FAACT's Roundtable

Ep. 257: Halloween Tips for School and Home

• Season 5 • Episode 257

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Halloween should be all about treats—whether that’s non-food goodies or allergy-friendly sweets—without the scary surprises. Joining us is FAACT advocate, No Nuts Mom’s Group Los Angeles Leader, and Allergic Living contributor, Ashley Smith, who’s here to share wickedly fun school ideas and tips for creating a safe, old-fashioned Halloween everyone can enjoy. 

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Caroline: Welcome to FAACT's Roundtable, a podcast dedicated to navigating life with food allergies across the lifespan. Presented in a welcoming format with interviews and open discussions,

each episode will explore a specific topic, leaving you with the facts to know or use.

Information presented via this podcast is educational and not intended to provide individual medical advice.

Please consult with your personal board-certified allergist or healthcare providers for advice specific to your situation.

Hi everyone, I'm Caroline Moassessi and your host of the FAACT Roundtable Podcast.

I am a food allergy parent and advocate and the founder of the Grateful Foodie Blog. And I am FAACT's Vice President of Community Relations.

Before we start today's podcast, I just want to say thank you to ARS Pharma for their kind sponsorship of FAACT's Roundtable podcast.

Caroline: Halloween should be all about treats, whether that's non food goodies or allergy friendly sweets without the scary surprises.

Joining us is FACT Advocate, Nonuts Moms Group Los Angeles leader and Allergic Living contributor Ashley Smith, who's here to share wickedly fun party ideas and tips for creating a safe, old fashioned Halloween everyone can enjoy.

Welcome back Ashley to Facts Roundtable Podcast. We're always excited to have you here because you are the queen of fun and affordable ideas.

So this is going to be a exciting conversation for sure.

Ashley: No, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Caroline: So before we dive in, can you share a bit about your journey with food allergies and what's that look like for you and then how it brought you to us today?

Ashley: Of course. So my family has been managing food allergies for over 15 years now,

and particularly in the beginning of my journey as a parent,

it was overwhelming and isolating to try and navigate this.

I had to advocate very hard to find a doctor that would listen to my concerns and consent and get approval for us to even have the allergy testing. We had elementary schools refuse to provide the most basic of accommodations such as just having access to our medications during school time.

And then we started to experience bullying and that was not actually from the children at first, but it was started from adults and then children later on started kind of mimicking what they were seeing.

And it was at that time that I said I'm going to advocate so someone else doesn't have to experience my experiences.

And in order for me to do that,

I needed to find support for myself.

And one of the most beautiful silver linings for my family has been the friendships and the connections that we have made from our food allergy community and our good and bad experiences have shaped us to how we advocate for safe and inclusive experiences.

And it's brought me to you here today.

Caroline: And we're glad that you're here today. And I have to echo too, the friendships that we've made are amazing. I mean, you I consider a personal friend. And this is how we met through food allergy many years ago because my kids were little and your kids were little then too.

So, you know, it's just such a cool community how we just come together and help each other and support each other and it seems to be lifelong. I mean, some of my best friends are actually food allergy moms that I met 20 years ago because, yeah, I'm a lot older than you.

And so we've had that. So it's pretty amazing.

So now let's turn to Halloween.

You're known for your creativity in making Halloween both allergy friendly and inclusive, all while staying on a budget like you are amazing.

Can you tell us about your favorite school Halloween party and then share a few tips that made it a success?

Ashley: So I have a few ideas that I'd like to share and a good old fashioned costume parade is great.

Let's just start with that because the kids always love to show off their costumes and it's just a fun, simple way to celebrate the holiday.

Art projects, very cost effective. They're great for parent keepsakes and those are always fun for the kids to do.

But have you ever experienced the Halloween celebration with a mad scientist theme?

Caroline: No, I have not. Do tell.

Ashley: So simply setting up multiple experiments and stations for the students to interact with, or you can even perform them in front of a class as a whole for them to watch at the same time.

I've done this before and not only is it fun, but it's educational too.

The key is to keep the focus on fun experiences rather than food and candy. And involving the kids in activities that everyone can enjoy.

Caroline: Those are really great ideas that again, don't involve food and can be inclusive for everybody and doesn't have to be expensive. That's wonderful.

So now if you could only give a family three of your best tips for creating a special and safe Halloween, what would those be?

Ashley: My first tip would be to plan ahead.

You want to make sure everyone is on the same page,

you want to review your safety tips, and you always want to have a backup plan that is all under planning ahead.

My second tip,

get creative.

Think beyond food and candy.

You can have glow sticks, stickers, pumpkin painting, themed games.

Little changes can make all the difference in making it a fun holiday.

And my last one,

my favorite,

building new traditions.

Whether it's a family movie night,

my family enjoys doing escape rooms,

handing out allergy friendly treats.

All of these traditions that you create with your family are going to make it memorable.

Caroline: So now do you have a favorite family tradition that like you do every year, or do you change those traditions up every year?

Ashley: I would say over the years sometimes we've had some that kind of stick year through year. When the kids were younger, you know, we would do mummy bowling and bingo and little activities like that.

And then as they've gotten older, we've all collectively as a family picked a show that we want to watch or we're really into escape room, so we'll pick an escape room that we want to do.

It's been fun for our family.

Caroline: So just kind of digging into more of Halloween night itself.

When the kids are little, how is that different from when they were little to now that they're older? Because you've got tweens and teens now.

Ashley: Yes, I do. And so I would say the main difference is that they're very involved now.

When they were little, it was more of me kind of structuring.

I had lots of control over what we were doing.

But as they were getting older and even when they were younger, I really wanted them to help me create the memories.

So what is it that they wanted to do?

If they didn't want to sit and do art projects, then that's okay,

but if they did,

that's okay too.

So it's really about getting the kids involved and letting them kind of help create those memories.

Caroline: So now if we can turn our attention to the FAACT Halloween resources,

I mean, I'm obviously wickedly biased. I love them. I love the link on the website and listeners. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes for you. But what are your favorites from the resource center and if you have any suggestions on what you do with those resources.

Ashley: Yeah. So I love the Teal Ghost Kit and the entire page is just a valuable resource. So I second that. Definitely go check it out. Everything's very easily accessible.

There is signage that you can print out. And I know I will be printing it out because every year on our display table that I do for trick or treaters,

I make sure that I have a signage displayed.

Sometimes people don't know what teal ghosts are or teal pumpkins are. So that signage can be really helpful.

There's a safety handout that's really handy Lots of great tips and suggestions.

I know there's free downloadable activities and coloring sheets that would be perfect.

You could print them out for classrooms, parties,

or even at home use.

But yeah, I would really encourage everyone go check it out. There's some really great resources and it'll really help with your holiday planning.

Caroline: And so now on the Teal Ghost Kit, I've used it and I've done the booing. Have you done that before?

Ashley: I did something similar before. It was created when the kids were really little. I haven't done it in many years, but I have done it when the kids were little and little secret.

I was the mystery person that left it at the doorstep.

Caroline: Oh my God, I love that.

Caroline: That's so fun. So you know what, could you tell listeners what booing is and then how we can use that Teal Ghost Kit? I mean, and what you did too?

Ashley: Yeah. So with the Booing, essentially it's about creating a allergy friendly little kit with little treats or trinkets or whatever you would like.

And then you are leaving at someone's doorstep and so they have a nice little surprise when they open their door.

What I did for my kids when they were little is I would create it and then I would be the mystery gift giver that would leave their little surprises for them.

And so it was just a fun little mystery. It was kind of in the idea of somebody's thinking of me. And of course, you know, it's just a fun way just to add some extra magic to the Halloween spirit.

Caroline: Well, I confess, I Booed the kids down the street. A new family had moved in and they had three little ones. They still to this day have no idea I did it.

Ashley: So sweet. And I love that you could create that memory for them.

Caroline: No, I hope they enjoyed it. I thought maybe one year I'll confess to it, but I'm sure they were excited just to have something because they were just new in the area.

Ashley: Oh, I'm sure that's so great.

Caroline: And I think it was fun. And then I've also from the website downloaded the little Halloween crossword puzzles and word search and then wrapped them around pencils, tied a little ribbon on it.

And those are really fun. And again, listeners, I make sure you have all the links on there.

Turning our attention to safety, what are your safety tips or ideas for the actual day? So if you're going out trick or treating, or heading to a party and being with friends but leaving the home, what safety tip tips do you have?

Ashley: My safety tips. And there's some great ones on the Facto website.

One thing that you could do is selecting costumes that use gloves.

This will help. They can open their bag. You know, if they touch it, that's help preventing from them touching anything that might have cross contamination.

Another thing that we had was a rule where you do not eat anything while you're trick or treating.

We would donate our candy at the end,

and I would have candy that was safe for my kids waiting for them.

And they really, actually loved that because they knew they were getting things that they really liked and really enjoyed to eat. Another suggestion and tip that I have is educating your children that sometimes our allergens aren't visible and sometimes they're hidden.

And so something I used to do with my kids, for example, we manage nut allergies.

And so, you know, sometimes you can't see the peanut butter, or sometimes you can't see that there's nuts in the brownie.

And so first we would always had a rule where you don't eat food.

But secondly, I would show a payday.

Is this a safe candy?

No, mom, that's got peanuts. All right, let's try a Twix.

Oh, well, if you're looking at the ingredient list,

this says may contain. So we don't do that either.

And so we would also extend this to even in the grocery store and outside of Halloween,

where I actually created flashcards,

because if you're avoiding,

you know, okay, I'm allergic to peanuts, but do you know what peanuts look like? Do you know what a hazelnut looks like?

Do you know what Nutella looks like?

And so these little ways of trying to educate your children on what their allergens may be hidden in is a great way to help empower them as they're getting older.

Caroline: That is such a good reminder that they really might not know what their allergen looks like because you don't have it in the home, you know, or again, brands. That is really,

really clever. And again, listeners FAACT has a handout on safety. So I'll put that in the link too, so you can look that up as well.

And another thing we used to do, because my son, when he was little, he had really a big, extensive list of allergens. He's outgrown quite a few. But we would have certain homes that I would go to ahead of time and bring the safe treat or the safe item.

And one little funny story is Cyrus used to love garbanzo beans. For him, they were like candy.

And so we went to a house and I gave him the can of garbanzo beans. And then we went up and Cyrus said, trick or treat. And there's a family behind us and they're like, oh my God, Cyrus, hello.

And they gave him this garbanzo bean can and he was thrilled.

And as we walked away, the family behind us said, excuse me, why did he get a can of garbanzo beans? Like, this is a little strange here. And then we said, oh, he has food allergies.

And it turned out they did too. And so then we ended up making friends and having this great conversation, but it was just hysterical because they were like, excuse me, we need to stop and ask question, why did he get garbanzo beans?

So it was very funny. But it is nice if you can sneak out to friends or neighbors that, you know and just set it up a little.

Ashley: Yeah, no, I think that's great. And you know, for kids, like, my kids actually aren't fans of candy,

so they actually don't really eat candy just because they're not fans of it.

And so what they would do as well is they would kind of exchange their candy and I would have a little Halloween gift that they would get at the end of the night.

And that worked for our family. It's all about kind of,

you know, finding out what works best for your family.

Caroline: That is so true.

Ashley: Right.

Caroline: Just tailor the holiday to your needs and don't feel guilty. It's your family.

That's the one thing I'd have to say I've learned from you is you're so rooted in make memories. And they're your memories and they're your family's special moments. So I love that our time has come to an end together.

So before we say goodbye, is there anything else you want listeners to hear from you?

Ashley: Well, I would just like to again say thank you for having me. I always enjoy coming here and I hope that you families are feeling more encouraged that Halloween can be both safe and fun,

no matter what food allergies or how many food allergies you may be managing.

And for anyone looking for more allergy friendly ideas,

I would encourage you all to go check out FAACT's Halloween resources. They really are great. And my Allergic Living Kitchen craft series where I strive to inspire and teach you how to create allergy friendly desserts.

Caroline: Thank you again so much for your time.

Caroline: Before we say goodbye today, I just want to say thank you one more time to ARS Pharma for their kind sponsorship of FAACT's Roundtable podcast.

Thank you for listening to FAACT's Roundtable podcast.

Stay tuned. For future episodes coming soon.

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Have a great day and always be.

Caroline: Kind to one another.

Ashley: Sat.