Re: Peanut and nut and may contain nut ban in public school

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You are absolutely right - this is America. Millions of people
live here, with every conceivable background, and many have
special needs. I can't imagine what you must go through every
day, agonizing about your child's safety, and I commend you for
advocating in their best interests. As a parent of twins that
were born premature, we struggle too. Fortunately, my children
don't have a life-threatening allergy to peanuts, and over the
years, peanuts, peanut butter, and a host of other products
containing peanuts have formed a significant part of my
children's diet. I don't think it's selfish to voice my
concerns, too. Realizing every child's needs are important, I
have problems with the "ban" approach, and have read persuasive
arguments against bans by parents of children with severe
allergies to peanuts. I don't believe the solution to a very
few students' specific health needs are solved by asking the
99.9% of other students to (a) change their dietary preferences
and (b) require their parents to screen food purchases as if
their children had such allergies. Even where bans are in
place, are you confident that the schools are effectively
screening the foods brought in? I wouldn't be. Bans create a
false sense of security, and draw a line in the sand that
people will walk across every day. I hope that common sense
will yield real answers to safeguarding those children with
life threatening allergies (to peanuts and other allergy-
triggers), answers that can be applied in the future to new
problems that will arise. Will we eliminate recess because some
children have deadly allergic reactions to bee stings? Don't
discount the needs of the majority of the students. If you hope
to develop support for your child's special needs, try talking,
persuading, and otherwise provoking the sort of dialog it will
take to win real support. Bans provoke the reverse kind of
reaction and polarize parents and schools.

Best of luck to you - your child is lucky to have a parent
that's so concerned.

SMS

Re: Peanut and nut and may contain nut ban in public school, 8/06/06, by Dawn.

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