Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Email to The Teacher

Hi All - Here is the email I just sent to Noah's teacher today..... It's a first for us but I know it was the right thing to do. Maybe I'm making him feel different by allowing him not to go to school on Friday. Who knows? I just think that if it was me............it would be crappy to have to sit watch all of my friends eat their holiday food and talk about their family holiday food traditions. I hope I didn't over react.... Any thoughts?

Hi Teacher (name changed to protect the innocent - hee hee)-

Both Bryan and I feel like the focus of the
Winter Holiday Breakfast on Friday is going to be over-the-top too difficult for Noah. We just can't focus on the "foods" of the holidays with him. We cannot adjust his meals to accommodate the timing of the breakfast and he cannot snack in between his meals. We don't want to bring in a "Special Food to Share from our Holiday Tradition" because we purposely downplay those food traditions in our home. He has begun to see how "different" his buddies eat at school which makes it even harder for him to listen to every child talk about the traditional foods their families eat and watch everyone sharing those foods with each other except for him.. We have spoken with him and given him the choice of whether he wants to be in school for Friday's Breakfast or stay with me. He wants to stay with us. He won't be in school on Friday at all. I hope you understand how really hard it is for Noah and for us, when it comes to these situations. He is such a trooper about it every single day when it comes to his Diet.

Thanks,
Cathy

2 comments:

Cathy said...

I think you put it very nicely.

The teacher is in a bit of a difficult spot, I guess -- I remember doing a similar activity at school when I was a kid and enjoying it. We don't realize how truly pervasive food is in our culture until we have to do something drastic like the keto diet.

Jade was doing physical therapy yesterday and was working on some colouring sheets and a puzzle that had food pictures on them. I mentioned to the therapist that many of the foods would not be familiar to Jade because she doesn't get to eat them and we don't talk about them. And so many children's shows and books have food in them. Winnie the Pooh is constantly having parties with cakes and honey! *sigh*

I don't know how I would feel in your situation, Cathy. On the one hand, I'm sure it's a hard decision for the teacher to *not* do this breakfast because of "just one kid", you know. On the other hand, wasn't there some other creative way to celebrate and talk about the holidays so that *everyone* could be included? Holidays sure are hard. I hope he decides not to do more breakfasts for future holidays.

Cathy said...

The above comment was by Fawn but it wasn't posting well for her. I wanted others to read it and know her thoughts. She is a brilliant Mom!

Another note - I never expected the class to skip this tradition. My other boys had a great time with it when they were in 1st grade. It just broke my heart now that I see it from this Keto view! I am sure it will be the first of many just like it.

 

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