Thursday, April 17, 2008

Bullying and Food Allergies

I stumbled upon this disturbing story on the ABC site this morning:
Bullies Go Nuts With Allergic Kids
Peanut Butter and Deadly Taunts

A Combination of Bullying and Peanut Allergies May Put Some Kids in the ER

Late last spring, 14-year-old Sarah VanEssendelft of Mastic, N.Y., experienced bullying worthy of a teen movie.

"There was a group of five girls ... and they decided they didn't want me sitting at their lunch table anymore," said VanEssendelft. To get her to leave, they all brought in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

For VanEssendelft, it might as well have been arsenic.

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I think this falls into the 'allergic parents worst fear' category.

How did children become so mean? How can we educate our kids and make them more compassionate?

Between this, and reading about Andrew Smith, my heart is sunk this morning.

3 comments:

Jenn Casey said...

I saw this article, too. Pretty awful.

ChupieandJ'smama (Janeen) said...

Great minds think a like. It is so scary....

Jenny said...

I have to say, in my experience, most kids are very supportive of my daughter's allergy at school.

That said, much more education is needed on the topic of food allergies. Let's all keep working for that! We do make a difference.