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: BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog

Aw, nuts!

BoardBuzz was shocked to learn that bullying has reached (yet another) new height. It seems that, according to this article via ABCNews.com, some students are exploiting students food allergies to make their lives miserable. Now bullies aren't just picking on the smallest or weakest kids in class--they're ganging up on children who have severe food allergies.What will they think of next?

"There was a group of five girls ... and they decided they didn't want me sitting at their lunch table anymore," said [Sarah] VanEssendelft. To get her to leave, they all brought in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. For VanEssendelft, it might as well have been arsenic. Two weeks later, a boy in the back of her class opened up a peanut butter cup. The smell was enough to trigger VanEssendelft's peanut allergy and send her to the emergency room with breathing problems. "My throat felt tight and my lips were getting really swollen, really fast," said VanEssendelft. "I looked like Angelina Jolie." On the one hand, mean tricks or sneaking candy looks like mild behavioral problems to school administrators. On the other hand, given VanEssendelft's serious peanut allergy, those sandwiches might very well have been weapons.

And how can schools protect kids from this kind of attack? Who would consider a PB&J sandwich a weapon? While it appears that school violence has decreased, unfortunately bullying increasing. "Between 1999 and 2003, the NSSC reported an increase of the student population who were bullied across grades 6-12." Troubling news for school districts. And it seems that even though the students are hatching these ever-more-creative plots to torment other kids, they aren't thinking of the consequences.

"I think a lot of times kids get wrapped up in the experience and they don't think," said Susan Swearer, associate professor of school psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Actually, it's true they don't think ? they've done studies, the whole myelination in the brain is not complete." The best way to tackle the thinking problem in adolescents, Swearer explained, is to repeat conversations. "Say it 500 times: someone can die of a peanut allergy."

School districts often have their hands tied -- some may say they aren't doing enough to help these students, and others who might say schools are overreacting. Either way, someone is going to second-guess what schools are doing to deal with this kind of issue.

It might be tempting for schools to do away with peanuts altogether, but [Dr. Kathy Sheerin, of the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic], who is also a mother of a child with a tree nut allergy, has different ideas. "I think it's great that day cares and up to kindergarten are peanut-free," said Sheerin. "But the mall isn't peanut-free, the movies aren't peanut-free, your next door neighbor's house isn't peanut-free. The kids are going to have to learn to deal with it." Most kids, in fact, want other kids to learn to deal with it, as well.

How does your school district deal with this kind of issue? And how can we continue to educate our children about the effects of bullying against others? Leave a comment here and tell us about it.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on April 17, 2008 (boomark / email).