Background: Of course you wouldn’t serve the very thing someone was allergic to at dinner, would you? OMG that would be absurd. My husband has severe food allergies and I make sure to let our friends know if we are going for dinner. No one wants to be surprised about a food allergy. I mean wouldn’t you feel bad if you spent hours making some fabulous dish and then your friend showed up and told you he/she was allergic to half of everything you made? That would just stink, on so many levels.

The reason I bring this up is because of birthday treats at school. Everyone loves birthday treats right? I mean they are fun, they make a kid (the birthday kid) feel special and well lets face it sugar = happiness in our great nation. So, if one of the kids in the class has a food allergy how is it handled? Do the birthday kids consider the allergy and bring something into class that everyone can participate in? Do they think the best part of the birthday is bringing a treat and ‘sharing’ it with their friends at school? So if there is total disregard for even one kid with an allergy in the class is it still considered sharing? Is that what the birthday is about? Bringing in a treat that the birthday kid likes and to hell with everyone else? What is the birthday treat about exactly? Making one kid feel special while excluding other kids in the class? Is making one kid feel special more important than the feelings of the kids that are left out? I’m seriously curious about this. I do no prescribe to this belief. When my kids are in class with a kid with an allergy, if we are going to bring something in we make sure everyone can have it. I mean we do go to a PUBLIC school, and last I checked it’s not really ok to exclude kids on any level.

For instance:

1. can’t save seats in the cafeteria, because that’s excluding

2. can’t exclude people from games on the playground.

3. can’t save seats in the auditorium because that’s excluding.

I’m sure there is more. What I wonder is why it’s not ok to exclude people from these things but it’s perfectly ok to exclude away on the birthday treat front. How does this make sense?

Does anyone have the answer? What’s the point of trying to teach inclusion if we can’t include the allergy kids on the most coveted, most desired and most loved birthday treat?