Ep. 302: Food Allergy Life - School Activities

Beyond the classroom, managing food allergies doesn’t stop at the door. From sports and clubs to field trips, after-school activities, and special events, these moments can involve different locations, changing routines, and lots of adults. So how can families prepare without missing out on the fun?

Joining us is food allergy advocate, parent, and support group leader, Ashley Smith, to share practical strategies for navigating these moving parts and helping children enjoy a safe, confident, and fun-filled school year.

Resources to keep you in the know:

• FAACT's Food Allergies and School 
• FAACT's Parents Planning for School

You can find FAACT's Roundtable Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify, Podbay, iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Sponsored by: ARS Pharma

Thanks for listening! FAACT invites you to discover more exciting food allergy resources at FoodAllergyAwareness.org!

Transcript

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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.

Caroline: Hi everyone, I'm Caroline Moassessu and I am your host for the FAACT Roundtable podcast.

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

Caroline: Before we start today's podcast, I just want to pause for just a moment to say thank you to Ars Pharma for being a kind sponsor of FAACT's roundtable podcast.

And please note that today's guest was not sponsored or paid by ARS Pharma to participate in this specific roundabout podcast.

School is in session and managing food allergies doesn't stop at the classroom door. From sports and clubs to field trips, after school activities and special events, these moments can involve different locations,

changing routines and lots of adults. So how can families prepare without missing

out all the fun?

Caroline: Joining us is food allergy advocate, parent and support group leader, Ashley Smith to share practical strategies for navigating these moving parts and helping children enjoy a safe, confident and fun filled school year.

Caroline: Welcome back, Ashley to FAACT's Roundtable Podcast. As always, I'm very excited you're here because you always share all the good stuff.

You share all the good parenting stuff, all the good school stuff and the holiday things and memory making. So today is going to be fantastic because we're focusing on school and school's happening right now.

Ashley: It is. School is back in session and I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Caroline: Well, thank you.

Before we dive in, let's start with your family story in case people don't know you.

So can you share how food allergies became part of your world and tell us a little about your two incredible boys and the journey that you've shared together?

Ashley: So for those of you that don't know me, my name is Ashley and my family has been navigating multiple food allergies for roughly 17 years.

And I'm just going to say, even having 17 years down,

no matter how many years you're on this journey, it's an ever evolving learning process.

I have a high schooler and I have a middle schooler. We travel often,

both of My kids are very active with their extracurriculars,

excelling in their academics, and it's safe to say that they keep me very busy,

but in a good way.

Caroline: And it's so fun because I've known you for so long watching them grow up into these really interesting men and they were already interesting kids. So it's really fun just watching your journey.

Ashley: Thank you.

Caroline: Let's start just outside of the classroom with school assemblies. Students are still on campus, but suddenly the setting, the routine and adults around them may look a little different.

What should families and schools think about ahead of time so students with food allergies can stay safe,

feel included and fully enjoy the experience?

Ashley: For school assemblies, the best place to start,

I would say is encouraging food free events whenever possible.

This is going to help so that no one's worrying about unexpected food, treats or shared snacks.

When rewards or treats are part of the program,

let's shift to non food options.

Maybe we're doing somebody wins school spirit wear instead of getting food.

Maybe there's special classroom privileges such as a traveling trophy. I know one of our elementary schools used to have a traveling trophy and it was a stuffed animal. It was the mascot for the school and the kids loved that.

Maybe a pajama day. Think fun trinkets,

keep it on celebrating and less on the possibility of excluding someone.

Caroline: Traveling trophy. I have never heard of that, but what a cool idea.

Ashley: The kids go crazy for the traveling trophy.

Caroline: I go crazy for the traveling trophy. Are you kidding? I love that.

So now let's move into sports, theater and the other extracurricular activities. You know, band or music, all of those where the practices might happen on campus,

but games, performances and competitions can take students on the road.

So what do you think families should be discussing and working on ahead of time? Not only with their student, but maybe with the school too,

right?

Ashley: So as you know, game days, competitions,

tech weeks for musicals or plays, this often means that your student is going to be either traveling or gone for long hours.

Because of this,

you're going to want to make sure that your child has immediate access to their medications,

a water bottle or two,

and some allergy friendly snacks and or meals.

Caroline: So those are really good tips of what the student can definitely do to prepare themselves. But when you start at the beginning of the school year, do you try to meet with those teachers or coaches or do you have any tips on like how a family who might be very new to this tackle that not only safety in the classroom,

but now what do they do if their student's going to play baseball.

Caroline: So do they talk to the coaches?

Caroline: Does the school arrange that? If you can just touch on that a little more.

Ashley: Right. So you know, this is going to be different for each student. What's worked for our family is having a solid 504 in place.

With our 504, this carries in the classroom and outside of the classroom.

This helps us have a solid foundation of how we're going to go about navigating our situations.

Caroline: And I guess age dependent too. Do you bring your child into that conversation? So, like, are they there with you when you have all these initial meetings? I know, like with my son, there was a point where we brought him into some of the meetings and he had created like a little signal with the coach that if he was across the field and something was wrong.

Wrong. So what are your thoughts on that?

Ashley: Yeah, I think it's great to empower our kids when they're younger. Of course, when they're younger, they're going to need more guidance and that's expected as they get older. I know my kids have kind of shifted to where they're really taking the lead and they're making those conversations happen.

For example,

a lot of times with Tech Week potlucks. Okay.

Food allergies and potlucks don't usually go hand in hand.

So what we've done is that typically I will send an allergy friendly meal for my child, but I'll also donate something that's allergen friendly, that's packaged so that my kid's also able to participate with the snacks that everyone else is eating.

That's something that's worked for us.

Another way that we've navigated this is that he has talked to his director.

His director is aware of the food allergies. And so when it comes time for dinner,

him and there's actually several other students with food allergies.

They're able to leave the area,

go to the front gate,

meet their parents and pick up safe food and then return and have their food with everyone else.

Caroline: Thank you. Those are really good ideas.

Let's elaborate even more on that because I've watched your kids go from being young elementary students to middle school and now high school. And I've seen how you've helped them transition from you handling everything in the conversations and then handing it off to them.

So can you talk about your family's experience or your experiences and any tips or ideas you want to share too?

Ashley: Yeah, I would say that some of the most important things that you can do as A parent is setting the example,

being the role model in the situation,

explaining why we do this. So, for example, when my son was younger and we would have meetings,

maybe he wasn't involved in it, but then I would sit down with him and give him an age appropriate explanation of why we're doing what we're doing.

This helps him have an age appropriate understanding of what's happened,

what's happening,

and what he can expect to happen.

We also talk about maybe if things don't go right,

how do we handle that?

As your children watch you,

they really will surprise you with how incredible they can advocate for themselves. And I've seen this firsthand with,

you know, my own children is that they,

they want to stay safe, they want to be included.

And giving them that tool that they can do this and they can navigate it, have plan A, plan B, plan C,

be someone that can listen to them.

And it really just is all about supporting them and guiding them, helping when it's needed.

And you'll just be really surprised with how incredible they can become their own advocate.

Caroline: This is amazing. And what I'm hearing is you're saying, basically,

keep that communication big,

talk to them about why we're doing this so then they can understand it and it has value to them. So it isn't just mom saying do X.

You're actually explaining why we're doing the X. And then you're bringing them into that conversation and you're bringing them into the problem solving.

And I love when you were talking about having plan A, B and C, I feel vindicated,

actually, because I always tell my kids that, what's your plan A? What's your plan B? And you know what? Have a C in that back pocket because especially with food allergies, we have to pivot.

But also another big thing I was hearing from you is that you really listen to your children to see how they're thinking and handling it. That's so powerful. I mean, these are great suggestions and ideas.

Ashley: And something I would also like to add to that is speaking to your child to find out what accommodations they think they need versus what you think they need can be very important because sometimes as parents,

we want to put them in a bubble, right? We want to protect them, we want to shield them.

And listening to them. Like, for example, with me, when I heard potluck, I was like, in my head,

I'm staying calm on the outside, but in my head I'm like, oh, there's so many different scenarios that this could just go so wrong.

But When I take a moment to step back and I say,

how would you like to navigate this?

How can we navigate this together?

So something that's very important to us is maintaining medical privacy.

And so, you know, I talk with my kids.

Do you need help? I will step in, but oftentimes my son, I mean, at this stage in his journey,

he will actually go down to the 504 coordinator if someone is not following the 504 plan.

And he will advocate for himself,

but he knows that mom is there if he needs the help.

Caroline: I want to make a T shirt that says,

how do you want to handle this?

I think that was something I struggled with, and I know others do, too, is we want to get in and handle things for them. But you're right, if we ask them,

then we can guide them. Yeah, I need to make T shirts of this.

Well, thank you so much for that. And now let's talk about field trips. From a day at the museum to those bigger overnight adventures, they can be really exciting milestones for kids.

But as we know, for food allergy families,

they can also bring a whole new layer of planning. So now, what are your thoughts on what parents and caregivers can do ahead of time to help keep their child safe?

Again, included, and let them just focus on the moment.

Ashley: Communication is everything. It is going to be a theme for me during this conversation.

Communication is everything.

Starting with a clear plan.

Have your backup plans. I am a very firm believer in having your backup plans.

When your kids are younger,

you're going to want to make sure that the person responsible for supervising your child is trained in using their emergency medications and that they know how to recognize the signs and symptoms.

You're also going to want to know that who's carrying their medication.

Right.

We actually had a situation long ago where a teacher handed it off to a parent who was supposed to be chaperoning, and that parent handed it off to somebody else, which was not what was supposed to happen.

So you want to make sure that there is clear understanding from everyone's perspective. Right. From the teacher's perspective, from the nurse's perspective, from the parent perspective, from the student perspective, that everyone has a clear expectation of what we're supposed to be doing.

Oftentimes, I would chaperone, and I know a lot of food allergy parents do chaperone. And when I would chaperone, I would carry the medication,

and I would also carry their lunch in a backpack so that it was separate from the other food.

If I wasn't able to attend a Field trip.

It was then the teacher that would carry the medication and the food separate from the other lunches.

As your kids get older,

they begin self caring.

Maybe you're no longer able to chaperone.

Maybe they don't want you to chaperone. I know no one wants to hear that,

but now what we want to do is we want to ensure that there's a direct line of communication with the responsible staff. Member.

Groups often stay together, but sometimes they split up.

And so something that I had put into our family's 504 plans is that when groups would split up, because typically if I wasn't chaperoning,

we would know a parent that was chaperoning. So my child would go into that group because they were familiar with them.

But we put into our 504 plans that the school set up an app.

And this app was connected to our child's phone,

to the responsible teacher's phone and the chaperone.

This allowed direct communication. If there was any,

any concern,

any unexpected,

you know, incident that happened,

my child would have direct communication with the teacher. The chaperone would have direct communication.

And it really helped ease everyone's mind.

Caroline: It just sounds like communication is the grout that just holds everything together is what I'm hearing. And honestly, I think that's what I see in our community because everyone is still learning about food allergies.

I think communication is our biggest tool. So I agree with you and just appreciate you talking about the importance of communication.

Caroline: Of course.

Ashley: And I wanted to touch base on overnight trips because this is something new that we recently started experiencing.

For anyone that has older kids that may be doing overnight field trips that are school related,

I want to highly encourage that students have access to independent, safe food storage and preparation.

Typically this would be a microwave and a refrigerator in their hotel room.

I know something that we did is the teacher asked students not to bring our allergens into the hotel room with the peers that he was going to be staying with.

And, and this was for everyone just to be mindful because we had many students with allergies and with the same allergies too.

We send snacks.

And I just want to point out that everything is a learning experience. And I spoke on this and I'm probably going to keep speaking on this.

So walking through different scenarios ahead of time with your kids can really make all the difference.

And if you don't mind, I actually have an example that I would love to share with you.

My child had an overnight trip and we had connected with the school to ensure that there would be a microwave and a refrigerator. And we told everything was all set.

You know, we had, we had covered all of our bases. Everyone was feeling good.

My child gets to the hotel and surprise,

there's no microwave.

Caroline: Okay, what do we do?

Ashley: Well, we had already planned this out. What if we get there and there's no microwave?

So we called the hotel and asked to have the microwave. And they said, oh, we don't have microwaves.

Okay. Well,

we had already discussed what if the situation pops up? Because I'm a planner of a planner. I, I plan,

Let me tell you.

And so that night for dinner, there was some change in the. In the plans, right? So we already don't have a microwave,

and now there's a change in the plans. And they're eating at a different restaurant than what we expected.

My child had an allergen card for his food. Allergies, spoke to the restaurant. I was so proud of them for doing that.

They say we cannot accommodate.

What do you do? Right.

Well, we walk through these scenarios, right? So this is why we walk through these scenarios, because sometimes they seem silly. Like, oh, you know, this isn't going to happen after this happened.

But here we are, we're living it, right?

And my child was hours away from me.

So what do we do? We actually ended up ordering a pizza from a safe pizza restaurant that was nearby. And I spoke with them,

told them the situation. They said, yes, we can make this.

And I had asked them to put a no tampering sticker on the pizza.

They were great. Put a no tampering sticker on the pizza.

And we had the pizza delivered to the hotel.

Him and a buddy were able to go get it. And so that is how he ate dinner that night.

Caroline: Wow, that is a great story.

So you really did go to plan C. Cause plan A was a microwave, right? Plan B is he had a chef card for the second restaurant. But really you hit plan C, which was find somewhere safe in town and have it delivered.

Brilliant.

Ashley: And it worked.

We could have all been in full panic mode. And trust me, deep down inside, mama had some panic feeling in her.

But staying calm for the child,

telling them,

you've got this.

We can handle this.

And we did.

And now what we do is we go back and we'll talk to the school, which, you know, we've already done this, but you know what didn't work.

How do we help minimize this from happening in the beginning? And sometimes these things are things that just unfortunately,

surprises happen.

Things don't go the way that the plan was,

but with these scenarios that we ran, these plans we had in place, we were able to navigate it and you can too.

Caroline: That's incredible.

Caroline: I love this.

Caroline: Thank you so much for sharing that story.

So finally, let's talk about after school activities when the school nurse or familiar teachers may no longer be on campus.

How can families plan for that shift,

make sure the right people are prepared and help their child participate safely and confidently.

Ashley: You're right. School nurses aren't always on site.

Main office isn't open 24 7.

So making sure that your student has immediate access to their emergency medication is going to be priority number one. And if your child is not able to self administer, you're going to want to make sure that someone is trained to administer if food is going to be a part of the event.

We always communicated with the school.

It was in our 504 plan that the school would follow our students 504 for after school activities during school and after school for dances.

The school will make safe options available.

Both of my children have participated in clubs,

dances.

They've even taken cooking classes.

It is possible.

Communication,

working as a team,

it really makes a difference.

Caroline: Cooking classes, I remember that and I remember seeing that online and people follow Ashley online. She's just absolutely delightful and does fun things with Allergic Living and just I love following Ashley.

But I remember seeing the cooking classes and thinking I don't know if I could do it.

But then seeing you do it was proof that people can try and get in there and use these tools that we're talking about. So thank you so much again for sharing all this great info and believe it or not, we're at the end of our time together.

So is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?

Ashley: Well, as always,

thank you for having me. I always love taking the time to talk with you and our listeners.

If anyone's interested in learning how to bake beautiful and delicious allergen friendly desserts, you can always catch my kitchen craft series for Allergic Living magazine.

You can also find me on Instagram Memories Made Safe where I share a glimpse into my baking,

traveling and how we create incredible memories while staying safe. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Caroline: Well, thank you Ashley again for your time and sharing your wisdom and your joy and your successes and listeners. I will make sure I have all the links to following Ashley in the show notes, so make sure you check that out.

So Ashley, once again, thank you so much.

Caroline: Before we say goodbye today.

Caroline: I just want to pause for one

Caroline: more moment to say thank you to ARS Pharma for being a kind sponsor of FAACT's roundtable podcast.

And please note, today's guest was not sponsored by or paid by Ars Pharma to participate in this specific podcast.

Caroline: Thank you for listening to FAACT's Roundtable Podcast. Stay tuned for future episodes coming soon.

Please subscribe,

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Have a great day and always be

Caroline: kind to one another.