[Sca-cooks] OOP More schools ban Peanut Butter

[Lady Celia]

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Wanda Pease
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 9:38 PM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OOP More schools ban Peanut Butter

 On the other hand, I have a brother who, as a child, was deathly
> allergic to
> strawberries. Not to the extend that they sent him into
> anaphylactic shock,
> but they sent him into such severe asthma attacks that he had to be
> hospitalized. To this day I recall the angriest I've ever seen my mother
> being the day that she got a note that he had been paddled at
> school because
> he had refused to eat red jello, something that he was forbidden to eat
> because it *might* be strawberry and contain "natural flavors". Luckily my
> brother feared my mother more than the school administration, because he
> wouldn't budge when they didn't believe him that he wasn't allowed to eat
> the jello and thought it was just that he didn't want to.  And luckily
> things have changed a lot since the days when they fed all the
> children the
> same thing and told them they had to clean their plate. But the fact that
> the school still needs to be informed and has to do everything in their
> power to protect that child still pertains.


Congratulations to your mother!!!!  She did the only thing that a mother can
do to help keep her child safe.  She taught him Don't Eat This! Period, Full
Stop, when he was too young to be able to understand or explain the problem
to others.  Then she made it stick in his mind like glue!

I would imagine such an intelligent lady taught your brother WHY as soon as
he could reliably express it (10 or so) and taught that school
administration a lesson that they never forgot!!! I don't want a child to
Regina said: 
<<Auntie grabbed him and threw him in the car and rushed him to the nearest
emergency room where they pumped his stomach.  All the while she was yelling
at me for not "hiding" my purse.  Irritated me enough that I didn't tell her
that there had only been two aspirin in the bottle to begin with.

He never went through another woman's purse to my knowledge.  His mother
actually learned a lesson about teaching him what was his to touch and what
was not.  I'm fairly sure that having his stomach pumped helped drive the
lesson home.

I know, Mean Regina, but what if that had been a full bottle?  What if the
next time he rummaged in a purse it had been that or something else?  Purses
and first aid kits are private property and children need to be taught that
for their own safety.  Adults shouldn't need to be taught.>>

I'm in full agreement.  Every child I've had a hand in raising (and I have
none of my own partly because I was helping to raise children by the time I
was 10 - so I've got the "support parent" job down pretty well) has had part
of their learning journey from the point that they could toddle learning
what they are *NOT* permitted to touch. Some of the horror stories I've
heard, things like this, where the child moved a chair over to climb onto a
counter to get to things that they weren't supposed to have, like cookie
jars, hot pots, chemicals and medications were things that would not have
happened in my household because a) everyone understood how many dangers a
toddler can get into and toddlers were *never* let out of some adults sight
and b) because of rule a, toddlers who even began to do something so
inventive had their hide tanned. Of course, this was back in the day when it
was understood that spanking a child to instill a sense of "danger" in a
child too young to have that danger explained to him was preferable to
allowing the child to seriously or fatally injury him/herself.  Of course,
that would make  us "bad" or even abusive parents in some modern eyes.

People tend to forget that the idea of 'child safe-ing' your home is a
relatively new concept.  Prior to the idea that children must have an almost
laboratory type environment in which to keep them safe, 'child safe-ing' was
called 'discipline' and 'parenting'.  So, I guess I'm "mean Celia" as well,
because I would agree that aversion training is much better than a dead
child.

In service, 
Celia