 3 years."
I was stung by bees four times as a kid and never got so much as a red mark. Then, in college, I got stung again, went into anaphylactic shock and almost died. My throat closed up before I could even get the words, "I got stung" out of my mouth. I also never had any problems with band-aids, but developed an allergy after having a central line taped to my chest every day for 3 months. Now, if I put on a band-aid, I get hives immediately. As was explained to me by my allergist, in many people, each exposure to something increases the odds that they will become allergic to it. It's a common misconception that all allergies are present at birth.
By the way, to all those folks who think epi-pens automatically solve the problem: they don't. They're designed to give you some time to haul a$$ to the ER, but they don't always work, especially in severe peanut allergies.
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