Does your child have food allergies?
February 9, 2009 by Dr. Heather
Filed under Developmental Grab-Bag, Older Kids
Having a child with food allergies is tough — first, there are the obvious safety issues involved. You don’t want your child to accidentally — or intentionally — eat something that may make him sick, or even kill him. Then there are the practical challenges; finding acceptable, palatable food substitutes for the things he can’t eat. I know many families who have to spend tons of time (and money) planning and making separate meals for their allergic kids, and strategizing about “dangerous” situations like birthday parties and school lunch rooms.
But it doesn’t stop there. The doctors and nutritionists who diagnose the allergies, and prescribe the necessary diets, unfortunately don’t often have the time to get into the psychological aspects of food allergies — and leave the parents wondering how to handle this very tricky aspect of the allergy.
The behavioral and emotional effects of the allergy and related diets include the resentment caused in the child by not being able to eat foods his friends CAN eat. The feelings of deprivation and being “different”. The parents’ worry that these food issues will lead to eating disorders in adolescence. All of these problems are very real challenges of raising a child with a food allergy.
I recently got a phone call from a friend who’s daughter has multiple food allergies — gluten, casein (dairy protein), tree nuts — the works. They’ve been able to reasonably control her food intake up until recently; she’s now an active, busy second-grader who is starting to get resentful that the other kids can get all kinds of foods that are forbidden to her. My friend was mortified to tell me that they discovered a stack of 30 or more string-cheese wrappers stuffed under the couch recently. And a rash that preceded the cheese-eating was diagnosed by the doctor as “psychological”. Poor little thing is itching herself raw, and hoarding and “sneaking” disallowed foods.
I’ve got some ideas about how to handle these issues, and I’ve had to do the gluten and casein-free diet in our home for awhile when we were ruling out food allergies with our daughter. But I know there are a LOT of you out there struggling directly with these challenges in your home. I’m hoping some of you will post your comments to my friend here, giving us some tips for what works — and what doesn’t — in your home. I’ll collect your responses and include them with some of my own in my next post.
Aloha,
Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink
Food allergies are definitely a big problem, but thankfully more and more resources are becoming available to help parents deal. KiwiLog has some great posts about this issue–check them out!
http://kiwimagonline.com/kiwilog/category/allergy-awareness-with-robin/
Addressing food allergies and sensitivities is worth every minute you spend figuring out how to do it! I am a nurse, a life coach and a mom of 4 grown children who faced these challenges. Their health, their happiness and their behaviour were transformed when I removed the offending foods from their diet.
They did follow the diet through their school age and adolescent years and continue to make healthy choices in adulthood. How do you do it:
1. You make an unwavering commitment to it as a mother and resist the temptation to give in.
2. You connect to what you value and what is important to you and this is what you focus on when the going gets tough. You do the same with your child.
3. You help your young child to role play the various experiences she might come up against so she has a repertoire of answers for other people’s questions and comments
3. You create delicious and healthy alternatives so your kids don’t feel deprived. There are loads of resources out there to do that. Giving them carrots sticks won’t work!
4. You enlist their participation in cooking and in creating alternatives for birthday parties etc.
5. You offer empathy for their circumstance and give space for their feelings but you don’t allow them to turn it into a long sob story. Everyone has challenges so help them find the resilience to manage theirs. This builds life skills that stretch far beyond the issue of food.
6. Find support. It might be your friend, your mother, or someone else in your kid’s class facing similar experiences. This topic is now very common in the world so find someone to talk to.
I have loads of experience and wisdom on this topic and am delighted to share it. Please check out my website at http://www.dynamicchoices.ca for some downloadable ideas. Print off the signs and symptoms sheet and see how many things on the list you tick off! I coach people one on one and in groups to identify the offending foods and to remove it in a way that is successful in the midst of their busy life.
How might your life and the life and potential of your child be different if you removed that offending food in a positive way?
I challenge you to be creative and find the way to do it – your child’s health and happiness will be profoundly impacted.
Margaret Evans R.N., B.S.N., C.P.C.C.
The most helpful thing for me was finding a support group, far more helpful than the allergist. I was able to learn practical application from others who had been in my shoes. But I think the challenge of food allergies never stops.