Worried about your child's serious food allergy while he's at school? You should be.
The most typical place for adults to accidentally exposed to allergens is at a party where there are a large number of foods coming from many different sources. The most likely place for a child to be exposed to an allergen is school.
Nut-free zones are becoming popular both among parents of children with nut allergies and with schools, said Dr. Michael Ruff, M.D., a professor in the allergy division at UT-Southwestern Medical Center. "More and more good preschools and daycares are going to become a peanut-free facility, because kids are such messy-eaters, they get food all over," he said.
"Find a preschool where they don't allow peanut products, or where there's a peanut-free table. I want these kids to be integrated into the other kids, and I don't want them to be ostracized. It's a fine line we walk, letting them be normal kids," he said.
Ruff says teachers everywhere need to lay off crafts with potentially deadly allergens. "Why make bird feeders with peanut butter? Every year we have reactions from that," he said. "A lot of people naively think this is just hocus pocus – they don't realize how explosive these things can be."
Mom Alison Davis finds it disconcerting to see schools and churches still using peanut butter for projects. "My son would walk in there and tremble," she says. "I am an overprotective mom. As a first-time mom, you're freaked out anyway, then when your kid has this thing that they could die – I think most people would be overprotective if they had these situations."
Kristie Serio agrees. "A lot of school art projects contain food. Everything goes back to just educating people. Typically, once they're aware, it's not a problem – it's just getting the education out there," she says.
Valentine's Day, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays … all special days of celebration fraught with anxiety for the parents of children allergic to peanuts or tree nuts. "Why does it have to be about food?" Serio wonders. "What we all want to do is just keep our kids safe. We're trying to educate parents and schools."
Fort Worth allergist Dr. Susan Bailey says that as a society, we're so much more aware about all this than we were just 10 years ago. "I think people understand if Johnny's allergic to peanuts and his mom brings him own snack for birthday party, she's not being overprotective and paranoid," says Bailey, adding that children should be taught to understand and speak up about their allergy. "It's amazing how quickly the child become their own best advocate. Their friends become very protective and help look out for them … it's amazing how caring and nurturing children can be."
Just because a school has declared its classrooms peanut-free zones doesn't mean parents can let down their guard. "Something that can kind of concern me is when people say ‘This is a peanut-free environment' – I'm very thankful, but I worry that will lead to a false sense of security. Those situations make me a little more nervous than not," says mom Lisa Hotchkiss.
Here are some tips to helping your child's school experience a safer one.
- Train the teachers and principals; encourage them to make their classrooms peanut-free zones, especially in the younger years.
Orient the child's teacher at the beginning of each school year.
As food holidays approach, revisit the classroom to discuss how to handle it for your child.
If a child has a life-threatening food allergy, everybody that child comes into contact with needs to be informed – the secretary, the nurse, the cafeteria workers, the PE teachers, the playground monitor. "It's important because food allergy can be fatal. It's very often trivialized – people just don't realize the seriousness," says Bailey.
Parents and teachers need to remind children to wash hands really well before and after they eat, not only for their sake but for those around them who may be radically affected by allergens.
Be creative. When her kids were younger, Hotchkiss kept a stash of home-made, peanut-free cupcakes frozen for "emergencies." On the day of a friend's birthday party, they'd pull out a cupcake, have fun decorating it with peanut-free sprinkles, and head out to the party, forewarned and forearmed.
Halloween and other candy occasions are a little easier with goodies ordered from companies like the Vermont Nut Free Company, which makes a nut-free candy-coated milk chocolate button, among other treats.
Test your allergy IQ here:
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/test-your-allergy-iq.html
For more articles by J. Louise Larson on kids and allergies, check out these links:
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergies-kids-and-most-dangerous-nut.html
- J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/