muldoonthief, curious how old your daughter is. At what age do you expect there should be a shift from the care-giver (host) responsibility to your child’s responsibility.
It’s not reasonable to expect that adults **will always **watch out for your child’s allergies.
I’m not muldoonthief, but I’ve given that a lot of thought. I think it’s best to give them some small level of responsibility just about as soon as you know of the allergy, and gradually increase their level of responsibility as they mature - just like any other task in life.
My daughter’s gluten intolerant (not allergic), and we figured that out when she was three. A week and a half into our allergy elimination diet, another older kid gave her some Wheat Thins at a party, and she got sick. That was a really easy lesson to her that her first responsibility is to ask if she’s not sure. We recited “Wheat, Rye, Barley, Malt*” until it stuck in her head (at that age, about 30 seconds; they’re awesome parrots!). While I didn’t expect her to read food labels herself, I did (and do) expect her to politely catch the attention of whomever is sharing food and say, “I’m sorry, I can’t eat wheat, rye, barley or malt. Do you know if this has any of those?”
She just turned six and I still bring along gluten free snacks and meals when we go to parties, but she packs the bag before we leave the house. (I carry the bag mostly to reduce the “I’m a special snowflake” stigma she still sometimes feels.) She has a “gluten free shelf” at home filled with snack items to choose from, and makes her own sandwiches with the gluten free bread. She’s also still responsible to ask if she doesn’t know if the host’s food is safe to eat. Over the past three years, she’s learned that all common corn/tortilla chips EXCEPT Nacho Cheese Doritos are okay (even Cool Ranch Doritos are okay; the wheat must be in the Nacho Cheese seasoning), she knows that veggies and fruits and cheeses are okay, she knows that salsa is okay but cheese dip needs a label check. She knows that unflavored potato chips are okay if she can see rings on some of the chips from the potatoes, but that “Baked” potato chips and Pringles have gluten and flavored potato chips need a label check. Because eating what everyone else eats is so important to her social development right now, I leave her bag packed and stashed away unless there really is nothing appropriate for her to eat. And most of the time, there’s plenty of safe food for her on the host’s table.
At school, she brings a sandwich and chooses gluten free menu items from the cafeteria, like fruit, vegetables and milk. At a meeting with her teacher, the school nurse, the lunchroom supervisor and myself, the teacher and I agreed she has the maturity and awareness to be trusted with this, and there have been no problems to date.
By next year, if a label is present, I expect that she’ll be able to check the ingredient list herself. I won’t ever refuse to help her out, of course, but by 7, she’ll be ready to be the *primary *person responsible for her dietary restriction.
If a child needs an Epi-Pen on standby, I think they should be taught how to use it as soon as they have the strength in their hands to press it hard enough to deploy - probably about age 5. Whether they have the judgment capabilities yet to know *when *to do it is another matter, best determined on a case by case basis.
All of this is practical responsibility, of course. **Legal **responsibility still lies with me, as her parent, and with her school as long as we have a 504 in place.
*“Malt” was added to her list because it’s made from barley, but I don’t think most people know that. For the same reason, we taught her the sources of gluten instead of asking if something “has gluten”. She knows she can ask that at home, but not outside the home.
She’s six. She knows to always ask us or another responsible adult about unknown food, and to say “Sorry, I have a food allergy” if offered something she’s unsure of. It wasn’t a big problem at the party - she just had the “I’m different from everyone else” blues when I pulled out her cupcake. You’re absolutely right - she will need to pick up more responsibility for herself as she ages.
To clarify though - I wasn’t expecting the hosts of the party to provide a peanut free environment for her. We always let the hosts know, so they don’t get offended when I ask to see ingredients lists for the food they’ll be serving, where they bought the pizza, etc. And I’d never ask the hosts to refrain from serving something that she can’t have - I just tell her “You can’t have the chips/candy etc.” and keep an eye on her. We fully expected that she probably wouldn’t have been able to have the cake - most people in our area get their cakes from the local supermarket bakery, which has specifically declined to certify anything they make as peanut free. We’d never ask other parents to change their cake/snack plans based on her attendance at the party. Six is still pretty young to leave her at a party without one of us present anyway - I’d say about 2/3 of the parents stuck around for the entire party.
She does have playdates at other kid’s homes without us though - we talk it over with the parents ahead of time, leave an Epipen with them, and provide snacks that she can have. We always bring plenty so she & her friend(s) can all have them together.
We’ve been pretty lucky so far - she hasn’t “dared” us by threatening to eat, or actually eating, things she knows she’s allergic to. Some kids do.
That sounds like something my daughter would do. Best of luck…hopefully she’ll grow out of the allergy. I’ve known kids that outgrew certain allergies.
Well here it’s not about snacks, it’s about bringing your own lunch. Snacks aren’t allowed in most schools here either. But students aren’t required to eat the school lunches. In fact, when I was in grade school, you either brought your own lunch or you went home for lunch if you lived close enough. There was no food service in the grade schools, only tables set up in the gym at lunch time.
In our district, kids are allowed to bring whatever they want for their own consumption. However, when they’re bringing snacks or treats to share with others, they are asked to bring foods that don’t contain several common allergens.
Also, they have a fairly strict “no food sharing” policy in the cafeteria, at least in the earlier grades.
Malt is not a type of grain. “Malt” is a shorthand way of saying “malted barley” or “malted rye” or some other type of malted product. Malting has no significant effect on the gluten content of common cereal grains, as far as I am aware.
All nut products are banned at my son’s preschool. Then again, it’s preschool and also has a daycare with babies downstairs, so I can kind of see why. Plus, pre-schoolers don’t always keep their food to themselves.
I hope it’s not banned in my son’s elementary school. It’s such an easy meal to make.
Exactly. Did you miss my * ? As I said, most people don’t know common sources of gluten, or that most “malt” or “malt flavoring” on the ingredient list came from rye or barley, which both contain gluten. At least on US food labels, it’s usually not written as “rye malt”, but just “malt” (I do see “barley malt” sometimes.)
It’s just another way to make sure that whoever is trying to help her read a label has good information. I couldn’t make her memorize the total list of gluten containing ingredients, but those are the four most common and the four easiest for a child to remember.
Peanut products are not banned at my kid’s school, but if I pack peanut products in her lunch then she has to eat at a table away from all the other children. Due to that, she refuses to eat PB&J sandwiches.
Peanuts (and tree nuts) are completely banned at our school. While I have no problem with that in elementary school (especially the younger grades where handwashing may not be up to par), it extends to the high school, as well. I would think that by the time you were in high school, you could manage your own allergies.
The thing that really gets my goat, though is that most sweet snacks (granola bars, cereal bars, etc) are either labeled as may contain nuts or is not marked as peanut free. My kids get a lot of food in their lunches (which serves snack times as well) but granola bars are really the best bet for an afternoon snack that will stick to their bones. The only ones I can find that are nut free are ones that are chocolate chip or smores. Frankly, I would like to send them with a fruit granola bar or something with a decent amount of fibre but they are all marked as ‘may contain nuts.’
(Right now, I am sending them with all bran bars which aren’t marked as nut-free but don’t have the warning either. Teachers haven’t sent them home…yet.)
ETA: If anyone has suggestions for good high fibre snacks, bring em on.
Forgot to comment on this - the EpiPens are never under my daughter’s control. It’s a dangerous drug, and she’s not capable of making the decision to use it or not, nor is she responsible enough to keep track of it. Plus if she’s in bad enough shape to need it, she’s probably too panicked to actually use it. She knows to go to an adult and tell them “I can’t breathe” if she has any breathing issues, and let them evaluate the situation. The pen stays strictly under the control of adults at this time. I know school policy is to keep EpiPens with the nurse through at least 3rd grade - I’ll be learning the 4th grade school policy in 3 years or so.
We do go over the practice pens with her twice a year, which includes letting her do the practice injection herself, but it will be at least a few years before I expect her to be the one to actually inject herself if the worst happens.
I’m sorry your child’s school has chosen a policy that ostracizes children who like peanut butter. 
I hope you’re joking.
Why?
Would you argue that by banning smoking in school they have “chosen a policy that ostracizes children who like to use tobacco products”?
They have not “chosen a policy that ostracizes children who like peanut butter,” that’s why.
They’ve chosen a compromise that reasonably seeks to protect those who might suffer a range of health problems, including possible death, from exposure to peanuts.
To equate that with “ostracization” shows a shocking disregard for those children who are in that position.
I’ll admit ignorance on the health consequences, but my understanding is that most kids that have peanut/nut allergies are not airborn allergies, but are allergic from ingesting foods containing the offending food items. If my kid had such an allergy, I would have him/her trained to not eat anything that she didn’t bring to school with her. Even with such policies like separate tables, complete outright bans, I would not rely on the school to effectively police this. So in effect any separation polices that would exist, would only serve to withhold certain food items from the rest of the school population uneededly.
Oh, and your smoking analogy is ludicrous. Peanut butter doesn’t kill everyone that eats it.
Would “most” be good enough for you?
What are you, a wizard, that you could be so sure that you could effectively institute such training, like house-training a puppy?
How would you know that any amount of training would result in zero chance that your kid would ever eat something from another person’s lunch? Human beings are not robots that can be programmed. In particular, most children have simply not developed the kind of resistance to social dynamics that would make it sufficiently likely. Children are social creatures. They need to be watched by adults in order to ensure that they avoid danger. That’s why, in fact, we require that they be under adult supervision in a place like a school.
At some point, most parents have to rely on other adults to ensure the safety of their children. That’s how our world works.
And so what? The burden of withholding a few food items like peanut butter is a very small burden, and much more easily enforced.
Tobacco doesn’t actually kill everyone who comes in contact with smoke, either. In fact, it doesn’t even kill a majority of them. But we have decided that the statistical probabilities work out such that it’s best to keep it away from all schoolchildren.
Peanut butter might be lower on the scale, but it’s completely analogous. In fact, where it is on the scale is arguable, because no one ever dropped dead on the spot from inhaling second-hand smoke.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. And I have the feeling that all the schools that haven’t banned peanut products from the schools, tend to lean towards my point of view, of more individual responsibility.