Back to School with Food Allergies

by Kelley Lindberg


Now that school is only a week or two away (at least here in Utah), many parents are getting ready to send their little ones off to a scary place – not that school itself is scary, but the food in the classroom and cafeteria can make it seem that way.

About this time every year I post my back-to-school tips. So I’ll repeat them here, in the hopes that they help smooth the way for other parents over the next few weeks. Good luck, and enjoy these remaining few days of summer!

(Remember, there are links to several school-related resources on the Utah Food Allergy Network's website, so be sure to check those out. And last week I posted my Back-To-School Food Allergy Shopping List, so you might want to look at that, as well.)

1. Ask the principal if there are other food-allergic kids in the same grade, and if they can be assigned to the same teacher. That makes it easier for the parents of the allergic kids to trade off field-trip and party chaperone duties, reminds the teacher to keep the classroom allergen-free for multiple kids, and gives you some backup in food issues. (It's nice to NOT be the only one.) Statistically, about one in twenty kids has a food allergy, so chances are good there will be several food-allergic kids in your school.
2. Make several copies of your Food Allergy Action Plan (available on FARE’s website) and ask to hang one in the office, the cafeteria kitchen, and the classroom, so that your child's photo and "What to do in case of a reaction" instructions are handy no matter where he is.
3. Practice with your child what he should do if he "feels funny." Role-play and pretend you're the teacher, and have him come up and tell you what's wrong. Often our kids are too shy about asking for help, so have him practice with you, and with the teacher if possible. Not only does that give your child words to use if something happens, but it helps impress upon the teacher how important it is.
4. I get on my principal's staff meeting agenda at the first of the year and give a 15-minute talk about allergies and demonstrate the EpiPen or Auvi-Q. When my son was in elementary school, I also gave a presentation to my son's class and all the teachers and aides he comes into contact with. If you're not comfortable doing this, ask if there are other allergic parents that you can contact. Talk to them about ways to teach the teachers -- maybe another mom would be willing to give the presentation if you make the photocopies. It's easier when there are two of you involved!
5. Remember, In Utah, your child can legally carry his EpiPen or Auvi-Q. But he probably is not capable of administering it to himself in an emergency, so make sure the teachers and everyone else know where it is and how to use it. Because both EpiPen and Auvi-Q are available right now for $0 copay, get a pair for the school office, and a second pair to keep with the child (in his backpack or lunch bag, usually). You might also attach a luggage tag with his photo on it to his backpack, so the teacher can tell which backpack is his quickly.
6. If he's going to be having lunch at school, talk to the Lunch Lady and cafeteria monitor. Introduce your child, tell her what your child is allergic to, and let your child know that the Lunch Lady is a friend that will help keep him safe. Then remember the Lunch Lady and the cafeteria monitor on holidays with little thank you cards or gifts to show you appreciate them. Few people do that. But it will help keep your child's food issues fresh in their mind, and they'll get to know him well.
7. Ask about setting up a food table just for allergic kids. All that’s required is a table with a sign that says allergies only, and the cafeteria monitors clean it with a separate marked bucket and cloth. Don’t let them make your child eat in a separate room or the principal’s office. He shouldn’t be punished just because he’s allergic to some foods! Ask the principal to mention the allergy table in a newsletter or other information that goes home with kids at the beginning of the year. You may find other kids with allergies expressing an interest in sitting at the table if they know it’s available.
8. Ask the parents of your child’s friends to send safe lunches with them every once in a while, so they can eat with your child. Make it a fun place to be!
9. Most peanut-allergic kids don’t react to the smell of peanut butter in the air, but a few do. If you are worried if your child will react to the air in the cafeteria, ask to take him in for a “practice run.” Sit in the cafeteria for half an hour and see if he reacts. If he doesn’t, cross that worry off your list.
10. Eat lunch with him for the first few days. That will reassure both of you that you can both handle this!
11. Talk to the teacher about which cafeteria door your child should use to avoid peanut butter contact (usually the one furthest from the playground), where to put his lunch bag after lunch, and where his EpiPens will be.
12. Remind your child NOT to throw away his lunch trash. Tell him to bring it home in his lunch bag, so that he can avoid using the trash can. If another kid slam-dunks a half-full milk carton in the trash can, you don’t want your milk-allergic child to get splashed.
13. Medical alert jewelry can help remind teachers and other staff about your child’s allergy. Lots of companies now provide medical alert jewelry in styles ranging from classic metal bracelets to fashionable plastic jewelry or even cool fabric sports bands (like at American Medical ID). Use your favorite search engine to find a style your child will enjoy wearing.
14. If your schedule allows, volunteer a lot, so the staff knows you and counts on you (not just for allergy issues). If the only time they see you is when there's a food allergy issue, then you may start feeling like they're whispering "Oh no, here she comes again." But if they see you as a "Gosh, what would we do without her" kind of volunteer, then the occasional food issue will be coming from a great mom who's making a reasonable request.
15. If someone else is already the class mom, or you can't volunteer for that position, tell the teacher you really need to attend all parties and field trips because of the food allergy. The teacher may want to let the other parents know that you'll be selected for all the special events because of the food allergy, so that they don't think the teacher is playing favorites.
16. Volunteer to shop for all the snacks or food materials for classroom parties or food educational units (like making noodle necklaces or gingerbread houses, etc.). Tell the teacher if she'll collect money donations, you'll go buy all the ingredients. They're usually delighted to get out of having to shop, and it lets you ensure the ingredients are safe.
17. Be aware and be prepared, but don't panic! School is going to be a lot of fun, and your child will do just fine. And believe it or not, so will you!

Junior High Teachers Who Care

by Kelley Lindberg


My friend Kim and I knew Junior High would be a learning experience – not just for our sons, but for us, too. Up until now, we’ve only had two teachers to worry about each year (one for the morning, one for the afternoon). But with Junior High, we would be dealing with seven teachers each. And our sons would no longer be in all the same classes, so the built-in buddy system would be gone. Would these seven teachers, who only have our sons for less than an hour each day, still be as concerned with their welfare as their elementary teachers? Would they remember to call us when they were planning a food-oriented lesson in class? Would they think about our sons when planning a field trip or a party?

With two-thirds of their first year of Junior High behind us now, the answer so far, thankfully, has been “yes.”

Kim and I have been asked to help come up with safe treats for two dances, a beginning-of-school carnival day, and several experiments. We’ve been invited to the classroom to help make safe smoothies and safe salsa. We’ve been asked about field trips and other activities. We’ve made Three Kings’ Cakes for in-class lessons on an important Spanish holiday. The administration has adjusted the boys’ schedules to make sure they had the same lunchtime so that they would have a buddy to sit with at the allergy table.

In short, despite all our worries, the Junior High teachers at our school have been everything we hoped.

Is it a perfect system? Of course not. We’re all human, and we all forget or make mistakes sometimes. But the energy and commitment to try to keep their classrooms allergy-safe seems sincere, and when something slips by, these teachers are quick to try to remedy it.

Can Kim and I relax? Ha. Right. We’re moms. Our job isn’t to relax – it’s to make sure everyone is as prepared as possible, so that problems seldom have an opportunity to crop up. A big part of the reason why these teachers are as proactive as they are is because Kim and I talk to them frequently, volunteer for them happily, and remind them patiently when we have to.

And all that preparation work we do has continued to pay off in the form of teachers who care, who try, and who make our sons feel included and welcome in the classroom.

Part of that attitude comes from the administration – we have a principal who supports us and isn’t afraid to remind her staff that food allergies are important in our school. But I think the bigger part is that we’re blessed with teachers who are teaching because they love the work and the kids. Most people simply don’t want anything bad to happen to a child in their charge, for any reason, at any time. Knowing that, it becomes much easier to reach out to those teachers and talk to them about our sons’ needs.

Now, if only our hormonally charged sons were that agreeable. But that's a whole different subject.

I know a lot of my blog followers have younger kids, and they probably worry about their kids’ future, like I do. So I thought maybe I’d send you this Postcard from Junior High to let you know that…knock on wood… so far, so good.

Meanwhile, I’m scanning the horizon for new worries, because that’s just the kind of mom I am. The next worrisome things on my radar? High school and dating. I’ll send you a postcard from there when we get to those hurdles. (Wish me luck!)

Back to School Volunteering

First day of school.

The new clothes. The new backpack. The new lunch box. The new scissors. The new binder. The new haircut. The new EpiPens.

For my son, it’s back to the school morning rush, the homework, and the little social dramas that make up the school day. It’s back to a regular schedule and regular bedtimes and regular dinners.

For me, it’s back to my second volunteer job (in addition to my regular job and my other volunteer job). All school year, I volunteer in my son’s school. My son loves for me to be there. At 4th grade, he’s still happy to see me walk into his classroom. He even hugs me. It’s gratifying to see that as much as he wants to hurry up and become a grumpy, angst-ridden, sullen teenager, there’s still my little sunshiny kid inside there. So I carve a few hours out of my crazy work schedule to spend time in the classroom.

There’s another benefit to my being in the school every week that my son doesn’t realize. And, no, I don’t just mean that I can spy on him when I’m sitting in the back of the room sorting math worksheets. Because I’m in there so often, the teachers get to know me. They know they can count on me. They get to know me on a friendly basis, and we develop a sort of relationship that is much stronger than it would be if we only saw each other once every semester at those slightly nerve-wracking parent-teacher conferences.

That kind of relationship comes in handy when you have a food-allergic kid. If the only time they ever saw me was when I had a worry or a complaint about food in the classroom, I don’t think they’d ever be very happy to see me. I would become “THAT” mom, and no one ever enjoys being "THAT" mom. "THAT" moms seldom succeed in getting teachers to accommodate them willingly.

I’ve also found that just seeing me in the hallway often reminds teachers to ask me about upcoming food issues, like whether they can have salsa and chips on Cinco de Mayo. I’ve heard the sentence, “Oh, you just reminded me… tomorrow we’re doing such and such with food, is that okay?” so many times, that I know they’d never remember to call me and ask about these things before-hand. So by being visible to them on a weekly basis, I jog their memory and keep the food allergy issues at the front of their mind. Otherwise, I’m sure they’d forget.

I understand. Teachers are just as frantically busy as I am. When ever hour of the day is filled with half-a-dozen urgent tasks, we forget things. We have good intentions. But we still forget.

So I take a deep breath, set my alarm a little earlier, and work a couple of hours of volunteering into my weekly schedule. It makes my son happy. It makes the teachers happy. It makes the other kids in school who have allergies happy (even if they don’t know it).

And it makes me happy (even if I’m grumbling about the less-than-attractive bags under my eyes), because it makes the school a little bit safer for my son. After all, I want him to use the new scissors, the new backpack, and the new lunch box. But I don’t want him to use those new EipPens. Not even once.

Preparing for Kindergarten

It’s the time of year to start thinking about registering 5-year-olds for kindergarten. What a scary, exciting, scary – did I mention scary? – time. And as if it weren’t scary enough, if your child has a food allergy, it’s just that much … um… scarier. (Where’s my thesaurus?) A woman on the UFAN forum asked for advice on easing her son into kindergarten. Several people answered her, and it seemed like a great topic for my blog, so here’s my two cents’ worth.

My son is in 3rd grade now, and he and his best friend have been at the same school since kindergarten and they haven't had any anaphylactic reactions at school. (Knock on wood!) We’ve been lucky, but we’ve also worked hard to prepare ourselves. You can’t completely eliminate the risk of a reaction at school, but there are lots of things you can do to minimize the risk and prepare yourself to handle it if it happens despite your best efforts.

1. Volunteer a lot, so the staff knows you and counts on you (not just for allergy issues). If the only time they see you is when there's a food allergy, then you may start feeling like they're whispering "Oh no, here she comes again." But if they see you as a "Gosh, what would we do without her" kind of volunteer, then the occasional food issue will be coming from a great mom who's making a reasonable request.

2. Becoming the class mom lets you both coordinate and participate in all special events, parties, and field trips, which gives you a lot more control over food choices at those events. If someone else is already the class mom, or you can't volunteer for that position, tell the teacher you really need to attend all parties and field trips because of the food allergy. The teacher may want to let the other parents know that you'll be selected for all the special events because of the food allergy, so that they don't think the teacher is playing favorites or something.

3. Ask the principal if there are other food allergic kids in kindergarten, and if they can possibly be assigned to the same teacher. That makes it easier for the allergic parents to trade off field-trip and party chaperone duties if necessary, it puts all the kids in the same class so that the classroom can be more allergen-free, and gives you some backup in food issues. (It's nice to NOT be the only one.) Statistically, about one in twenty kids has a food allergy, so chances are good there will be more kids than just your child in his grade.

4. Volunteer to buy all the snacks or food materials for classroom parties or food educational units (like making noodle necklaces or gingerbread houses, etc.). Usually the teacher has to buy these or request donations. So tell her if she'll collect money donations, you'll go buy all the ingredients. They're usually delighted to get out of having to shop.

5. If he's going to be having lunch at school, talk to the Lunch Lady and cafeteria monitor. Introduce your child, tell her what your child is allergic to, and let your child know that the Lunch Lady is a friend that will help keep him safe. Then remember the Lunch Lady and the cafeteria monitor on holidays with little thank you cards or gifts to show you appreciate them. Few people do that. But it will help keep your child's food issues fresh in their mind, and they'll get to know him well.

6. Ask about setting up a food table in the cafeteria just for allergic kids. The table has a sign that says allergies only, and the cafeteria monitors clean it with a separate marked bucket and cloth.

7. Make several copies of your child’s Food Allergy Action Plan and have the office staff post one in the office, give one to the lunch lady, and have the teacher post one inside her closet door or elsewhere in the classroom, so that your child's photo and "What to do in case of a reaction" instructions are handy no matter where he is. The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) has a great Plan on their website here. Just have your child’s allergist fill it out and take it to school.

8. Practice with your son what he should do if he "feels funny." Role-play and pretend you're the teacher, and have him come up and tell you what's wrong. Often our kids are too shy about asking for help, so have him practice with you, and with the teacher if possible. Not only does that give your son words to use if something happens, but it helps impress upon the teacher how important it is.

9. I get on my principal's staff meeting agenda at the first of the year and give a 5-minute talk about allergies and demonstrate the EpiPen. I also give a presentation to my son's class, and all the teachers and aides he comes into contact with. If you're not comfortable doing this, ask if there are other allergic parents that you can contact. Talk to them about ways to teach the teachers -- maybe another mom would be willing to give the presentation if you get copies made of some information, or something like that. It's easier when there are two or more of you involved, trust me!

10. Remember your son can legally carry his EpiPen with him. But he probably can't administer it to himself in an emergency, so make sure the teacher and everyone else know where it is and how to use it. My son carries his in his backpack so that it's always in the classroom, and I also fill a second prescription and they keep it in the office. So he has two sets at school.

11. Be aware and be prepared, but don't panic! Kindergarten is going to be a lot of fun, and your child will do just fine. And believe it or not, so will you!