If you, or someone in your family, has severe food allergies, you know how difficult it sometimes can be to find snacks that don’t cause a reaction. A woman recently visited a popular online forum to ask if she was wrong for taking her daughter out of class because a teacher wasn’t willing to assist.
Severe Allergies
The woman, let’s call her “Kathy,” has a five-year-old daughter, “Meg,” with severe food intolerances. If Meg ever ingests the wrong thing, most times, it’s a visit to the emergency room at the local hospital.
Safe Snack
Meg has a snack time at school where kids can bring snacks. To keep her safe and hospital-visit-free, Kathy discovered a safe yet fun-to-eat snack that her daughter would eat, so she’s been sending it to school for months. The school’s policy is that all snacks must be a single serving and unopened, so the mother couldn’t open her daughter’s ahead of time.
Unopened Snack Leads to Questions
One day after school, when Kathy checked into Meg’s bag, she found her special snack untouched and asked her daughter why. Meg said it was too tough to open, so she didn’t get to eat it that day.
No Help
Kathy asked Meg how she’s been enjoying it for the past few weeks and what made today different. Meg told her mom that her teacher used to help her but doesn’t anymore. So, Kathy encouraged Meg to ask her teacher for assistance the next time she went to school.
No Change
The next day, the snack was still unopened, and when Kathy asked Meg about it, the daughter responded that the teacher told her that she needed to learn to open her snacks at snack time all by herself. So, it’s a do-it-yourself, or you don’t eat situation.
Kathy sent the teacher an email explaining that the snack is quite tough to open (even for adults sometimes) and that it would be super helpful if she could help Meg open her snack when she cannot. Otherwise, she has an 8-hour school day with only her lunchtime to eat.
Nice
Kathy was friendly about it – but you better believe it did tick her off a bit to know that the teacher would instead let a kid go without a snack while all the other kids ate one than help a 5-year-old open a snack. Still, she played the nice card as it would be better for her daughter.
A Call
Kathy picked Meg up the next day, and the little girl still had an unopened snack. At this point, Kathy called the teacher to ask what was going on, and she was told that their goal in the last few months of Kindergarten was to promote independence. She couldn’t do that if they had to hold the kids’ hands at every turn.
Something Normal
Kathy was told it might help if I sent Meg in with a “normal” snack instead of a “bizarre, difficult to open” one. Remember that the teacher knows very well about Meg’s delicate digestive system and food intolerances.
Escalation
At this point, Kathy politely thanked the teacher – and called Meg’s principal. She asked him to move Meg to a different classroom. It was inappropriate to emphasize that her daughter’s snacks weren’t “normal” enough, given that she could not live a normal life.
A Change
Meg moved rooms, but her previous teacher sent Kathy a message about how she’s made things difficult over a snack – and the school started an investigation to monitor how she interacts with kids. So, Kathy thought everything would be better for her and Meg, but things just got worse.
An Overreaction?
Two of the moms that the teacher knows better than Kathy commented in a school mom’s group chat. They were upset that Meg’s teacher was treating compliments of an unopened snack as “completely unfair” and that a child’s food issues shouldn’t be their teacher’s issue to deal with. Now, Kathy thinks she may be wrong because her reaction was to force a classroom change, which means her daughter’s previous teacher is being investigated.
She Was Right
One commenter totally agreed with Kathy and said, “If they are making requirements of how a snack is packaged, then they are responsible for ensuring said packaging is opened for the child regardless of food intolerances/allergies. They also stated that this was “nothing to do with teaching kids independence.”
100 Percent
Another commenter agreed with the mom: “A child’s food issues shouldn’t be a teacher’s issue to deal with. It ABSOLUTELY is. This teacher sounds lazy or entitled; I can’t believe some parents are taking her side.”
Lazy Teacher = Hungry Student
Yet a third person said, “It’s just pure laziness from the teacher in question (and extraordinarily unkind). Every other kid gets a snack, but this one because the teacher can’t be bothered to help? Yeah, no.”
Even A Retired Teacher Weighed In
Coming from the keyboard of a former teacher, she knew what was right with, “I’m a former teacher and once had a kid in my class with so severe of a peanut allergy I couldn’t have anything with peanuts on a day the kid was present, even when I was out of the room for my lunch. I went a year with no peanuts of any kind myself because this poor kid would wind up in the ER if it weren’t my issue to deal with. OP is NTA.”
The Moral of The Story
While this story turned out to be a win for the mom and her daughter, it’s worth noting that not all people will always agree with a “Mama Bear” attitude. But if you have severe food allergies and an empty belly, go ahead and play the principal card anytime.
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