[Sca-cooks] OOP More schools ban Peanut Butter

[Wanda Pease]

 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
have to go through either the paddling (highly unlikely in this day and age)
or a trip to a nurses office/doctor/hospital.

I do think that parents, not just sperm/ova donors, are responsible for
teaching their children about many such dangers immediately.  Waiting until
the child can understand and depending on other adults like myself to
realize that strawberries might injure one child in a X,XXX is lax
parenting.  Schools I can understand, but the nice lady across the street,
or the Aunt that never had children of her own?

Something else here.  There are things other than foodstuffs that can kill.
Teaching plain courtesy to very small children can keep them from harms way.
Grandma's Iron tablets can kill. Aspirin can Kill and there is NO antidote.
Everyone who carries aspirin in their purse or first aid kit should know
that this is a poison.  The child that swallows a bunch of tart white
tablets in Auntie's purse that he has gone through because Mommy lets him
play with hers is dead; unless you can get their stomach pumped within an
hour or so. Possibly less with a quite small child.  No Epi-pen, no
Hospitalization will undo the harm.

I carry aspirin because I get headaches frequently.  I have other drugs in
my purse that would be nearly as lethal. although they are in Prescription
bottles I don't have children, but I do have bouts of arthritis that can
make opening one of those push and twist things a misery.  I don't have
children around normally so I don't think of them.

Once long ago I was visiting an Aunt who was also being visited by her
daughter and grandson.  I carefully put my purse up on top of a kitchen
countertop to the absolute back and went in to visit.  The child went into
the kitchen, pulled a chair up and reached my purse. When we found him he
had all my medications and everything else out and spread around him on the
floor.  The Aspirin bottle was open and only 2 left in the bottle.

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.


Regina
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