Today at daycare the teacher told me that the kids (all but Nathan) made houses out of graham crackers and cream cheese. She said that Nathan sat there and colored. I feel so bad for him, that he was excluded, but there was no way that he could do that activity because he is allergic to the cheese and the crackers.
I guess this is another hard time - dealing with food allergies.
2 comments:
Hey! I totally understand the difficulty of have a food allergic child. I, myself, have two daughters, both of which have life-threatening food allergies. I know how it makes you want to cry when you think of your child sitting and watching the class do an activity, in which your child can't even touch. My daughters, on many occasions, have sat and watched their classmates eat cupcakes that another parent brought in. Over the years, though, I have gotten smarter. I now have cupcakes at their schools that are kept in the freezer in the teacher's lounge that they can go get when needed. That has been a big lifesaver. In my opinion, your son's daycare teacher should have talked with you to see what could be substituted so that he could participate. Icing could have been used in place of the cream cheese. Then you could have figured out something to substitute for the crackers. My oldest daughter, who is now 10, use to have a wheat allergy as a baby. I still gave her stuff with wheat, as that was not one of severe allergies. Her bad ones were milk, eggs, and nuts. When she was 2 or 3, the wheat allergy wasn't showing up on the skin tests at all. We were told when she was little that most kids outgrow the allergies by the time they start kindergarten. In my oldest daughters case, that didn't happen. At 10, her allergies are still considered life-threatening, but her RAST Test is showing improvement every year. My youngest daughter is 5 and just started kindergarten. She's severely allergic to eggs and nuts. She was allergic to milk a few years ago, but is able to handle it now. I know how stressful it is on a daily basis to feed an allergic child. I had to deal with this 10 years ago when you didn't really hear much about it. I think some of my family thought I was nuts, until some of them witness a reaction first hand. We have had a couple of trips to the emergency room and we have even had to use the epi-pen. Food allergies have become much more prevalent and many restaurant websites are listing ingredients.
Hi Jeanette, my heart broke to read this post, if the teacher and principal are both aware of the alergy situation, they should let you know ahead of time so you can bring safe items for Nathan, or suggest a comparable activity that all kids can join in.
When the school year started, I brought a letter "written" by Alan asking everyone for their cooperation and help, it worked like a charm, we have a great teacher, Stephanie, that let's me know of a food related activity and together we come up with alternates that Alan can join in, she also makes sure that Alan can eat the snack offered so he does not feel singled out (so this kids have had a lot of pretzel and cherio's days) but the response from the parents has also been great! every other week or so I get a call from someone letting me know of celebration and what they are bringing, one mom even offer to make cookies from scratch so they where allergen free...
I hope it al works out, it is so sad when our little ones miss out...
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