It Takes A Village - Peanut Terrorists

I just read a excellent yet disturbing article about the challenges that can face our allergic children in schools. It is one of the most comprehensive articles I have read to date on food allergy. One section of the article talked about how other parents and other kids can react in a very hostile and dangerous fashion to those who have allergies. Here are a few excerpts ... what are these people thinking?

"a parent of a nonallergic child announced at a PTO meeting that he'd continue sending his child to the elementary school with peanut butter sandwiches and tell his child to "smear" the peanut butter along the hallway walls."

What message does that send to the child of that astute parent?

"Snarky comments about the "peanut police" pepper blogs and online message boards. "We are considering dressing our daughter on Halloween as 'The Death Peanut,'" one parent joked."

Indeed. Forgive me if I do not join you in laughter.

"At the middle school, a teacher brought in a homemade casserole containing nuts and invited the allergic boy to eat it; when he said he couldn't because of his allergies, she had him stand outside the classroom (in the cold) while the other students ate. This child was also taunted and bullied by other students in the cafeteria, including one who refused to move from a peanut-free lunch table and ate a peanut butter sandwich—which resulted in the boy's suffering an extreme allergic reaction that landed him in the hospital"

This article just left me frightened. I could not conceive of intentionally jeopardizing the health and safety of any child. That is just twisted. Will we really have to go through this? Let's hope that these people are truly at the fringes and that the majority of parents take a safer, 'saner' approach.

According to Connie Weil, PhD, a psychologist at Children's Memorial in Chicago, severe food allergy is a "chronic illness, but it's a hidden illness, so it's misperceived by society." While that neatly summarizes the underlying issue, misperception is one thing but terrorizing allergic children is shocking even if extremely rare.

Though our being aware of these scenarios makes our daughter safer, I actually wish I never read that article.