When does your child carry their own meds?

[fountainpen]

My son has multiple allergies (milk, eggs, nuts, peas, chickpeas, lupin, lentils, mustard. Some severe, some not. He is nearly 9 and I stay at all playdates and parties. Wondering when other parents have let their kids go to events themselves.....or in other words when are they responsible for themselves?

Also looking for suggestions for workshops/resources to help allergic kids manage situations. TIA.

[PostmistressMcColl]

My allergic dc is also 9 and doesn't carry her own meds (epipens) so I can't advise on when to start, except to say that in my own view carrying the meds is a big responsibility and I am keen for her to have as normal a childhood as possible despite the allergy. She is very sensible child but she's anxious about food and eating, sadly, so usually wants me to be v close by or at parties and playdate regardless of the meds. But in a few instances, where I know parents well and the parent has been happy to look after (and administer if needed) the meds, she's been to things without me. I am so grateful to those people! It's really hard to know what's best, really. I am going to wait until she says she wants to be at things on her own and take it from there. It's tricky though. At age 12 I'm sure she'll be able to go to the park by herself, say, but will I be confident at that age that she'd self administer the epipens if she needed to? Not sure!

[RockNRollNerd]

By 9 DS was at play dates and parties on his own. I always checked with the parents first that they were ok with the epipen etc and made it clear for play dates that if they were at all concerned about anything no to give it to him (traces, may contain labels etc). All were fine and knew that if they were in any doubt about a reaction to just use the epipen and call 999.

For parties I used to send DS with his own food until the masses of kids and chaos type parties stage had passed as I felt it wasn’t fair on parents to have to keep an eye out for him. He had been ruthlessly drilled that swapping food was an absolute no no since he was at pre school so I was comfortable he knew the drill by age 8.

In terms of carrying his own medication he started at 8 when he went to cubs. From then he was always responsible for making sure he had it when he left the house (although I did always check). One memorable time I let us get half way to the cinema before asking him as I knew he had forgotten it and he needed to learn the lesson. We missed the film but he got a lot better at remembering.

I know it’s hard but they do have to accept they are different and need to carry medication. By being tough and making it second nature (and his responsibility) from when he was quite young it’s made the teenage years a lot easier I think.