Wtf? Why the he'll would you search his shit? Just have him drink a bunch of water and eat light meals. I swallowed a small wrench once and the nurse told me to drink water and my stomach acids ate it up And that was when I was 4, I'm pretty sure a 7 year old could Handel a small screw. And I doubt you're going to find that screw

your kid is missing a WEEK of school b/c you don't know that hardware stores sell screws????? Parent o the year right here...

He might have a disease where they eat objects that they shouldnt

i just realized for laughing at your story im going to hell his intestines are gonna be ****** up and he might die :(

That's a medical disorder. Your son needs to get help.

Wow, what a lot of misguided comments with lots of assumptions! 1. This had never happened before so there was no way he'd expect to have to stay home from school. For the record, he likes school and hated staying home. We were sure to scare him thoroughly with stories of what COULD have happened and why he's lucky staying home with disgruntled parents was the worst he ended up getting. And as for public humiliation, he was seen to do it by classmates so this is no secret and he is embarrassed, but his school is a good one and it's a good bunch of kids so he got away with some mild teasing and everyone's moved on to some other big-deal-among-seven-year-olds issue; I think it's this one kid's cat that had kittens, but maybe even that's old news now. 2. Yes, he still puts things in his mouth but the idea that we haven't bothered having that checked out is offensive. His doctor and a child psychologist still expect him to grow out of it but we're keeping an eye on the situation. It's pretty rare that he does it, though. 3. The father of his friend who saw him do it said it was a large screw. I immediately called the after-hours doctor post and it is on their advice and the advice of our own family doctor that he was kept home to make sure all came out right in the end, as it were. But on the advice of a senior pediatrician on day 5, in a phone consult, we sent him back to school and stopped worrying about it. 4. If you don't know what you're talking about don't sneer: it can take 10 days or more for stuff to pass through the digestive system. Look stuff up before calling people dumb about it or it can, as now, backfire. As a side note, maybe some people shouldn't post until they can assemble a coherent sentence or at least spell one word in three correctly. 5. Scooter's not broken, it's just one decoration less interesting. Not all screws are fundamentally vital to function. 6. Not sure what the one person means about this happening five days in a row... he swallowed one thing once. The five days is how long the DOCTOR kept saying to keep looking for the darned thing. 7. Thanks to the people with some genuine awareness of how the body works. MRI? Seriously? And an x-ray was deemed unnecessary. See? I did immediately get medical advice from actual doctors and I followed it. He loves school and is not being bullied and was playing at a friend's house when this happened. Yes, in some ways he's a bit younger than his age still-- thus the scooter and not a bike, for instance; here in the Netherlands most kids are on bikes by 3 but he's not quite ready to plunge in on that one. Yes, we have been making sure he gets the attention he needs and in the past year he's gone from slightly behind in school to WAY ahead, especially in math. Maybe you people who toss words like "retarded" around so cavalierly should think about getting an education yourselves? And that concludes my morning rant. I'm off to make a pinata for his birthday party now because, apparently unlike some of you, I DO spend time paying attention to my son instead of just sitting online whining, and now that my coffee is empty it's time to get on with real life.

what a retard he needs help !!! js .... but seriously get him checked out !! thats retarded....

Why would you have to search his shit? It's a screw. Buy a new one.

Why so desperate to find that one screw?

Whatever happened to tough love? Parents are so soft on their kids these days...