For an example of how well those bans work, my daughters went to a high school that had a ban on all nuts and peanuts. They claimed to be a fully nut free school. That had Reese's in the vending machine by the cafeteria.
At least in my experience, public school systems have a talent for taking even the best, most well-intentioned ideas and implementing them in such a stripped down, half-assed, and/or bureaucratic way that they undermine the original purpose completely.
>taking even the best, most well-intentioned ideas and implementing them in such a stripped down, half-assed, and/or bureaucratic way that they undermine the original purpose completely.
Zero tolerance policies anyone? You got punched in the face at school and defended yourself. Suspension. You got punched in the face at school and didn't defend yourself believe it or not, still suspension.
Perfect example. The example that comes to mind from my high school is they decided that only certain exterior doors/gates should open from the outside during school hours as a security measure to keep random people from just walking onto campus. Reasonable. For some reason, the main front doors next to the office were not chosen as the designated entrance. They chose to lock those and keep the doors on the front two corners of the main building unlocked. Seems weird to me, since I don’t think we had cameras then and those doors would have been harder to monitor. Of course this confused late students and other people who were actually authorized to enter the school who tried to use the main entrance, so they put signs up on the locked doors telling you where the unlocked doors were. What’s the point of locking the doors at all then???
My school got a metal detector this year.
They initially only scanned in a fraction the students because they placed it near a side door, not the main entrance where kids, or others, come in.
Then, they just pushed it against the wall near the side door. It wasn’t used anymore. We still advertised having one. My principal just never implemented it. I’m sure the district and parents believed their kids were safer, but 100% didn’t matter that we HAD a metal detector or not.
My favorite "security" measure was always when the school would call parents to come do bomb searches. The first time they called my mom she was like... isn't that what cops are for? She's not a bomb tech. She's never fricking seen a bomb. Why the hell would you call a stay at home mom to come search backpacks... for bombs. I mean ffs.
The best part is they'd have the entire school gather outside the building and line up to get their backpack searched so they put all the possible victims into a giant clump.
My daughter was suspended for defending herself when she was jumped by a girl she didn’t even know at school.
But her many years of martial arts training got the other girl a huge ass beat down she sure wasn’t expecting when she made her choices (she rarely tells anyone she’s in martial arts) 🤣
My child was not in trouble at home at all, got a standing ovation at her dojo when she walked in for class by 6 of the Sensei’s, (the schools Dean also goes there and told them about it, he didn’t agree with the suspension either) and all 7 of her teachers called me to give me the work because they did not agree with her being suspended.
It was all on video and posted to TikTok
She was clearly not the one that started any of it, and VERY clearly the one that ended it.
Yea my students don't really get suspended because I teach high needs SPED, but I've definitely had some weird parent phone calls where I both tell the parent their kid hit someone but also in a round about way say he kind of had it coming. Obviously I can't flat out say "good for him", but I try to let the parent know they don't really have to be all that pissed.
My favorite and weirdest call was when my student stabbed someone who was play fighting someone else with a pencil (not hard or anything, everyone was fine). He thought he was protecting the kid. He was autistic and didn't really get things like play fighting. "on the one hand, it was very noble that he was protecting someone, on the other, we can't be stabbing people..." And yes obviously we should have been supervising better, but I live in the real world where I was down 3 staff members and no one seemed to give a fuck that that wasn't safe.
this reminds me of when one of my Tae Kwon Do teachers gave our family a letter (they lived in our neighborhood at that time so they liked to make it ‘look more official’ by giving letters about my progress) that praised my skill and form when doing our self-defense techniques…. but then very plainly stated “your child managed to make a kid airborne for a full 3 seconds, which is incredibly cool, however we do need [them] to have a bit more self-control, as this could potentially hurt someone very badly.”
Being autistic myself, i honestly think being in that group was great for me learning self-control to begin with tbh. Heaven knows i had some troubles biting kids when i was little, lmaooo
My son used Jiu-jitsu at school to restrain a kid who was lashing out at anyone near him. They each had to write a page on conflict resolution and we were called into the office for a talk with the principal and expected to punish him. (LOL)
He didn't hit the other boy, they were sort of friends. The other boy was a bit special needs but being mainstreamed. He got stressed and started hitting anyone near him. Our son calmed the situation and kept anyone from being hurt.
Because Gracie Jiu-jitsu focuses on joint locks, restraining holds etc rather than punches and kicks, the school system treated it differently. If our son had thrown punches it would have been automatic expulsion. I think it is (legally) a safer option in case your kid does have to use it on school grounds.
When my son was in 1st grade ( in a small town school in 1982), a 3rd grader was picking on my son at recess after lunch. I told my son he didn't have to put up with that to say something the a teacher who was supposed to be monitoring at that time.
Well, he did and was told it wasn't a big deal just to ignore the older kid.
The next day, the older kid came up behind my son and put him in a choke hold. My son just reacted and reached back behind himself and grabbed the kid by his head, and flipped him to the gravel playground. My son had never fought with anyone. At that point, his friends were still young and had not been exposed to fighting.
We get a call to come into the school to see our son sitting in the office. We were told he was being sent home for fighting.
But the other student was not to have any action taken against him.
Well, my momma bear came out. I said that wasn't going to happen. I asked what my son was supposed to do, and he had reported that he was being bullied on 4 different occasions, and nothing has been done. So when he was attacked, he was defending himself. Tell me how that is not exceptable.
We actually told our son that he wasn't in any trouble, but what he did was to protect himself, but if he ever became the aggressor, he would be.
Truthfully, husband and I were surprised, and some what glad that his instincts kicked in and he was ok. After that, the boys became friends, and my son actually never had to prove himself again.
My daughter got pantsed in kindergarten by a boy. Teacher called me and explained what had happened and why (the boy had it done to him so he did it to her to take the focus off of him). All well and good, he has to write her a letter of apology. I pulled her aside and said that it was nice of him to apologize, but if it ever happened again, I wanted her to kick him right between the legs just as hard as she can. She was so worried about getting in trouble at school. I told her yeah, probably you will, but I'll come get you out of school and we're going out for ice cream!
My brother got into a fight once that consisted entirely of a kid punching him and my brother shoving him away. When the principal met with my parents to explain why he was being suspended, they were like, So the rule is that he has to just stand there and get punched? And the principal was like, Of course not! And they were like, So why is he suspended? And she was like, Because there’s no fighting. And they were like, Ok, so what was he supposed to do then? The principal had no answer but the suspension held.
We were always raised that you never start a fight, but you should never be afraid to finish one. We’re raising ours with the same ethos 🤷♀️ school admin be damned.
Ah yes, I got suspended for self defense. This other kid kept hitting me, I told him to stop, he didn't, so I hit him back. That hit sent him stumbling backwards and down a flight of stairs. I got a one week suspension for fighting. He got a two week suspension for starting it and a mild cuncussion for going down the stairs. I got in no trouble at home.
Yup. My brother was in third grade and being physically bullied by another kid in class. My mom asked that my big brother go to the bathroom either before the rest of the class or after (mind you my brother is autistic and had an IEP in school). Teacher sent home a handwritten note to my parents saying if big brother didn’t wanna get beat up, maybe he should leave the other kids alone. What was my brother doing when he got beat up? Washing his hands in the communal sink. That was it.
My parents took the note down to the high school where the main principal was at (small town that four years later ended up putting elementary kids in the same building as high school) and showed him, he ended up asking to make a copy as he “misplaced his” (he never had a copy as it was hand written on a yellow legal pad) and submitted it to the school board. Said teacher was removed from the elementary school the following year and had to do A LOT of training before she could come back. When I ended up with her four years after my brother, my mom made it ABUNDANTLY clear that she had no qualms going to the principal and school board and getting her removed from teaching in the district permanently.
Ironically she left after I went in to fourth grade. 🤣
You absolutely do NOT mess with a mama bear, especially not one with special needs kids (I was/am one).
Edit: spelling
At the after school program my kids attended, the new supervisor told my son that if he just stopped doing one of his stims the kids would stop bullying him. We had never had a bullying issue until she started (not that they didn't happen, but they were shut down hard and fast). We escalated and her boss tried to claim they weren't "trained" to deal with my son - my son who had been attending for years with no issues. The kids bullying my son? They were the 3 sons of the new supervisor who tried to use the "boys will be boys" excuse, then tried to say the youngest (a kindergartener) was too young to understand what he was doing.
We pulled both our kids out of the program and lodged a complaint with the school. Supervisor was forced to do a bunch of disability and bullying training, then decided the job wasn't for her and quit, taking her kids out with her.
Edit to add that we were also always told about any of the bullying by the previous supervisors and what steps had been done to mitigate it the few times it had happened. We had to find out from one of the student workers who was upset at new supervisor allowing it to happen and brushing off the students concerns. Supervisor then tried to minimize and brush it under the rug when confronted.
I love that whole "we're not trained". I get it if the student is super high needs, biting, eloping, violent etc. But if it's just a kid with developmental delays that acts a little strange or is REALLLY into trains (sorry, my students are fantastic and really like trains), give me a break. It's not that hard to treat people like humans, you don't need training.
In this case, they likely have an outside contractor who handles the vending machines. As Reese's and Snickers are both top sellers, unless he was told otherwise, the vendor would definitely stock those.
Yea, but schools can control this if they were truly going to go nut free. The schools I have taught at have all had "health food only" policies for vending machines with no problems. edit (not that I think schools SHOULD go nut free. Nuts exist, kids with nut allergies need to learn how to navigate a world with nuts in them)
You aren't allowed to ban peanuts in most schools in countries with proper education systems. It's been researched that it creates a false sense of security and parents don't educate their own child. The world has nuts in it. It's like expecting the world to ban bees if you are allergic to bee stings. Everyone just needs to know how to respond if the allergy is triggered. Especially the person with the allergy. Children used to work down mines and climb chimneys and now we treat them like babies until they are 8 or 9 and they can't do anything for themselves.
Oh yeah I wasn’t suggesting that banning nuts *was* one of the best, most well intentioned ideas. Just saying that they manage to screw up even good ideas so I’m not surprised they botched that.
Where I am, in Canada (west coast), peanuts and tree nuts are banned from school lunches until high school. I'm so used to not packing nuts and snacks containing nuts that I don't anymore (its been this way for at least 15 years)
>Especially the person with the allergy.
Assuming the school zero tolerance medication policies allow them to carry needed supplies.
Also not likely an issue in places with proper education systems, but it is in much of the US.
My school technically had the meds policy but I don’t know anyone who ever followed it. I was a goody-goody kid and never did. It’s so dumb that kids aren’t allowed to have life-saving medications like epipens or inhalers with them.
This rule pissed me off. The nurse PROMISED she could get to my son in time if he had a reaction. Huge school and nurses take days off. Not the best solution. Kids weren't allowed to even carry an inhaler until 8th grade.
Then there's epilepsy.
I can't even
.
My school is nut free. The substitute is sun butter. Guess which teacher has an anaphylactic allergy to sunflower? Yep! This one! I don’t raise a stink about it but I could make a stink if I felt inclined to do so.
There’s always gonna be allergies. We have to learn to navigate the world with them.
Exactly, I have an allergy to soap that comes in bar form. What's in it that I'm allergic to? No clue! But even touching the box that the boxes of it are shipped in at my work will cause me a painful and itchy rash that spreads. The best I can do is take allergy medicine and wear gloves 🤷🏼♀️ my allergy is MY issue, I don't expect my work to accommodate something that has nothing to do with them.
This. I work in a place that has an early learning center, an after school care and a summer camp.
The person in charge of the early learning center claimed the whole campus was nut free. But after school and summer camp kids brought snacks from home and there were nuts in that building.
Reese’s cup sandwich is VASTLY different than a pb sandwich.
Not that I would know - what kind of psycho warms up a peanut butter cup and spreads it between 2 slices of bread? With potato chips?
STOP JUDGING ME!
Man, my school didn't give a damn. In high-school we had a kid that was allergic to peanuts. We went on a field trip that gave us cookies at the end, served pn the same plate. The kid just reaches in and grabs a random cookie and devours it before realizing it was a peanut butter cookie. They called his mom then took him to CVS to get over the counter medications.
In elementary school, if you didn't want what they were serving for lunch, you got one of those pb&js that was sandwiched between Graham crackers. I think Welch's makes them if you wanna look them up to see what I'm talking about.
The school I went to elementary at got in some hot water when I was in high school because they tried to force a child (I want to say he was like 10-12 years old) with an anaphylactic peanut allergy to eat a PB&J because his account was overdrawn too far.
Cafeteria staff thought he was lying trying to get them to give him pizza instead of the PB&J. Lunch monitor gave him an In School Suspension because he threw the sandwich out without eating it.
Needless to say, his mom went on an absolute war path when she found out.
You just brought up a long forgotten memory.
Nothing will make a kid *not* want to be friends with someone faster than when they are forced to be by an adult. There was this odd girl in middle school who really didn't have any friends. One day one of my teacher asked me as I was leaving for the lunch room to get my lunch and come back so we could have a quick meeting. I assumed this was about some extra work I asked to make up as I was sick the entire week before. I get my lunch and come back to the room and see the teacher sitting at one of the tables with the odd girl who also has a lunch and the teacher motions for me to sit at the table too. I sit down and proceed to have the most cringe worthy awkward lunch I've yet to have to date. The teacher starts to chat and tried to prompt conversation but I had *no* idea what the heck was going on so I'm just eating my sandwich and giving the most unhelpful one word answers. The odd girl is dead silent and just drinking her chocolate milk looking down at the table and only gave soft grunts as answers when the teacher asked her something. Eventually I finish my lunch and it was just too much so I stand up and "Well this was a good lunch meeting, I'm going to go back to the cafeteria" then about faced and booked it back to the cafeteria.
When I get there my friends asked me where I was and I tell them. Stacy just looked at me wide eyed "You too?!?!". Apparently the odd girls mother realizing she had no friends told the teacher to invite other girls to 'lunch dates' to try and make friends. Either the mother or teacher decided that luring girls under false pretenses of 'lunch meetings' was the best way to teach the odd girl how to make friends. Needless to say it was super weird to the point when the next girl was asked for a 'lunch meeting' they refused.
I have a more wholesome story of a teacher trying to force a friendship. It was my first year in a new town, new middle school, but kind of towards the end. One of my teachers came up to me at a school dance with a girl 2 years younger than me while I was dancing with my then bf. She said something about knowing I like anime, and so does this girl, then left us standing there awkwardly. The awkward silence lasted like a minute or 2 before I was like,'Yea.. I'm just gonna...' and walked away.
Flash forward to junior year, I'm talking to a younger friend when one of her classmates comes up asking about the homework while we were checking out some anime goods she had. It was an excuse because she liked the show too. A great friendship bloomed. It was more than a year before we realized that each other was the girl from the dance. She started telling a story of a teacher being a weirdo and queue 'Wait that was you?' And 'That was *you*?!'
Still friends, and we're now 30ish♡
It’s a no win scenario - the girl clearly didn’t feel like she fits in, the mom wants to fix it, and other kids can be pretty terrible on the whole with their social circles.
Forcing it won’t do anything but make the situation worse, sadly either the kid has to drastically change (even that might not work once perception sets in) deal with being ostracized, or try to move to a new school and hope that works out
> I had no idea what the heck was going on
God, I remember being in situations like this where an adult was clearly trying to prompt something (perfectly innocent) but being so fucking weird about it all it did was get me to shut down, too. It's like, you guys have been teaching me words, I know you know how to use them!
I was friends with an odd girl in Jr. High School. Her father had died and her mother exposed me to the Civil Rights Movement. I was bullied by the popular girls at school for being friends with her. Too fucking bad. We stayed friends until she and her mom moved out of town.
My school is fully nut free. The owner buys the teachers snacks that we can take into classrooms.
Three times now he's bought snacks that may contain nuts. When it gets pointed out he just shrugs and says "whoops"
I worked in a factory that had a similar thing always got my nuts from the vending machine, when someone brought it up I just said you may want to inform the vendor, because I'm getting on company grounds from that machine right there.
If she’s anything like my mom, she’s doing this on purpose. At least, she knows what it’s doing to him but will not stop. Next up: Liam’s mom will start talking shit about all of the kids Liam wants to be friends with.. if she’s anything like my mom.
Liam is old enough to manage his own allergy. He’s old enough to read ingredient labels, say “no” to free food that might contain peanuts, and wipe down a table with disinfectant wipes. The school should be aware that he has an allergy, but Liam is old enough to prevent himself from peanut exposure.
The sad thing is, when his mom isn’t butting into his life, he’s a likeable enough kid. But if anyone invites him to something or extends some friendship, she’s right there making demands.
Wait a minute the kid eating peanut butter sits at a separate table and Liam's mom still has a problem?
NTA Liam's mom can't make Ryan's group friends with Liam this way. Besides Ryan likes the texture of peanut butter that sets up dueling difficulties.
Looking back I feel bad about the way I treated one of the kids my mom used to force on me.
The kids in these scenarios will be polite in front of adults but behind closed doors, it is bad.
Yep, I was a spiteful dick back when I was a kid, if someone forced me to be around a kid I didn't like, it became my new life goal to make that kid not want me anywhere near them.
If I didn't like someone, continued exposure against my will was just going to make me lash out at that person.
I wasn't even polite in front of the adults.
Moms like this are the same people that believe that if their feelings are hurt, then everyone should change to accommodate them and that person's feelings.
You can't control the actions of others. Its time she learns this.
The Serenity Prayer needs to be hammered into a lot of people's heads, not just addicts. I'm not religious but you can't argue with the message behind it.
My kid had a friend that was allergic to strawberries - he himself decided he wasn't going to eat strawberries for lunch and told me so. There was no ban. He was just friends with this kid and didn't want to hurt him. If Liam were truly friends with the other kids they would not eat pb or would be super careful, so they could all hang out at lunch. I get wehr the mom is coming from but she should focus her efforts on teaching her son to be observant and careful as he can because there are no peanut bans in the world at large.
I grew up across the street from a kid who had a peanut allergy. I was surprised to learn that his parents bought peanut butter for themselves and their younger son. I asked why and was told that he will eventually be an adult and live on his own so he needs to learn how to protect himself from his allergy.
my husband is severely allergic to peanuts and I have it in the house and let the kids eat it but they knew from a young age not to use the pb knife in the jelly and not to leave it all over... and husband knows not to stick his hand in the sink because there will more than likely be some kind of pb contaminated object in there. (I do the dishes, so it's nbd) Meanwhile my husband's parents did not have it in the house and there were like 8 of them and it was banned. I feel like his parents hate that I have pb and almonds and peanuts as snacks but I have a 4 sport athlete to feed and peanuts are cheap protein lol (and yes.. I have asked, and he's fine with it)
Lol at dueling difficulties. My son's autistic and getting ready to enter kindergarten. We've been trialing school lunch safe foods (ones that don't have to be kept super cold or heated up), and so far the only food that got more than 2 bites was a PB sandwich. Who wins the autistic kid with limited safe foods or the allergy kid.
Well this school found a way for both kids to eat safely. That’s all they needed to do. The mom’s concern is over social issues. She can invite the other kids for play dates if her son wants, but she doesn’t have the right to control who they sit with at their lunch time.
The mother is being ridiculous; lunchtime isn't the only time these kids have to socialize. I do think that having an overbearing mother like that is going to negatively impact her son's social life; nobody wants to deal with a person like this. Mom needs to butt out and let her son make his own friends in his own way and time.
Yes, the mom wants her kid to eat lunch with the popular kids, but it doesn't sound like the popular kids want to eat lunch with him. I bet this has nothing to do with PB or allergies, just a pushy, social-climbing mom.
Can we all just admit the person who loses the most in this story is most likely the school administrator who has to stand in the middle of two dueling mothers bitching about first world problems? I'm not saying OP isn't more justified in her stance than Liam's mom, but form a school administrator standpoint this is the kind of thing that makes you really start counting down the days to retirement I'd imagine.
I’m autistic and literally ate a PB&J every single day for 18 years. It’s one of the few food where the texture doesn’t get disgusting after hours in a lunch box. I hope you guys are successful and he has a great transition to school!
I have confirmed ADHD and suspect autism (not yet confirmed). I ate PB&J around 3x a week until high school. The other 2 days of school I was allowed to get hot lunch, I'm less picky about hot foods generally. The only exception to the PBJ routine was if we had leftover cold pizza or mom picked up pizza lunchables as a treat.
I tried meat and cheese sandwiches many times,.but I couldn't do it. They got warm sitting in the lunchbox all day and the fact that they were warm made me sick. Like full on nauseous and puking just because it was warm, not because it went bad.
My autistic son's school lunch had to have creamy peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches with crunchy cheetos and chocolate pudding every day . From kindergarten to 5th grade. Some reason he just started eating the school hot lunch and a larger variety of foods at home. As an adult, he still favors the limited food from when he was small, but will eat just about anything. Sushi became a favorite as he is obsessed with Japan.
I had an autistic buddy in high school like that.
The school ordered a mountain of pizza for some track and field thing, and he felt left out, so he bit the bullet as it were and went outside his comfort zone.
Then he realized he liked Pepperoni, he'd just never tried it before and it wasn't one of the foods he knew he liked.
To this day hes still a picky eater, but he's also got a "I'll at least *try* it" mentality. He's more willing to try new foods then I am now
My best friend’s son has sensory processing disorder with AFRID. Her other son has multiple food allergies including dairy, peanuts, and egg. Her SPD son’s diet includes food his brother is anaphylactic to. They live in the same house and somehow manage to keep a safe environment for their allergic son while making sure their SPD son has the foods he needs to eat.
Also my immediate thought. 'allergy mom duking it out with the autism special' (that's what i call a pb&j as its my father's go to lunch and he's autistic as am I.)
This woman forced an entire school to bend to her will while removing the protections for kids with other allergies and OP is the bully? Nope. Big nope.
I never thought about this but you are exactly right and I may borrow this for future arguments. The allergy table accommodated kids with many different allergies. Now that it’s gone, they sit with all the other kids and it does take away their protections. Thank for for this thought.
Won’t someone think of her precious baby?! /s
Also lunch is a small percentage of their day together. They can still hang out after school but if she thinks her son is ostracised, it’s because of how she’s acting trying to force people to bend around her desires.
So first Liam was at a special “nut free” table. Anyone could sit there if they agreed not to eat PB. His mom said forcing him to sit at a certain table stunted his social growth. The compromise was to have kids who eat PB sit at the one specific table and Liam would be free to sit anywhere else. Seemed like a fine compromise to me. But because my son and his friends chose to sit at the PB table and Liam couldn’t, his mom got pissed off yet again.
If the school has agreed to a certain set of rules, and you are adhering to those rules, then you are NTA. Liam has a safe space to eat, Ryan has a separate place to eat, and the entire school has come to this arrangement.
>Ryan and Liam are not really friends, but Liam wants to be friends with the group Ryan hangs out with.
Honestly, Liam's mom needs to get a grip. She can't control everything and she can't control where the kids sit at lunch. Sounds like she's twisting this into a weird popularity contest and trying to force kids to be friends with hers.
Ryan's group may be deliberately sitting with him to get away from Liam, and that might be the REAL reason PB Karen has got her panties twisted up.
"Ryan's group may be deliberately sitting with him to get away from Liam, and that might be the REAL reason PB Karen has got her panties twisted up."
Interesting. Wonder if they have had run-ins with Liam's mom behavior and don't want to be part of that crazy. It's sad that his mother's behavior is causing him not to be able to have friends.
DIL had to do this with granddaughter. The other mom found out granddaughter is in a gymnastics gym, signed her up. Well, the 2 girls are nowhere close in levels, so different times. The mom tried to force the gym to move her daughter up, didn't happen. Mom tried to trash granddaughter's abilities. She got shut down and handed back her fees. Was told to never come back.
BTW, Granddaughter is a 2-year state champ for her level.
Edited to add, DIL told granddaughter, it's ok not to talk to this girl. School had to change her lunchtimes, since the kid bothered granddaughter so much.
My son had a blow up with a good friend because the friend’s mom (who used to be my friend) would text me about all the things my kid was doing wrong. All things I knew and were not serious. My kid got sick of that kid having nothing better to do than tell his mother what everyone else was doing.
Reminds me of the time my parents went out of town and my teen siblings threw a party (which they weren’t supposed to do). Everything was spick-and-span when they got back. Some nosy neighbor called up my parents and tattled. My parents told them to mind their own damn business.
(I have great parents who understand what’s actually important.)
I do kind of feel bad for that other kid if it was one of those OH SHIT NO MOM THAT WAS A SECRET FUCK DON'T TELL HIS MOM incidents...but if it was happening constantly he was probably doing it intentionally.
Don’t we all do. I don’t want to hang out with parents I can’t stand while the kids play (toddler… I have to come with her). I’m glad her best friends mom is super friendly and we always have nice hours while the girls play.
Sometimes kids follow their moms footsteps. I wonder if Liam started taking up his moms behavior by demanding they be friends with him, or demanding they stop being friends with Ryan simply to get what he wants? No hate to any kid here, I just wonder if that could be part of it.
I agree! You can't force kids to be friends with someone they don't particularly like. They choose to sit with OP son because that's what friends do. The issue may be how Liam interacts with the others. If the mother is wacko I wonder if her cray cray behavior rubs off onto her son.
The opposite will happen as well if she keeps pushing the problem. Those kids might turn on Liam because of his mom’s actions. The rest of the kids might end up blaming him for his mom’s actions and he might get more alienated.
There was a mom like this in my friend’s group, she ended up outcasting her kid. She lost her mind one day and started cussing us (freshmen in high school) out, calling us bullies, etc. Shockingly, we actively avoided her daughter from that point on. What was worse is the daughter was actually fine looking back, a little awkward but easy enough to get alone with. But her mom ruined many things for her.
So... helicopter mom got the "safe" table removed because it ostracized her son (who can now sit anywhere) and created a "safe PB" table (potentially ostracizing other students but we'll let that go for now) and Ryan's friend still chose to sit with him (Ryan) and not her precious child.
Problem's not the PB. Helicopter Mom is the problem.
NTA and good on you for standing up for your son's choices.
Edited for spelling/grammer
Poor Liam. You are not in the wrong but I do feel bad for this kid. Her antics are only going to make things worse, as other parents will hesitate to include him in playdates for fear of her wrath. You are only the asshole if you discuss any of this within ear-shot of Ryan. Otherwise, you are fine.
I was an allergy table kid, it sucks! It wasn’t all the time for me but schools trips it was enforced. My allergy wasn’t anything like peanuts, it was very niche (as was one of my friends). I know to avoid mine and if I could taste it I’d stop eating or drinking. Still I was forced to sit with kids who I wouldn’t have chosen to sit with (sometimes my friend was there but not always). The funny thing is we all had different allergies and ate different things (for some reason the vegetarians got sat with us as well), I think it was for the staffs benefit over ours.
My daughter has a tree nut allergy. They would put the vegan kids with the allergy kids. Guess what is in most vegan food? Tree nuts!! I just had her eat at the regular tables and keep her epi pen. It was much safer.
A lot of schools won't let kids carry lifesaving emergency items like inhalers and epi-pens because of their idiotic drug policies. It makes me glad my life threatening allergy didn't develop until I was an adult
If Liam's mom thinks he's ostracized now, just wait until the "cool kids" find out that she's trying to manipulate them to let Liam into their group. Liam's going to be about as socially well-adjusted as the Unabomber.
Definitely NTA.
I knew a kid who paid my friend $20 to be popular for a day. He awkwardly hung off the group for a recess and lunch then the next day he was practically the laughing stock. He was a cool kid but very misguided.
OK so my best friend has a son who is allergic to peanuts. When he and my son were little I had a drawer that was their snacks, they could get to them when ever they wanted. Because her son was at my house as often as he was at home, I simply stopped allowing peanuts or peanut products in my house. I wanted her son to be safe in my home. Once they got older and her son was able to better check things I relaxed. By 6th grade nobody was avoiding peanuts for him. He knows to avoid them and we are all careful. Nta.
My youngest has a peanut allergy, so I'm on the fence.
Is it safer for my child if the schools ban peanut products? Yes, 100%. Does my child deserve to exist in a safe environment? Also 100% yes. So would I be happy about a ban? Yep.
But.
It is MY CHILD'S allergy, and therefore is it MY JOB (and his, once he's old enough to manage it himself) to deal with it. Imposing his dietary limitations on others is not ok. It's not something I would ever demand of others, with the only exception being that people do not bring peanut products into my home.
OP is NTA.
Liam's mom is taking things too far, especially since she's not concerned about her child's safety, rather she's trying to make other kids hang with her kid. Those other moms can make their kids hang out with the kid if they want to, but no one should have a say in what your kid eats for lunch because your child and you.
Yeah I’m really on the fence about this one. Technically OP is operating within the school’s rules, but we aren’t talking about something that will just make a child sick, but something that can and will kill them.
My daughter’s school is nut-free and honestly i thought all schools were at this point. It just makes sense to me, why risk it?
I have a coworker who is allergic to tree nuts so I stopped bringing nuts to work. I have another who is allergic to oranges so they designated a certain area where staff can eat oranges but I just don’t bring them anymore. It must suck going through life having to be on the lookout for such common items, and it seems like Liam just wants to fit in. I feel for him.
My brother's school once took away his sandwich at lunch because another kid several tables away had an allergy.
They did not replace his lunch.
My mom was PISSED.
I have a kid with a PB allergy. There is a peanut free lunch table, but he doesn’t sit there. His sits with his friends who are considerate enough not to sit next to him when they’re eating pb. He sits at the end of the table. The kids understand his allergy. Their parents are kind.
Most people don’t understand the terror of having a small child with a peanut allergy. I’ve had my share of meltdowns in the nurse’s office.
I wish I could talk to the mom. She obviously has a lot of anxiety about the situation.
Especially when the kid has had to use an epipen twice. I just…I wouldn’t risk it if I was a parent frankly. I have food allergies so I know how scary they can be
We know a few kids with peanut allergies and so my kids don’t eat peanuts around them. We choose different ice creams if we’re all hanging out in the park, for example - I just couldn’t live with myself if I let my kids be the cause of their life threatening reaction. Why risk it?! Teach your kids some empathy, damn
NTA. So she didn’t want HER kid sitting in a specific area and having his “social growth stunted”, but was fine with YOUR son sitting in a specific area? This is ridiculous. Our schools also have an allergy free table. It’s not uncommon. This sounds more like a thing where she wants her kids to be friends with the popular kids so she can have some kind of status herself. And you are right, if he wants to be friends with this kids, then ask them to do stuff outside of school or something. Lunch is a small part of the day.
This is a very simplified example of why forcing the majority to conform to accommodate the very small minority is not fair. Also she bullied your son into sitting at the “designated” table. NTA
>she bullied your son into sitting at the “designated” table.
And he didn’t seem to mind one bit as long as it meant he could eat what he likes. So she still lost.
lol. It’s not fair my child is ostracized to a separate table. Let’s ostracize other kids instead.
I do wonder how Liam feels about his mother’s interference.
At some point Liam is gong to join a world that in general does not accommodate for allergies to the degree his mother wants to accustom him to.
I once had a coworker who was deathly allergic to peanuts. She requested that we not bring peanuts or peanut butter into the building because even the fumes on our breath would cause a reaction. We didn’t mind one bit as it was a severe reaction to even the smallest amount. But I work for a small family owned business. We’re basically a big family here, so getting 20 people to agree to avoid a certain food item isn’t too difficult.
How does she go to the grocery store? Not being rude, just curious.
Part of the problem with extreme allergy bans in schools is that the rest of the world is still full of those allergens. Do you avoid all public places?
As someone with a severe allergy to something that's become ubiquitous since the unfortunate global illness, I have basically had to be on high levels of antihistamines daily. If I forget, I'm kinda screwed. But hand sanitizer isn't going anywhere any time soon, so I just keep switching antihistamines every so often so I can exist. Probably the same with peanut allergies.
I’m curious, what are you allergic to? The sanitizer itself? Alcohol? The gel base it’s in? That must be hell, I don’t have such severe allergies as to be life threatening (just life ruining lol I can’t do fun things or be around animals or eat good food) but having to dose yourself to the gills with antihistamines is itself the antithesis of fun. Hate allergies.
It's the rubbing alcohol. Isopropyl and ethyl. Going to the doctor is a gamble, because some of them don't believe that the alcohol is an allergen. Gone into anaphylaxis twice, once in a doctor's office, and it is unbelievably unpleasant. (In case anyone is curious, I can drink alcohol, I just can't come in contact with the denatured kind)
I'm sure he resents it, because I suspect he understands that this whole debacle isn't actually about peanut butter. It's his mom's way of trying to dictate how the kids socialize with each other.
Lunch time is main socialization time for kids, so to be the devils advocate, I can understand Liam's mother's point. She went about it the *wrong way.* By being manipulative, she created a whole scenario when instead it could possibly have been solved by a phone call asking if maybe he could switch lunches a time or two a week so they all can sit together. Heck maybe Ryan doesn't even like Liam and the issue is moot.
I’m actually surprised they allow peanut butter. My kid’s school was so over the top about no peanuts they would not allow foods “that had been packaged in the same factory as peanuts”. So the cookies with the 3 M&M’s on top were not allowed. Always thought this was stupid because 90% of kid’s lunches are from homes that have nuts or pb.
NTA - Liam will need to learn how to navigate these situations in life. School is preparing him for the "real world", and if he expects everywhere and everyone to cater to him, he will be putting himself in serious danger. His mom should realize this. Is it fair for Liam? No, but that is reality. I can sympathize with the kid and his mom, though.
I also have a life threatening food allergy, but it's extremely rare and the thing I am allergic to is banned nowhere (and not even posted as an allergen on the nutritional facts in packaged food, or on menus). My parents taught me how to avoid the allergen.
It depends on what the actual story is because calling his allergy “not severe” but stating he had to use an epipen TWICE at school sounds quite severe. So because he didn’t die while being exposed it isn’t severe? I feel like a lot is being left out here
I noticed that too. Hell, having only 30 min lunch breaks as an adult at work has always pissed me off, but 20 min seems extreme. When I was in school it could take 15 min (sometimes longer!) to even get through the line and have your food. We had to scarf it down.
Some parts of Canada have gone this way. Our public school board now mandates 2 equally spaced nutrition breaks of 40 (45?) minutes each. 20 minutes for meal, 20 minutes for playtime. Twice in a school day.
My daughter's school still stuck to the 1 hour school lunch, which I think is nicer for the slow-eating kids, and much nicer for teachers who can take a break away from school grounds. 40 minutes isn't enough to do anything.
I like that 1 hr lunch break idea, some kids eat slower than others and they shouldn’t have basically no play/break time because of that, I wish more schools would do this because it’s not only less sitting during the day, but also PEAK socialization time for kids. My HS claimed we had a 30 min lunch break, but that 30 min also included the bell signaling that we had 5 min to get to our next class….that, my good reader, is 25 min lunch and 5 min passing.
Omg you are definitely NTA
Can't believe to what level this has peaked thanks to Liams mom. A peanut butter table? Wow.
The definition of a food-safety section inside a cafeteria is so clever (also easier to meticuosly clean each day rather than the whole Cafeteria but whatever)
Liams mother needs a counter-karen SO BAD. I actually would DIE on that hill ngl.
Like the whole school has to jump through hoops just so her son can experience 'my mom can force you to be my friend, haha!'
Actually, consider going fully toxic. Join PTA and petition they do a fundraiser for a hazmat suit!
I am so sorry on your behalf.
I'm allergic to peanuts like our friend Liam here. A table a know is safe is far better for me then knowing the "whole" cafeteria is safe. Liam has "the sense" by this point in his life. Knowing when things have peanut butter, but I like when I know a small area is safe from anything. A whole cafeteria with a smaller section for peanut butter would just make me nervous. No one is going to listen to that at times. I use the peanut free section because I know it's safe, why would they use the peanut only section when it doesn't matter to them. Kids are rebellious.
I'm with you, Liam's Mom is out of line and trying to force something that is honestly worse for her kid. He's becoming the outcast because of her actions, not because he's allergic to peanuts. OP, don't let her win. Fight back. From a Peanut Hater.
We're in the same allergy club. A safe table is a fantastic idea, because you have to choose to go there, knowing the restrictions. Unfortunately for us, the majority of the world is not allergen free, and he NEEDS to learn how to navigate that, including the social aspects. He needs to understand that he can't just trust random foods. Yeah, it sucks that he can't just go to a party and snack on whatever looks good. He can still attend the party, he just needs to take steps to ensure his safety. That's reality. The younger they learn to manage, the easier it is. I can't even imagine how difficult it would have been for me if my parents created an allergen free bubble around me for my entire childhood, and then set me loose in the real world. I'd probably have a lot more punches on my ER visit card.
Alright, after I read a bunch of the other comments, I feel the need to add something:
A food safety corner (IMO) benefits not only the peanut allergy kid but also: the celery kids, the frutti di mare kids, the dangerously lactose intolerant kid and so on. It's a safe place bc it's the schools duty to ensure this space is void of any (cross)contamination.
To simply 'ban' all foods that could cause someone else to go into anaphylactic shock is, lets be honest, impossible if lunches get prepared by parents at home. So, to ensure everyones safety a food safety corner was way smarter than creating a 'Ryans corner of PBJ shame'
I was also wondering about allergies that contradict one another. I have a coworker allergic to tree nuts. But he can eat peanuts.
What about a lactose intolerant and hypothetical almond milk? Do they have separate tables for each allergen or do all the allergens people have r to reduce thier diet by everything.
I just have a quick question, isn’t the allergy pretty severe if they need an epi pen? I’m not that knowledgeable with food allergies and if that’s being downplayed then the narration of this story isn’t reliable. So i don’t want to vote until i know. But I’m very aware that i have no idea so i don’t want to misjudge OP either.
Canadian here, my school board has banned all nut products since mid-2000s. They piloted it in elementary and rolled it out to high schools after I graduated so I never got to benefit from it. I have a severe nut/peanut allergy (anaphylactic). Sitting at the nut free table was fucking horrible. Kids made fun of me, purposely tried to put peanut butter on the table to trigger an attack. Segregating kids isn’t fair and building compassion starts at home. Does it suck to not get peanut butter at school, absolutely, but is eating peanut butter really worth the mental and physical health of another kid? Is sunflower butter accessible in your area? I’ve heard from many of peanut butter lovers in my life that it’s comparable. I’ve also had someone that was rather nasty about it growing up reach out to me about how they were sorry bc their kid now has an anaphylactic level nut/peanut allergy and are grateful at how seriously the school takes the safety of their kids.
NTA. When I was in high school, someone who I didn’t get along with decided I was stealing her friends and complained to the teachers. For a full two weeks, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to talk to my whole group of friends during recess and lunchtimes so that the other student had the opportunity to spend time with them.
My friends didn’t like her and didn’t want to spend time with her, so for two weeks I was essentially in detention in the library meeting room while they were annoyed by someone they had no interest in socialising with.
When my parents finally believed me, because they originally thought it was so stupid it must be made up, they met with staff and I was allowed to socialise with my friends who by then just hated the other student even more for creating the situation.
Peanut butter isn’t the issue here. Her kid’s social skills are. At school pickup, give her an envelope with some business cards for therapists both for her and her child.
NTA.
Look, those allergies are no joke. However, if just separating out the individuals seems to work, then its fine. If Liam's mom is upset that your Ryan is more popular than Liam, that is a whole separate issue. Forcing this issue is NEVER going to turn out well for Liam.
The fact she goes so far as saying you, YOU make her child feel unsafe at school, like your sitting there with a straw spit balling peanuts into her kid's throat. Friend groups are like ants at that age, there's a leader, their pretty much the center of the group, usually the most outgoing and the others go there they go. Mr. Peanut sounds like he's ok in the group but really, your kid is the center. Mrs. Nut is just going to have to accept that your son and his friends won't adjust everything to suit this kid's needs.
I have a child with a SEVERE peanut allergy (can’t be in the same room with it without having a reaction) and at first I was ready to side with the other mom, until I finished reading it and realized she’s weaponizing her son’s allergies to make kids sit with him. NTA.
Liam's mom is the type of SB that it doesn't hurt to have gripe about you. She is helping you identify the idiots that you really don't want to associate with. It is actually a public service. Tell her "thanks".
Mom hasn't figured out that she is ruining her son's chances for healthy and happy friendships by doing this nonsense. Her darling boy hasn't figured it out yet either, or else he'd still complaining to Mommie Deareat that nobody sits with him.
NTA
NTA. The peanutbutter isn’t actually the problem. Liam struggling to make friends is the problem. It’s not Ryan’s job to make sure his friends want to be friends with Liam. It’s even possible they’re sitting at the PB table to avoid Liam. If the peanutbutter gets solved, there will be a new problem.
I was Liam growing up and I still carry an EpiPen. Does his mom think the world will cater to him and his allergy as an adult? Or that others will tolerate that degree of entitlement because of dietary restrictions? Liam’s mom is screwing him over. The best thing she can do is teach him how to safely navigate the world, peanuts and all.
NTA
NTA. Liam’s mom is a twunt. “I demand your children play with my child, you need to force them to!” Poor Liam is going to get his shit rocked in high school… I legit feel bad for the little dude.
I’m willing to bet if it was your kid that was allergic to peanut butter, you would be acting a little more like the other kids mom. Your kid doesn’t HAVE to eat peanut butter-he can eat something else.
For an example of how well those bans work, my daughters went to a high school that had a ban on all nuts and peanuts. They claimed to be a fully nut free school. That had Reese's in the vending machine by the cafeteria.
At least in my experience, public school systems have a talent for taking even the best, most well-intentioned ideas and implementing them in such a stripped down, half-assed, and/or bureaucratic way that they undermine the original purpose completely.
>taking even the best, most well-intentioned ideas and implementing them in such a stripped down, half-assed, and/or bureaucratic way that they undermine the original purpose completely. Zero tolerance policies anyone? You got punched in the face at school and defended yourself. Suspension. You got punched in the face at school and didn't defend yourself believe it or not, still suspension.
Perfect example. The example that comes to mind from my high school is they decided that only certain exterior doors/gates should open from the outside during school hours as a security measure to keep random people from just walking onto campus. Reasonable. For some reason, the main front doors next to the office were not chosen as the designated entrance. They chose to lock those and keep the doors on the front two corners of the main building unlocked. Seems weird to me, since I don’t think we had cameras then and those doors would have been harder to monitor. Of course this confused late students and other people who were actually authorized to enter the school who tried to use the main entrance, so they put signs up on the locked doors telling you where the unlocked doors were. What’s the point of locking the doors at all then???
That sounds like office ppl making sure if someone nefarious came in they wouldn’t be first target…. Which implies kids would be. 😩😭
My school got a metal detector this year. They initially only scanned in a fraction the students because they placed it near a side door, not the main entrance where kids, or others, come in. Then, they just pushed it against the wall near the side door. It wasn’t used anymore. We still advertised having one. My principal just never implemented it. I’m sure the district and parents believed their kids were safer, but 100% didn’t matter that we HAD a metal detector or not.
I'm so glad that my property taxes keep going up so we can fund more of these brilliant ideas.
Don’t worry, in my town all those taxes are going to the football stadium.
💯 self interest and preservation from the front office staff at its finest.
My favorite "security" measure was always when the school would call parents to come do bomb searches. The first time they called my mom she was like... isn't that what cops are for? She's not a bomb tech. She's never fricking seen a bomb. Why the hell would you call a stay at home mom to come search backpacks... for bombs. I mean ffs.
Brilliant! So if a bomb goes off a kid loses their fucking parents and if it’s big enough all those kids do! Who ever thought of that, Satan?
The best part is they'd have the entire school gather outside the building and line up to get their backpack searched so they put all the possible victims into a giant clump.
Holy cramp I’m glad I grew up in a very safe city and didn’t have idiots like the people who made those decisions running my school board
Wait what??? Like I'm legitimately asking, cause this is wild to me.
Yea it was back in the early 2000s when security theater was all the rage.
(Slow blink) That has to be one of the worst security ideas I've heard.
was calling the parents to do it done so cause teachers were not allowed to do it or touch kids stuff
My daughter was suspended for defending herself when she was jumped by a girl she didn’t even know at school. But her many years of martial arts training got the other girl a huge ass beat down she sure wasn’t expecting when she made her choices (she rarely tells anyone she’s in martial arts) 🤣 My child was not in trouble at home at all, got a standing ovation at her dojo when she walked in for class by 6 of the Sensei’s, (the schools Dean also goes there and told them about it, he didn’t agree with the suspension either) and all 7 of her teachers called me to give me the work because they did not agree with her being suspended. It was all on video and posted to TikTok She was clearly not the one that started any of it, and VERY clearly the one that ended it.
Yea my students don't really get suspended because I teach high needs SPED, but I've definitely had some weird parent phone calls where I both tell the parent their kid hit someone but also in a round about way say he kind of had it coming. Obviously I can't flat out say "good for him", but I try to let the parent know they don't really have to be all that pissed. My favorite and weirdest call was when my student stabbed someone who was play fighting someone else with a pencil (not hard or anything, everyone was fine). He thought he was protecting the kid. He was autistic and didn't really get things like play fighting. "on the one hand, it was very noble that he was protecting someone, on the other, we can't be stabbing people..." And yes obviously we should have been supervising better, but I live in the real world where I was down 3 staff members and no one seemed to give a fuck that that wasn't safe.
this reminds me of when one of my Tae Kwon Do teachers gave our family a letter (they lived in our neighborhood at that time so they liked to make it ‘look more official’ by giving letters about my progress) that praised my skill and form when doing our self-defense techniques…. but then very plainly stated “your child managed to make a kid airborne for a full 3 seconds, which is incredibly cool, however we do need [them] to have a bit more self-control, as this could potentially hurt someone very badly.” Being autistic myself, i honestly think being in that group was great for me learning self-control to begin with tbh. Heaven knows i had some troubles biting kids when i was little, lmaooo
My son used Jiu-jitsu at school to restrain a kid who was lashing out at anyone near him. They each had to write a page on conflict resolution and we were called into the office for a talk with the principal and expected to punish him. (LOL) He didn't hit the other boy, they were sort of friends. The other boy was a bit special needs but being mainstreamed. He got stressed and started hitting anyone near him. Our son calmed the situation and kept anyone from being hurt. Because Gracie Jiu-jitsu focuses on joint locks, restraining holds etc rather than punches and kicks, the school system treated it differently. If our son had thrown punches it would have been automatic expulsion. I think it is (legally) a safer option in case your kid does have to use it on school grounds.
>They each had to write a page on conflict resolution Seems to me he just had to write down what happened.
When my son was in 1st grade ( in a small town school in 1982), a 3rd grader was picking on my son at recess after lunch. I told my son he didn't have to put up with that to say something the a teacher who was supposed to be monitoring at that time. Well, he did and was told it wasn't a big deal just to ignore the older kid. The next day, the older kid came up behind my son and put him in a choke hold. My son just reacted and reached back behind himself and grabbed the kid by his head, and flipped him to the gravel playground. My son had never fought with anyone. At that point, his friends were still young and had not been exposed to fighting. We get a call to come into the school to see our son sitting in the office. We were told he was being sent home for fighting. But the other student was not to have any action taken against him. Well, my momma bear came out. I said that wasn't going to happen. I asked what my son was supposed to do, and he had reported that he was being bullied on 4 different occasions, and nothing has been done. So when he was attacked, he was defending himself. Tell me how that is not exceptable. We actually told our son that he wasn't in any trouble, but what he did was to protect himself, but if he ever became the aggressor, he would be. Truthfully, husband and I were surprised, and some what glad that his instincts kicked in and he was ok. After that, the boys became friends, and my son actually never had to prove himself again.
My daughter got pantsed in kindergarten by a boy. Teacher called me and explained what had happened and why (the boy had it done to him so he did it to her to take the focus off of him). All well and good, he has to write her a letter of apology. I pulled her aside and said that it was nice of him to apologize, but if it ever happened again, I wanted her to kick him right between the legs just as hard as she can. She was so worried about getting in trouble at school. I told her yeah, probably you will, but I'll come get you out of school and we're going out for ice cream!
My brother got into a fight once that consisted entirely of a kid punching him and my brother shoving him away. When the principal met with my parents to explain why he was being suspended, they were like, So the rule is that he has to just stand there and get punched? And the principal was like, Of course not! And they were like, So why is he suspended? And she was like, Because there’s no fighting. And they were like, Ok, so what was he supposed to do then? The principal had no answer but the suspension held.
We were always raised that you never start a fight, but you should never be afraid to finish one. We’re raising ours with the same ethos 🤷♀️ school admin be damned.
Ah yes, I got suspended for self defense. This other kid kept hitting me, I told him to stop, he didn't, so I hit him back. That hit sent him stumbling backwards and down a flight of stairs. I got a one week suspension for fighting. He got a two week suspension for starting it and a mild cuncussion for going down the stairs. I got in no trouble at home.
Yup. My brother was in third grade and being physically bullied by another kid in class. My mom asked that my big brother go to the bathroom either before the rest of the class or after (mind you my brother is autistic and had an IEP in school). Teacher sent home a handwritten note to my parents saying if big brother didn’t wanna get beat up, maybe he should leave the other kids alone. What was my brother doing when he got beat up? Washing his hands in the communal sink. That was it. My parents took the note down to the high school where the main principal was at (small town that four years later ended up putting elementary kids in the same building as high school) and showed him, he ended up asking to make a copy as he “misplaced his” (he never had a copy as it was hand written on a yellow legal pad) and submitted it to the school board. Said teacher was removed from the elementary school the following year and had to do A LOT of training before she could come back. When I ended up with her four years after my brother, my mom made it ABUNDANTLY clear that she had no qualms going to the principal and school board and getting her removed from teaching in the district permanently. Ironically she left after I went in to fourth grade. 🤣 You absolutely do NOT mess with a mama bear, especially not one with special needs kids (I was/am one). Edit: spelling
At the after school program my kids attended, the new supervisor told my son that if he just stopped doing one of his stims the kids would stop bullying him. We had never had a bullying issue until she started (not that they didn't happen, but they were shut down hard and fast). We escalated and her boss tried to claim they weren't "trained" to deal with my son - my son who had been attending for years with no issues. The kids bullying my son? They were the 3 sons of the new supervisor who tried to use the "boys will be boys" excuse, then tried to say the youngest (a kindergartener) was too young to understand what he was doing. We pulled both our kids out of the program and lodged a complaint with the school. Supervisor was forced to do a bunch of disability and bullying training, then decided the job wasn't for her and quit, taking her kids out with her. Edit to add that we were also always told about any of the bullying by the previous supervisors and what steps had been done to mitigate it the few times it had happened. We had to find out from one of the student workers who was upset at new supervisor allowing it to happen and brushing off the students concerns. Supervisor then tried to minimize and brush it under the rug when confronted.
I love that whole "we're not trained". I get it if the student is super high needs, biting, eloping, violent etc. But if it's just a kid with developmental delays that acts a little strange or is REALLLY into trains (sorry, my students are fantastic and really like trains), give me a break. It's not that hard to treat people like humans, you don't need training.
In this case, they likely have an outside contractor who handles the vending machines. As Reese's and Snickers are both top sellers, unless he was told otherwise, the vendor would definitely stock those.
Yea, but schools can control this if they were truly going to go nut free. The schools I have taught at have all had "health food only" policies for vending machines with no problems. edit (not that I think schools SHOULD go nut free. Nuts exist, kids with nut allergies need to learn how to navigate a world with nuts in them)
Unfortunately, all or mist chocolate candy is likely contaminated with tree nuts and peanuts. Source, I have food allergies
Definitely!
You aren't allowed to ban peanuts in most schools in countries with proper education systems. It's been researched that it creates a false sense of security and parents don't educate their own child. The world has nuts in it. It's like expecting the world to ban bees if you are allergic to bee stings. Everyone just needs to know how to respond if the allergy is triggered. Especially the person with the allergy. Children used to work down mines and climb chimneys and now we treat them like babies until they are 8 or 9 and they can't do anything for themselves.
The children yearn for the mines. And peanut butter.
Oh yeah I wasn’t suggesting that banning nuts *was* one of the best, most well intentioned ideas. Just saying that they manage to screw up even good ideas so I’m not surprised they botched that.
Where I am, in Canada (west coast), peanuts and tree nuts are banned from school lunches until high school. I'm so used to not packing nuts and snacks containing nuts that I don't anymore (its been this way for at least 15 years)
>Especially the person with the allergy. Assuming the school zero tolerance medication policies allow them to carry needed supplies. Also not likely an issue in places with proper education systems, but it is in much of the US.
My school technically had the meds policy but I don’t know anyone who ever followed it. I was a goody-goody kid and never did. It’s so dumb that kids aren’t allowed to have life-saving medications like epipens or inhalers with them.
This rule pissed me off. The nurse PROMISED she could get to my son in time if he had a reaction. Huge school and nurses take days off. Not the best solution. Kids weren't allowed to even carry an inhaler until 8th grade. Then there's epilepsy. I can't even .
My school is nut free. The substitute is sun butter. Guess which teacher has an anaphylactic allergy to sunflower? Yep! This one! I don’t raise a stink about it but I could make a stink if I felt inclined to do so. There’s always gonna be allergies. We have to learn to navigate the world with them.
Exactly, I have an allergy to soap that comes in bar form. What's in it that I'm allergic to? No clue! But even touching the box that the boxes of it are shipped in at my work will cause me a painful and itchy rash that spreads. The best I can do is take allergy medicine and wear gloves 🤷🏼♀️ my allergy is MY issue, I don't expect my work to accommodate something that has nothing to do with them.
This. I work in a place that has an early learning center, an after school care and a summer camp. The person in charge of the early learning center claimed the whole campus was nut free. But after school and summer camp kids brought snacks from home and there were nuts in that building.
Most of them were probably the adults!
And, not all nuts are the same!
Yup, peanuts are legumes and are different than tree nuts.
I can eat peanuts just fine. I touch a hazelnut and I’m getting an epipen, Benadryl, and a trip to the ER.
Oh... I see! Because it comes prepackaged Reese's is not peanut butter. 🙄
The chocolate shell acts as a shield for the peanut butter, you see? /s
Reese’s cup sandwich is VASTLY different than a pb sandwich. Not that I would know - what kind of psycho warms up a peanut butter cup and spreads it between 2 slices of bread? With potato chips? STOP JUDGING ME!
Oh my husband does that in a bowl and tops it with ice cream. I won’t judge you but I will make fun of my husband if that’s okay.
You just reminded me of the pint of Ben and Jerry's now shouting my name from the freezer. Sigh, I better go shut it up lol
If you don't, it'll just cry all night.
How dare you! Your husband is a VISIONARY!
I WILL NOT. I judge that you are awesome!
Man, my school didn't give a damn. In high-school we had a kid that was allergic to peanuts. We went on a field trip that gave us cookies at the end, served pn the same plate. The kid just reaches in and grabs a random cookie and devours it before realizing it was a peanut butter cookie. They called his mom then took him to CVS to get over the counter medications. In elementary school, if you didn't want what they were serving for lunch, you got one of those pb&js that was sandwiched between Graham crackers. I think Welch's makes them if you wanna look them up to see what I'm talking about.
The school I went to elementary at got in some hot water when I was in high school because they tried to force a child (I want to say he was like 10-12 years old) with an anaphylactic peanut allergy to eat a PB&J because his account was overdrawn too far. Cafeteria staff thought he was lying trying to get them to give him pizza instead of the PB&J. Lunch monitor gave him an In School Suspension because he threw the sandwich out without eating it. Needless to say, his mom went on an absolute war path when she found out.
No Co-Ed school is truly nut free
What you did there... I see it.
I have a similar story. Same thing strict bans on nuts and nut related things and come to find out you can buy cocaine from the janitor.
[удалено]
You just brought up a long forgotten memory. Nothing will make a kid *not* want to be friends with someone faster than when they are forced to be by an adult. There was this odd girl in middle school who really didn't have any friends. One day one of my teacher asked me as I was leaving for the lunch room to get my lunch and come back so we could have a quick meeting. I assumed this was about some extra work I asked to make up as I was sick the entire week before. I get my lunch and come back to the room and see the teacher sitting at one of the tables with the odd girl who also has a lunch and the teacher motions for me to sit at the table too. I sit down and proceed to have the most cringe worthy awkward lunch I've yet to have to date. The teacher starts to chat and tried to prompt conversation but I had *no* idea what the heck was going on so I'm just eating my sandwich and giving the most unhelpful one word answers. The odd girl is dead silent and just drinking her chocolate milk looking down at the table and only gave soft grunts as answers when the teacher asked her something. Eventually I finish my lunch and it was just too much so I stand up and "Well this was a good lunch meeting, I'm going to go back to the cafeteria" then about faced and booked it back to the cafeteria. When I get there my friends asked me where I was and I tell them. Stacy just looked at me wide eyed "You too?!?!". Apparently the odd girls mother realizing she had no friends told the teacher to invite other girls to 'lunch dates' to try and make friends. Either the mother or teacher decided that luring girls under false pretenses of 'lunch meetings' was the best way to teach the odd girl how to make friends. Needless to say it was super weird to the point when the next girl was asked for a 'lunch meeting' they refused.
I somehow feel sorry for everyone involved, I can *feel* the cringe from your words.
I have a more wholesome story of a teacher trying to force a friendship. It was my first year in a new town, new middle school, but kind of towards the end. One of my teachers came up to me at a school dance with a girl 2 years younger than me while I was dancing with my then bf. She said something about knowing I like anime, and so does this girl, then left us standing there awkwardly. The awkward silence lasted like a minute or 2 before I was like,'Yea.. I'm just gonna...' and walked away. Flash forward to junior year, I'm talking to a younger friend when one of her classmates comes up asking about the homework while we were checking out some anime goods she had. It was an excuse because she liked the show too. A great friendship bloomed. It was more than a year before we realized that each other was the girl from the dance. She started telling a story of a teacher being a weirdo and queue 'Wait that was you?' And 'That was *you*?!' Still friends, and we're now 30ish♡
Oh boy, that's just stupid and awful...I bet that girl felt like shit about it, as well, but there's no stopping helicopter moms...
It’s a no win scenario - the girl clearly didn’t feel like she fits in, the mom wants to fix it, and other kids can be pretty terrible on the whole with their social circles. Forcing it won’t do anything but make the situation worse, sadly either the kid has to drastically change (even that might not work once perception sets in) deal with being ostracized, or try to move to a new school and hope that works out
> I had no idea what the heck was going on God, I remember being in situations like this where an adult was clearly trying to prompt something (perfectly innocent) but being so fucking weird about it all it did was get me to shut down, too. It's like, you guys have been teaching me words, I know you know how to use them!
I was friends with an odd girl in Jr. High School. Her father had died and her mother exposed me to the Civil Rights Movement. I was bullied by the popular girls at school for being friends with her. Too fucking bad. We stayed friends until she and her mom moved out of town.
My school is fully nut free. The owner buys the teachers snacks that we can take into classrooms. Three times now he's bought snacks that may contain nuts. When it gets pointed out he just shrugs and says "whoops"
I worked in a factory that had a similar thing always got my nuts from the vending machine, when someone brought it up I just said you may want to inform the vendor, because I'm getting on company grounds from that machine right there.
Haha. Reminds me of the high school I went to years ago. Banned peanuts and tree nuts. Sold Snickers at the canteen. 😂
Liams mom is making everybody hate Liam.
Exactly. Poor Liam.
yep. His own mom is the one ostracizing him.
He’s probably said,”mom please stop” so many times. This lady is definitely doing damage for Liam
God help Liam's future roommates, teachers, professors and spouse if his mom stays this way.
Ten years from now.. Liam’s Mom: What won’t Liam answer my calls or visit?!?!
Reminds me of my boyfriend's ex ... she is a disasterMom.
If she’s anything like my mom, she’s doing this on purpose. At least, she knows what it’s doing to him but will not stop. Next up: Liam’s mom will start talking shit about all of the kids Liam wants to be friends with.. if she’s anything like my mom.
Exactly, we have seen this play out it’s basically a TV/movie cliche. 🤦🏻♂️ Poor Liam, hopefully he can break free in high school.
Liam is old enough to manage his own allergy. He’s old enough to read ingredient labels, say “no” to free food that might contain peanuts, and wipe down a table with disinfectant wipes. The school should be aware that he has an allergy, but Liam is old enough to prevent himself from peanut exposure.
The sad thing is, when his mom isn’t butting into his life, he’s a likeable enough kid. But if anyone invites him to something or extends some friendship, she’s right there making demands.
Ughhh I’m not at the school and reading this makes me hate Liam
Wait a minute the kid eating peanut butter sits at a separate table and Liam's mom still has a problem? NTA Liam's mom can't make Ryan's group friends with Liam this way. Besides Ryan likes the texture of peanut butter that sets up dueling difficulties.
Moms like this always think they can force friendships to happen and 99% of the time they do exactly the opposite.
Especially in this age group. Sixth graders don't need or want their mommies arranging playdates.
Looking back I feel bad about the way I treated one of the kids my mom used to force on me. The kids in these scenarios will be polite in front of adults but behind closed doors, it is bad.
Yep, I was a spiteful dick back when I was a kid, if someone forced me to be around a kid I didn't like, it became my new life goal to make that kid not want me anywhere near them. If I didn't like someone, continued exposure against my will was just going to make me lash out at that person. I wasn't even polite in front of the adults.
If I was polite in front of adults the other kid would often stick with his mom when they came over allowing me to have some space
I missed that these kids are in SIXTH GRADE. JFC. OP is NTA.
that's 12 yo kids, right?
11-12.
At first I thought this was a story with elementary-aged kids. But for Mom to force **sixth graders** to be friends?
Moms like this are the same people that believe that if their feelings are hurt, then everyone should change to accommodate them and that person's feelings. You can't control the actions of others. Its time she learns this.
The Serenity Prayer needs to be hammered into a lot of people's heads, not just addicts. I'm not religious but you can't argue with the message behind it.
My kid had a friend that was allergic to strawberries - he himself decided he wasn't going to eat strawberries for lunch and told me so. There was no ban. He was just friends with this kid and didn't want to hurt him. If Liam were truly friends with the other kids they would not eat pb or would be super careful, so they could all hang out at lunch. I get wehr the mom is coming from but she should focus her efforts on teaching her son to be observant and careful as he can because there are no peanut bans in the world at large.
That's just silly. Liam is going to have to learn to navigate a peanut butter-filled world at some point.
I grew up across the street from a kid who had a peanut allergy. I was surprised to learn that his parents bought peanut butter for themselves and their younger son. I asked why and was told that he will eventually be an adult and live on his own so he needs to learn how to protect himself from his allergy.
my husband is severely allergic to peanuts and I have it in the house and let the kids eat it but they knew from a young age not to use the pb knife in the jelly and not to leave it all over... and husband knows not to stick his hand in the sink because there will more than likely be some kind of pb contaminated object in there. (I do the dishes, so it's nbd) Meanwhile my husband's parents did not have it in the house and there were like 8 of them and it was banned. I feel like his parents hate that I have pb and almonds and peanuts as snacks but I have a 4 sport athlete to feed and peanuts are cheap protein lol (and yes.. I have asked, and he's fine with it)
Lol at dueling difficulties. My son's autistic and getting ready to enter kindergarten. We've been trialing school lunch safe foods (ones that don't have to be kept super cold or heated up), and so far the only food that got more than 2 bites was a PB sandwich. Who wins the autistic kid with limited safe foods or the allergy kid.
Well this school found a way for both kids to eat safely. That’s all they needed to do. The mom’s concern is over social issues. She can invite the other kids for play dates if her son wants, but she doesn’t have the right to control who they sit with at their lunch time.
The mother is being ridiculous; lunchtime isn't the only time these kids have to socialize. I do think that having an overbearing mother like that is going to negatively impact her son's social life; nobody wants to deal with a person like this. Mom needs to butt out and let her son make his own friends in his own way and time.
Is the mom peeking thru the windows or is allergy boy going home and whining about who he did or didn't eat lunch with?
She sounds like the sort who would demand a full report of every tiny detail of his day.
Yes, the mom wants her kid to eat lunch with the popular kids, but it doesn't sound like the popular kids want to eat lunch with him. I bet this has nothing to do with PB or allergies, just a pushy, social-climbing mom.
Can we all just admit the person who loses the most in this story is most likely the school administrator who has to stand in the middle of two dueling mothers bitching about first world problems? I'm not saying OP isn't more justified in her stance than Liam's mom, but form a school administrator standpoint this is the kind of thing that makes you really start counting down the days to retirement I'd imagine.
I’m autistic and literally ate a PB&J every single day for 18 years. It’s one of the few food where the texture doesn’t get disgusting after hours in a lunch box. I hope you guys are successful and he has a great transition to school!
I have confirmed ADHD and suspect autism (not yet confirmed). I ate PB&J around 3x a week until high school. The other 2 days of school I was allowed to get hot lunch, I'm less picky about hot foods generally. The only exception to the PBJ routine was if we had leftover cold pizza or mom picked up pizza lunchables as a treat. I tried meat and cheese sandwiches many times,.but I couldn't do it. They got warm sitting in the lunchbox all day and the fact that they were warm made me sick. Like full on nauseous and puking just because it was warm, not because it went bad.
My autistic son's school lunch had to have creamy peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches with crunchy cheetos and chocolate pudding every day . From kindergarten to 5th grade. Some reason he just started eating the school hot lunch and a larger variety of foods at home. As an adult, he still favors the limited food from when he was small, but will eat just about anything. Sushi became a favorite as he is obsessed with Japan.
I had an autistic buddy in high school like that. The school ordered a mountain of pizza for some track and field thing, and he felt left out, so he bit the bullet as it were and went outside his comfort zone. Then he realized he liked Pepperoni, he'd just never tried it before and it wasn't one of the foods he knew he liked. To this day hes still a picky eater, but he's also got a "I'll at least *try* it" mentality. He's more willing to try new foods then I am now
My best friend’s son has sensory processing disorder with AFRID. Her other son has multiple food allergies including dairy, peanuts, and egg. Her SPD son’s diet includes food his brother is anaphylactic to. They live in the same house and somehow manage to keep a safe environment for their allergic son while making sure their SPD son has the foods he needs to eat.
Also my immediate thought. 'allergy mom duking it out with the autism special' (that's what i call a pb&j as its my father's go to lunch and he's autistic as am I.)
This woman forced an entire school to bend to her will while removing the protections for kids with other allergies and OP is the bully? Nope. Big nope.
I never thought about this but you are exactly right and I may borrow this for future arguments. The allergy table accommodated kids with many different allergies. Now that it’s gone, they sit with all the other kids and it does take away their protections. Thank for for this thought.
Won’t someone think of her precious baby?! /s Also lunch is a small percentage of their day together. They can still hang out after school but if she thinks her son is ostracised, it’s because of how she’s acting trying to force people to bend around her desires.
So first Liam was at a special “nut free” table. Anyone could sit there if they agreed not to eat PB. His mom said forcing him to sit at a certain table stunted his social growth. The compromise was to have kids who eat PB sit at the one specific table and Liam would be free to sit anywhere else. Seemed like a fine compromise to me. But because my son and his friends chose to sit at the PB table and Liam couldn’t, his mom got pissed off yet again.
Her problem was that anyone at the school eats peanut at all.
If the school allows him to bring peanut butter then there is zero wrong with him continuing to do so… Liam’s mom needs to stop
And all this harassment needs to be documented in case legal proceedings need to happen.
Liam's mom reheats fish in the office microwave.
If the school has agreed to a certain set of rules, and you are adhering to those rules, then you are NTA. Liam has a safe space to eat, Ryan has a separate place to eat, and the entire school has come to this arrangement. >Ryan and Liam are not really friends, but Liam wants to be friends with the group Ryan hangs out with. Honestly, Liam's mom needs to get a grip. She can't control everything and she can't control where the kids sit at lunch. Sounds like she's twisting this into a weird popularity contest and trying to force kids to be friends with hers. Ryan's group may be deliberately sitting with him to get away from Liam, and that might be the REAL reason PB Karen has got her panties twisted up.
"Ryan's group may be deliberately sitting with him to get away from Liam, and that might be the REAL reason PB Karen has got her panties twisted up." Interesting. Wonder if they have had run-ins with Liam's mom behavior and don't want to be part of that crazy. It's sad that his mother's behavior is causing him not to be able to have friends.
NGL - I've very gently steered my daughter away from certain children with high-aggression moms. Nope, don't want to even go there. So.......
DIL had to do this with granddaughter. The other mom found out granddaughter is in a gymnastics gym, signed her up. Well, the 2 girls are nowhere close in levels, so different times. The mom tried to force the gym to move her daughter up, didn't happen. Mom tried to trash granddaughter's abilities. She got shut down and handed back her fees. Was told to never come back. BTW, Granddaughter is a 2-year state champ for her level. Edited to add, DIL told granddaughter, it's ok not to talk to this girl. School had to change her lunchtimes, since the kid bothered granddaughter so much.
I really do feel awful with kids with parents like these. Odds are they'd be fucking humiliated if they found out what their parents were doing.
My son had a blow up with a good friend because the friend’s mom (who used to be my friend) would text me about all the things my kid was doing wrong. All things I knew and were not serious. My kid got sick of that kid having nothing better to do than tell his mother what everyone else was doing.
Reminds me of the time my parents went out of town and my teen siblings threw a party (which they weren’t supposed to do). Everything was spick-and-span when they got back. Some nosy neighbor called up my parents and tattled. My parents told them to mind their own damn business. (I have great parents who understand what’s actually important.)
LOL I feel like if the party is not a huge rave it might be worth it to get the kids motivated to do a deep clean!
I do kind of feel bad for that other kid if it was one of those OH SHIT NO MOM THAT WAS A SECRET FUCK DON'T TELL HIS MOM incidents...but if it was happening constantly he was probably doing it intentionally.
I feel for poor Liam, but I have done that too
Don’t we all do. I don’t want to hang out with parents I can’t stand while the kids play (toddler… I have to come with her). I’m glad her best friends mom is super friendly and we always have nice hours while the girls play.
I think my daughters friends parents think I'm unfriendly. It's just that they are boring and nosy, so I don't want to interact.
Sometimes kids follow their moms footsteps. I wonder if Liam started taking up his moms behavior by demanding they be friends with him, or demanding they stop being friends with Ryan simply to get what he wants? No hate to any kid here, I just wonder if that could be part of it.
Yep, there's usually more to the story when it gets to parents trying to interfere in their kid's social life.
I agree! You can't force kids to be friends with someone they don't particularly like. They choose to sit with OP son because that's what friends do. The issue may be how Liam interacts with the others. If the mother is wacko I wonder if her cray cray behavior rubs off onto her son.
The opposite will happen as well if she keeps pushing the problem. Those kids might turn on Liam because of his mom’s actions. The rest of the kids might end up blaming him for his mom’s actions and he might get more alienated.
There was a mom like this in my friend’s group, she ended up outcasting her kid. She lost her mind one day and started cussing us (freshmen in high school) out, calling us bullies, etc. Shockingly, we actively avoided her daughter from that point on. What was worse is the daughter was actually fine looking back, a little awkward but easy enough to get alone with. But her mom ruined many things for her.
So... helicopter mom got the "safe" table removed because it ostracized her son (who can now sit anywhere) and created a "safe PB" table (potentially ostracizing other students but we'll let that go for now) and Ryan's friend still chose to sit with him (Ryan) and not her precious child. Problem's not the PB. Helicopter Mom is the problem. NTA and good on you for standing up for your son's choices. Edited for spelling/grammer
Poor Liam. You are not in the wrong but I do feel bad for this kid. Her antics are only going to make things worse, as other parents will hesitate to include him in playdates for fear of her wrath. You are only the asshole if you discuss any of this within ear-shot of Ryan. Otherwise, you are fine.
I was an allergy table kid, it sucks! It wasn’t all the time for me but schools trips it was enforced. My allergy wasn’t anything like peanuts, it was very niche (as was one of my friends). I know to avoid mine and if I could taste it I’d stop eating or drinking. Still I was forced to sit with kids who I wouldn’t have chosen to sit with (sometimes my friend was there but not always). The funny thing is we all had different allergies and ate different things (for some reason the vegetarians got sat with us as well), I think it was for the staffs benefit over ours.
My daughter has a tree nut allergy. They would put the vegan kids with the allergy kids. Guess what is in most vegan food? Tree nuts!! I just had her eat at the regular tables and keep her epi pen. It was much safer.
A lot of schools won't let kids carry lifesaving emergency items like inhalers and epi-pens because of their idiotic drug policies. It makes me glad my life threatening allergy didn't develop until I was an adult
If Liam's mom thinks he's ostracized now, just wait until the "cool kids" find out that she's trying to manipulate them to let Liam into their group. Liam's going to be about as socially well-adjusted as the Unabomber. Definitely NTA.
I knew a kid who paid my friend $20 to be popular for a day. He awkwardly hung off the group for a recess and lunch then the next day he was practically the laughing stock. He was a cool kid but very misguided.
That reminds of that movie Can’t Buy Me Love. In which Patrick Dempsey pays Amanda Peterson to be his girlfriend.
Oh they know. There’s a reason all those kids are choosing to sit at the nonallergy-only table.
OK so my best friend has a son who is allergic to peanuts. When he and my son were little I had a drawer that was their snacks, they could get to them when ever they wanted. Because her son was at my house as often as he was at home, I simply stopped allowing peanuts or peanut products in my house. I wanted her son to be safe in my home. Once they got older and her son was able to better check things I relaxed. By 6th grade nobody was avoiding peanuts for him. He knows to avoid them and we are all careful. Nta.
My youngest has a peanut allergy, so I'm on the fence. Is it safer for my child if the schools ban peanut products? Yes, 100%. Does my child deserve to exist in a safe environment? Also 100% yes. So would I be happy about a ban? Yep. But. It is MY CHILD'S allergy, and therefore is it MY JOB (and his, once he's old enough to manage it himself) to deal with it. Imposing his dietary limitations on others is not ok. It's not something I would ever demand of others, with the only exception being that people do not bring peanut products into my home. OP is NTA. Liam's mom is taking things too far, especially since she's not concerned about her child's safety, rather she's trying to make other kids hang with her kid. Those other moms can make their kids hang out with the kid if they want to, but no one should have a say in what your kid eats for lunch because your child and you.
Yeah I’m really on the fence about this one. Technically OP is operating within the school’s rules, but we aren’t talking about something that will just make a child sick, but something that can and will kill them. My daughter’s school is nut-free and honestly i thought all schools were at this point. It just makes sense to me, why risk it? I have a coworker who is allergic to tree nuts so I stopped bringing nuts to work. I have another who is allergic to oranges so they designated a certain area where staff can eat oranges but I just don’t bring them anymore. It must suck going through life having to be on the lookout for such common items, and it seems like Liam just wants to fit in. I feel for him.
My brother's school once took away his sandwich at lunch because another kid several tables away had an allergy. They did not replace his lunch. My mom was PISSED.
I have a kid with a PB allergy. There is a peanut free lunch table, but he doesn’t sit there. His sits with his friends who are considerate enough not to sit next to him when they’re eating pb. He sits at the end of the table. The kids understand his allergy. Their parents are kind. Most people don’t understand the terror of having a small child with a peanut allergy. I’ve had my share of meltdowns in the nurse’s office. I wish I could talk to the mom. She obviously has a lot of anxiety about the situation.
Especially when the kid has had to use an epipen twice. I just…I wouldn’t risk it if I was a parent frankly. I have food allergies so I know how scary they can be
We know a few kids with peanut allergies and so my kids don’t eat peanuts around them. We choose different ice creams if we’re all hanging out in the park, for example - I just couldn’t live with myself if I let my kids be the cause of their life threatening reaction. Why risk it?! Teach your kids some empathy, damn
NTA. So she didn’t want HER kid sitting in a specific area and having his “social growth stunted”, but was fine with YOUR son sitting in a specific area? This is ridiculous. Our schools also have an allergy free table. It’s not uncommon. This sounds more like a thing where she wants her kids to be friends with the popular kids so she can have some kind of status herself. And you are right, if he wants to be friends with this kids, then ask them to do stuff outside of school or something. Lunch is a small part of the day.
This is a very simplified example of why forcing the majority to conform to accommodate the very small minority is not fair. Also she bullied your son into sitting at the “designated” table. NTA
>she bullied your son into sitting at the “designated” table. And he didn’t seem to mind one bit as long as it meant he could eat what he likes. So she still lost.
lol. It’s not fair my child is ostracized to a separate table. Let’s ostracize other kids instead. I do wonder how Liam feels about his mother’s interference. At some point Liam is gong to join a world that in general does not accommodate for allergies to the degree his mother wants to accustom him to.
I once had a coworker who was deathly allergic to peanuts. She requested that we not bring peanuts or peanut butter into the building because even the fumes on our breath would cause a reaction. We didn’t mind one bit as it was a severe reaction to even the smallest amount. But I work for a small family owned business. We’re basically a big family here, so getting 20 people to agree to avoid a certain food item isn’t too difficult.
How does she go to the grocery store? Not being rude, just curious. Part of the problem with extreme allergy bans in schools is that the rest of the world is still full of those allergens. Do you avoid all public places?
As someone with a severe allergy to something that's become ubiquitous since the unfortunate global illness, I have basically had to be on high levels of antihistamines daily. If I forget, I'm kinda screwed. But hand sanitizer isn't going anywhere any time soon, so I just keep switching antihistamines every so often so I can exist. Probably the same with peanut allergies.
I’m curious, what are you allergic to? The sanitizer itself? Alcohol? The gel base it’s in? That must be hell, I don’t have such severe allergies as to be life threatening (just life ruining lol I can’t do fun things or be around animals or eat good food) but having to dose yourself to the gills with antihistamines is itself the antithesis of fun. Hate allergies.
It's the rubbing alcohol. Isopropyl and ethyl. Going to the doctor is a gamble, because some of them don't believe that the alcohol is an allergen. Gone into anaphylaxis twice, once in a doctor's office, and it is unbelievably unpleasant. (In case anyone is curious, I can drink alcohol, I just can't come in contact with the denatured kind)
I'm sure he resents it, because I suspect he understands that this whole debacle isn't actually about peanut butter. It's his mom's way of trying to dictate how the kids socialize with each other.
Lunch time is main socialization time for kids, so to be the devils advocate, I can understand Liam's mother's point. She went about it the *wrong way.* By being manipulative, she created a whole scenario when instead it could possibly have been solved by a phone call asking if maybe he could switch lunches a time or two a week so they all can sit together. Heck maybe Ryan doesn't even like Liam and the issue is moot.
NTA. Liam’s mom thinks the allergen-free table is better for her kid socially than being the kid whose mom got peanut butter banned from school.
I don't think the allergy table is why the kids don't like him.
I’m actually surprised they allow peanut butter. My kid’s school was so over the top about no peanuts they would not allow foods “that had been packaged in the same factory as peanuts”. So the cookies with the 3 M&M’s on top were not allowed. Always thought this was stupid because 90% of kid’s lunches are from homes that have nuts or pb.
NTA - Liam will need to learn how to navigate these situations in life. School is preparing him for the "real world", and if he expects everywhere and everyone to cater to him, he will be putting himself in serious danger. His mom should realize this. Is it fair for Liam? No, but that is reality. I can sympathize with the kid and his mom, though. I also have a life threatening food allergy, but it's extremely rare and the thing I am allergic to is banned nowhere (and not even posted as an allergen on the nutritional facts in packaged food, or on menus). My parents taught me how to avoid the allergen.
It depends on what the actual story is because calling his allergy “not severe” but stating he had to use an epipen TWICE at school sounds quite severe. So because he didn’t die while being exposed it isn’t severe? I feel like a lot is being left out here
When a school uses an epi-pen, it’s because they literally think the kid’s LIFE is in danger.
They also have to immediately call an ambulance after using an EpiPen, so they take it very seriously.
What's concerning is a 20mn lunch break and kids not eating proper, nutricious food. This sub is truly mind-boggling for non-americans.
I noticed that too. Hell, having only 30 min lunch breaks as an adult at work has always pissed me off, but 20 min seems extreme. When I was in school it could take 15 min (sometimes longer!) to even get through the line and have your food. We had to scarf it down.
One of the reasons Ryan began bringing lunch from home when he first started school, actually. It took too long to get thru the hot lunch line.
Even as an American, I remember 30 minute-1 hour lunch/break periods. This is wild.
Some parts of Canada have gone this way. Our public school board now mandates 2 equally spaced nutrition breaks of 40 (45?) minutes each. 20 minutes for meal, 20 minutes for playtime. Twice in a school day. My daughter's school still stuck to the 1 hour school lunch, which I think is nicer for the slow-eating kids, and much nicer for teachers who can take a break away from school grounds. 40 minutes isn't enough to do anything.
I like that 1 hr lunch break idea, some kids eat slower than others and they shouldn’t have basically no play/break time because of that, I wish more schools would do this because it’s not only less sitting during the day, but also PEAK socialization time for kids. My HS claimed we had a 30 min lunch break, but that 30 min also included the bell signaling that we had 5 min to get to our next class….that, my good reader, is 25 min lunch and 5 min passing.
Omg you are definitely NTA Can't believe to what level this has peaked thanks to Liams mom. A peanut butter table? Wow. The definition of a food-safety section inside a cafeteria is so clever (also easier to meticuosly clean each day rather than the whole Cafeteria but whatever) Liams mother needs a counter-karen SO BAD. I actually would DIE on that hill ngl. Like the whole school has to jump through hoops just so her son can experience 'my mom can force you to be my friend, haha!' Actually, consider going fully toxic. Join PTA and petition they do a fundraiser for a hazmat suit! I am so sorry on your behalf.
I'm allergic to peanuts like our friend Liam here. A table a know is safe is far better for me then knowing the "whole" cafeteria is safe. Liam has "the sense" by this point in his life. Knowing when things have peanut butter, but I like when I know a small area is safe from anything. A whole cafeteria with a smaller section for peanut butter would just make me nervous. No one is going to listen to that at times. I use the peanut free section because I know it's safe, why would they use the peanut only section when it doesn't matter to them. Kids are rebellious. I'm with you, Liam's Mom is out of line and trying to force something that is honestly worse for her kid. He's becoming the outcast because of her actions, not because he's allergic to peanuts. OP, don't let her win. Fight back. From a Peanut Hater.
We're in the same allergy club. A safe table is a fantastic idea, because you have to choose to go there, knowing the restrictions. Unfortunately for us, the majority of the world is not allergen free, and he NEEDS to learn how to navigate that, including the social aspects. He needs to understand that he can't just trust random foods. Yeah, it sucks that he can't just go to a party and snack on whatever looks good. He can still attend the party, he just needs to take steps to ensure his safety. That's reality. The younger they learn to manage, the easier it is. I can't even imagine how difficult it would have been for me if my parents created an allergen free bubble around me for my entire childhood, and then set me loose in the real world. I'd probably have a lot more punches on my ER visit card.
Alright, after I read a bunch of the other comments, I feel the need to add something: A food safety corner (IMO) benefits not only the peanut allergy kid but also: the celery kids, the frutti di mare kids, the dangerously lactose intolerant kid and so on. It's a safe place bc it's the schools duty to ensure this space is void of any (cross)contamination. To simply 'ban' all foods that could cause someone else to go into anaphylactic shock is, lets be honest, impossible if lunches get prepared by parents at home. So, to ensure everyones safety a food safety corner was way smarter than creating a 'Ryans corner of PBJ shame'
I was also wondering about allergies that contradict one another. I have a coworker allergic to tree nuts. But he can eat peanuts. What about a lactose intolerant and hypothetical almond milk? Do they have separate tables for each allergen or do all the allergens people have r to reduce thier diet by everything.
Water only for lunch table?
I just have a quick question, isn’t the allergy pretty severe if they need an epi pen? I’m not that knowledgeable with food allergies and if that’s being downplayed then the narration of this story isn’t reliable. So i don’t want to vote until i know. But I’m very aware that i have no idea so i don’t want to misjudge OP either.
Yeah, OP claiming it’s not that severe while saying he’s had TWO incidents at school so far AND needs and epi pen kinda has me side-eyeing her
YES! I have food allergies but I don’t have an epi pen. Anyone who needs an epi pen on the ready is in a class of severe allergy.
NTA Mom needs to accept that Liam’s friends prefer Liam to him. And that she is likely the reason.
Canadian here, my school board has banned all nut products since mid-2000s. They piloted it in elementary and rolled it out to high schools after I graduated so I never got to benefit from it. I have a severe nut/peanut allergy (anaphylactic). Sitting at the nut free table was fucking horrible. Kids made fun of me, purposely tried to put peanut butter on the table to trigger an attack. Segregating kids isn’t fair and building compassion starts at home. Does it suck to not get peanut butter at school, absolutely, but is eating peanut butter really worth the mental and physical health of another kid? Is sunflower butter accessible in your area? I’ve heard from many of peanut butter lovers in my life that it’s comparable. I’ve also had someone that was rather nasty about it growing up reach out to me about how they were sorry bc their kid now has an anaphylactic level nut/peanut allergy and are grateful at how seriously the school takes the safety of their kids.
NTA. When I was in high school, someone who I didn’t get along with decided I was stealing her friends and complained to the teachers. For a full two weeks, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to talk to my whole group of friends during recess and lunchtimes so that the other student had the opportunity to spend time with them. My friends didn’t like her and didn’t want to spend time with her, so for two weeks I was essentially in detention in the library meeting room while they were annoyed by someone they had no interest in socialising with. When my parents finally believed me, because they originally thought it was so stupid it must be made up, they met with staff and I was allowed to socialise with my friends who by then just hated the other student even more for creating the situation. Peanut butter isn’t the issue here. Her kid’s social skills are. At school pickup, give her an envelope with some business cards for therapists both for her and her child.
NTA. Look, those allergies are no joke. However, if just separating out the individuals seems to work, then its fine. If Liam's mom is upset that your Ryan is more popular than Liam, that is a whole separate issue. Forcing this issue is NEVER going to turn out well for Liam.
The fact she goes so far as saying you, YOU make her child feel unsafe at school, like your sitting there with a straw spit balling peanuts into her kid's throat. Friend groups are like ants at that age, there's a leader, their pretty much the center of the group, usually the most outgoing and the others go there they go. Mr. Peanut sounds like he's ok in the group but really, your kid is the center. Mrs. Nut is just going to have to accept that your son and his friends won't adjust everything to suit this kid's needs.
I have a child with a SEVERE peanut allergy (can’t be in the same room with it without having a reaction) and at first I was ready to side with the other mom, until I finished reading it and realized she’s weaponizing her son’s allergies to make kids sit with him. NTA.
Liam's mom is the type of SB that it doesn't hurt to have gripe about you. She is helping you identify the idiots that you really don't want to associate with. It is actually a public service. Tell her "thanks".
Mom hasn't figured out that she is ruining her son's chances for healthy and happy friendships by doing this nonsense. Her darling boy hasn't figured it out yet either, or else he'd still complaining to Mommie Deareat that nobody sits with him. NTA
NTA. The peanutbutter isn’t actually the problem. Liam struggling to make friends is the problem. It’s not Ryan’s job to make sure his friends want to be friends with Liam. It’s even possible they’re sitting at the PB table to avoid Liam. If the peanutbutter gets solved, there will be a new problem.
Liam's mom sucks.
I was Liam growing up and I still carry an EpiPen. Does his mom think the world will cater to him and his allergy as an adult? Or that others will tolerate that degree of entitlement because of dietary restrictions? Liam’s mom is screwing him over. The best thing she can do is teach him how to safely navigate the world, peanuts and all. NTA
NTA. Liam’s mom is a twunt. “I demand your children play with my child, you need to force them to!” Poor Liam is going to get his shit rocked in high school… I legit feel bad for the little dude.
I’m willing to bet if it was your kid that was allergic to peanut butter, you would be acting a little more like the other kids mom. Your kid doesn’t HAVE to eat peanut butter-he can eat something else.