At what age would you leave your child alone at a party or play date if they have a serious allergy?

[SquirrelDreams]

Ds has just turned 4 and is allergic to nuts. I'm wondering at what age it would be safe (and fair on the other parent hosting the play date, party, etc) to leave him anywhere without me or his dad. It is quite a bit of a responsibility. He is too young to expect him to understand the symptoms of a serious allergic reaction and i dont think he would be able to inject himself with his epi pens and call or ask someone to call 999. He has been going to nursery but I think that's different because they are first aid trained and hopefully know exactly what to do.

It's already awkward having to inform other people wherever we go of his allergy and cross checking ingredients of anything he is given to eat.

What do other parents of kids with allergies do? At what age was your child able to handle their allergies without adult support? At what age did you allow them to be supervised by other adults untrained in allergies? Did you give these other adults spot training on how to handle their allergy?

Partly depends on the parents as well. DH has an anaphylactic allergy to nuts and peanuts, so I think we’d be a pretty good party to leave a child at. The food would probably be almost all nut free anyway (maybe if there was one thing in particular we couldn’t get it might be “may contain nuts” but probably not), and DH knows how to use an EpiPen.

I have serious food allergies so am very aware of them and I still wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s child until they were old enough to be the first person in charge - so 10 maybe. Play dates - fine as I’d be able to be on top of things in my own house and listen out etc but parties are chaos. So as the parent I wouldn’t leave my kids until they were 10 at least (kid dependent of course) and I would likely be sat just outside after that too as no one knows how they’ll react in an emergency and ambulance times are shocking.

Parties have been 100% dropoff here since around 5 for the most part so I’d try to stay a bit out of sight or be in the hallway or something so I wasn’t hovering too much. Or just offer to help out if you know the parents - I always appreciate an extra hand and then you could check the food etc yourself.

Just recently had my dd's 4th birthday party, I definitely would not of felt comfortable for a child with allergies to be there without their parent. There was too much going on for me to keep that close an eye on one child. Perhaps if it had been at my house and I could of made sure all the food was okay but even then. I think once your child is at an age where he's very aware of his allergies and can at least ask an adult to check what he's eating

My sons 7 and is allergic to dairy and egg, usually manageable with an antihistamine but he does have an EpiPen for if we travel etc. I haven’t left him at a party yet, one party we went to a clown juggled eggs and dropped one on the floor, ds came running to me crying straight away cos he was scared. Thankfully the mums in our friend group are great and really loving and careful towards ds and there’s another little boy with a nut allergy in the class so the kids are quite clued up (small school). I’d not feel confident yet leaving him. I do leave him at Sunday school, at clubs and at various other things but I must admit I should make sure there’s someone EpiPen trained..