Has your child's teacher talked to the class about their allergy?

[Weta]

I am thinking of asking DS1's teacher to have a chat to his class about it, as I previously felt safe that he would only have a reaction when ingesting food but it now appears that other factors could trigger it too, eg in the playground.

DS1 (dairy allergy) isn't very keen to have attention brought to him, but the kids all know already that he can't eat birthday cake etc and has to bring his own food, and I think it would be good for his friends to know what to look out for, and that they must get the nurse straight away if is having problems.

Has anyone else asked the teacher to talk to the class about it?

My DS2 hasn't started school yet, but I was at a parents meeting and suggested an 'Allergy Awareness Day' as part of the Health program in the school.

My thinking was that it would be good to go over lots of different types of allergies, from hayfever to food, stings etc and talk generally about them and the types of reactions people might have. Unfortunately my school didn't go with it, but I'll be pushing the idea again next year when my son starts. I have a friend who is a headteacher and she was very enthusiastic about the concept.

Would that maybe be an option if your son isn't keen on direct attention to him?

That's a good idea, will have a think about it...

We have this as DS is idiopathically allergic. Although DS' teacher had talked about washing hands and care on not bringing nuts etc into school with his class, we spent ages working on how to communicate DS' condition with the wider school kids - despite his being very shy about his allergies, the big concern was what would happen if he reacted and only school children were where with him (e.g. when he was on the field) and they would have to have the wherewithall to get a teacher. This would concern all years, not just his class.

They did a pretty cool thing: after one of his big reactions they made him a Bravery certificate, marched him into each class where they just very simply said how very brave he'd been and that he'd been in hospital for a while. And, on his leaving the class, briefed the children on how what to do if they saw my son react. My son came home bursting with pride. Amazing.

I think you need to be clear as to why you need the talk in class and how to override your child's anciety about his allergies. It's really not an easy one.

In my DSs class the father went in and talked to the class-they all really listened-it had much more impact.