If you want to send her I’d say have a quick end of the year meeting and request a teacher that can follow directions! Maybe they have a teacher who eats gluten free or has food allergies so they are sensitive? Or they have a teacher who did/does well with food restrictions/allergies? The team will know the right person. I think if you want her to go there, you can find someone there. It’s worth a shot, I’d say. I don’t care if she doesn’t break into hives, she isn’t supposed to have it! So, what? They aren’t that way with PB and kids who are allergic? They need to follow diet stuff!

I’m dealing with similar issues. My daughter (age 3) has not been diagnosed with celiac but only because we went gluten free before she was old enough to test. She is starting preschool in the fall and she also goes to Sunday school at church, where snacks are frequently given. When we toured the preschool, I sat down with the director and am going to sit down with the teacher before school starts in the fall. If they can’t follow her diet, I will have no choice but to pull her out.

When she’s been exposed to something she shouldn’t have, (in our case it’s gluten, eggs, soy, beans, and strawberries) we explain AGAIN that she doesn’t react immediately, and we kind of do a passive-aggressive thing… *blush* DH and I start talking about whose turn it is to stay up late with her while she vomits. If he’s not there, that doesn’t work… but it’s been very effective with Sunday school.

One of the hardest things for us to convey is the pasta crafts, play-doh, etc. that are NOT safe! We actually did decide against one church because they just did. not. get it. She loved the teacher, we liked the church, but it wasn’t worth risking her health.

It’s really hard when you and hubby don’t agree. We run into that a lot too, although not really with medical stuff. He defers to me a bit more than I’d like, but at least it’s not a source of conflict.

With the play doh, http://www.discountschoolsupply.com has GREAT gluten free play doh for a really reasonable price (compared to most). http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/NewDSS/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=7566&keyword=gluten&scategoryid=0&CategorySearch=&Brand=&Price= The preschool director and I split the cost for her whole class to use it instead of regular so there’s no residue on the table, kids’ hands, etc. I don’t think she believed me at first, but she appeared to by the end of our talk.

Celiac is definitely a “but you don’t LOOK sick” illness!

Oh man, same here Laura! “But they don’t look sick!”

My son was gluten free when he was 2 until the age of 5 (luckily not celiac and he outgrew it). The kicker was I was an administrator in the preschool and he STILL was given stuff he shouldn’t have. Luckily he got to the point where he would say, “I can’t have that.”

Our problem was most of the teachers didn’t know what gluten was in. They’d never cooked so I often heard, “I didn’t give him bread. I gave him crackers.” They had no clue. We brought all of his snacks and meals, but substitutes, aides and just didn’t get it. Sometimes other parents would sneak the “poor child” a piece of candy or cookie to make things “fair.” The school had lots of vegetarians and kids with severe allergies that were frequently given the wrong foods. It was very frustrating knowing our school was better about food issues than almost all the schools out there (thanks mostly to me!), but we still couldn’t prevent it from happening.

I guess it could be worse. My grandmother didn’t believe in food allergies so she would DELIBERATELY give my mom, my sister and I foods we were allergic to, to prove we didn’t have them. She somehow managed to ignore the rashes, vomiting and mouth ulcers and would fervently deny having put the allergens in things even when my mom pointed these out. We were taught to tell Grandmother that we “didn’t like” something rather than tell her we were allergic to it.

Now I wish I could put my teens on special diets to see if they would help some of their issues, but I know my kids would never cooperate so there is no point. I miss the days of preschool when I (mostly) knew what they were being given to eat.

Mary in TX