Kindergarten Readiness: A Food Allergy Family’s Essential Guide

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Up until now, you might have been able to keep your child safe with you. But now, as kindergarten or preschool is looming,  it's time to allow someone else to take care of them, Ugh. I know how hard this is!

So many people don't understand food allergies, and it's a scary thought to leave your child in a place that could have allergens everywhere.

I focus a lot on educating those around your child, which is super important, but today, I want to go over 3 vital things you can do to empower your child as they become more independent. We’ll even dive into ways to tell if your child is ready to self-carry their epinephrine too.

If you have a food allergy child gearing up for preschool, kindergarten or even grade school, this episode is essential.

Let’s get to it!

I want to get into some skills your food allergy child will need for kindergarten readiness, and later we’ll talk about how to tell if your child is ready to self-carry their epinephrine, but first I want to chat a little about HOW to actually get them ready.  Like, how do you teach this to them?

Here are a few tips to get your child kindergarten ready:

1. Use simple language that they understand.

This is especially important if you have a really young child.  Explain allergies to your child in very simple terms using words they understand.  For example, when you explain what an allergen might do to them, you will want to say things like “make you very sick”, or “will make you feel yucky”.  

Another idea is to say how it might make their body feel.  For example: “it will make your tongue feel “itchy” or “spicy”. Keep the language simple at first and then you can introduce more complicated explanations as they get older. 

Quick tip - if you explain how their body feels, using terms that you will remember too, your child may use those terms if they ever feel a reaction and you’ll know what they mean!

2. Model your behavior.

Here’s the thing.  If you don’t show your child HOW to live with food allergies successfully, they won’t know what to do.  That’s why it’s important to model the habits and activities that they’ll need to do on their own in the future.

For example, instead of doing things without them knowing, talk about and SHOW them what you’re doing.  

Tell them when you’re reading labels, confirming menu items with restaurants, emailing Grandma about the Thanksgiving menu and putting the epinephrine in your purse. 

When you do this they’ll see the daily tasks they’ll need to do and feel like it’s doable.  They’ll learn as they see you do it.  

It will become second nature and “no big deal”.  If you’re not showing and telling them what you’re doing, your child won’t have a clue that you’re doing it and it will be a shock when they need to be more independent. 

A Story that happened to us…  

Our rule is no epinephrine, no eating or drinking.  We’re extremely diligent with this rule because we believe that instilling this now will help our daughter be strong and make smart decisions when she isn’t with us as much in her teen years.  But I have to tell you this is NOT easy to follow through with.  

For example, we once found out that we'd forgotten the epinephrine on the way to dinner and had to turn around and add an extra 45 min to our trip, making us late AND hangry.  

At the time, it wasn’t easy to turn around because we were late and hangry; but that act proved to my daughter that having the epinephrine with us every time she eats or drink is important.  It helped her to see what to do if she forgets it, and it helped her to make it a priority in her own life.

By doing hard things in the short-term, we are giving our kids tools for success in the long-term.

3. Make it fun.

As I mentioned in the example of no epinephrine, no eating or drinking, NOT ALL lessons are fun. Some are actually really hard. BUT that doesn’t mean they all have to be.  I think it’s great and effective if you make learning as fun as possible. 

As you’re getting your child kindergarten ready, think about how you can incorporate food allergy skills into your daily routine, and how you can make it fun for your child.  

For example. Could you sing a song about it? Could you play with your child and their stuffies and incorporate food allergies into it?

I talk about lots of fun ways to empower your child in my FREE Food Allergy Kids Empowerment Guide. 

You can grab it for free and you’ll get a list of 10 Essential Skills to teach your child for kindergarten readiness and super FUN ways to do it every day. 

You can grab that free guide at the link in the show notes.

So now that we’ve talked a little about how to teach them, lets talk about 3 skills they’ll need for school.

3. Three Vital Skills:

1. How To Advocate for Them Selves (in a basic way at this age).

Advocating for themselves can take some time to build!  

This doesn’t necessarily come easy for lots of kids and I find there’s a balance to forcing them to talk for themselves and talking for them.  It’s hard to find that balance sometimes; and there were times when I wondered if my daughter would ever feel confident enough.

I have a super proud mama moment about this.  We went out to one of our favourite allergy-friendly restaurants with family.  

The kids were sitting with their cousins on one end of the table and the adults on the other (and yes, epinephrine was there too, thanks to the recent lesson I talked about earlier).  

Usually, we need to watch the kids order and help my daughter explain her allergies.  This time, she was sitting a bit further away so we didn’t jump right in and she did it COMPLETELY on her own.  Of course, I was slyly listening and making sure that she told the waitress everything she needed, and I have to say she did an awesome job.  She was clear and explained it well.  I was so proud. 

All the hard work and teaching are showing and I couldn’t feel happier that my daughter is getting more independent and reliable when it comes to keeping herself safe.  She made me one proud mama!  

So I want you to know that your hard efforts WILL pay off.  It may seem like it takes forever sometimes but don’t give up. What you do now, will lead to your child being a great advocate for themselves!

1. Teach them that they never have to eat food to be polite. 

They will need this skill at recess and lunch time. 

I know, this goes against a lot of the things we’re taught in society. Because many people teach their kids to eat everything on their plate, to be polite.  

But I think it’s important that food allergy kids know that they NEVER have to take food or eat food just to be polite. A great phrase you can equip them with is, “No Thank You, I have Food Allergies”.  It’s simple and easy to remember and gets the point across.

1. Carrying the epinephrine. 

Some parents aren’t sure about whether their child is ready to carry the epinephrine themselves and when SHOULD they be ready? 

I want you to know that this isn’t necessarily a skill they need for kindergarten, but is something you want to start working on soon, if you haven’t already.

One definition to clarify: 

Self-administering and self-carrying are 2 different things.  

I never expected my daughter to administer the epinephrine if a reaction was happening when she was 6, that was the job of the nearest teacher.  

My daughter started self-carrying at 6, but was not considered old enough to administer.  This was because she was just too young to understand whether she needed it or not, and I didn’t want that pressure on her at that age. Because at that time, she is just learning what a reaction may look like, let along having to give herself a needle. 

So, that distinction would be important to discuss with the school so everyone is on the same page.

With that in mind, here’s a couple of thoughts about knowing when your child is ready to self-carry their epinephrine. 

First, there is no black-and-white answer when it comes to self-carrying.  My personal opinion is to self-carry as soon as possible if the child is mature enough.  Simply because it just wastes too much time to get the epinephrine from the office when a child is on the playground.

My daughter was 6 and in grade 1 when she started self-carrying.  That said, she was very mature and I could trust her not to play with the epinephrine OR let anyone else play with it (AND YES, kids did ask her to take it out - more in that in a minute).  I could also trust that she wouldn’t leave it in random spots like the playground.

Here are a couple of questions to help decide if your child is ready to self-carry their epinephrine: 

1. Can your child be trusted to remember the epinephrine, and not leave it randomly on the school playground?  We want to keep other kids safe and also, it’s expensive, so we don’t want to have to buy new one if it gets left.  

2. Can your child be trusted not to take it out of its case, or show kids, or play with it?

3. Has your child been self-carrying under your supervision at home?  If they can self-carry when you’re going to friends and family, without problem, that is a helpful indicator. 

If you answered yes to all of these, then I would push for self-carrying. 

If your child isn’t ready to self-carry, then there can be other accommodations made for the time being. 

For example, I’ve heard of teachers passing the epinephrine from teacher to teacher so it followed the child around during school.  That would also have to happen at recess and lunch where the recess supervisor would need to get the epinephrine.  

Another option would be that the teacher just carries it all day. This works especially well if your child is with the same teacher all day.

I want to backtrack for a second.

I mentioned earlier that kids asked my daughter to show them the epinephrine a lot in grade 1.  

My daughter was good about not taking her EpiPen out, but I didn’t want her to feel pressured.  

So I went in and did a fun education session for all the grade 1 kids and brought in trainer epinephrine injectors so they could see what it looked like and try it out.  

I read them a story about food allergies and I told them that real epinephrine is not a toy.  

The session was a success! Afterwards, their curiosity was quenched and they stopped asking my daughter to take the epinephrine out.

CONCLUSION

You’ll find that some of these habits are hard to implement (and following through is even HARDER sometimes), but it’s all worth it if we have responsible, empowered kids, right?  

Our food allergy kids depend on us to give them the skills they need as they grow up because we won’t always be there for them. 

Just like many things in parenting, things are not always easy, but it’s NEVER too late to start good habits!  We’ve been working on some of these things right from diagnosis, but good habits are always worth starting AT ANY TIME.  

So I want to encourage you to empower your food allergy kiddo as you think about kindergarten readiness.  You’ll see the fruits of your labor if you keep at it!

If you haven’t already, check out my School Allergy Plan Template.  This Template will help you discuss food allergy safety with your school so you can ensure they’re fully prepared to help your child stay safe and included at school, so you don’t heed to worry constantly while they’re at school, or spend hours and hours researching!  I’ll pop that link in the show notes as well.

If you found this episode helpful, I highly recommend you grab the free Food Allergy Kid’s Empowerment Guide. 

There’s a handy checklist of 10 skills to teach your child AND more fun ways to teach them every day. You’ll find it so helpful as you work towards kindergarten readiness.