Does Your Child Have Food Allergies? Try These School Safety Tips
If your child has a food allergy, you might be in constant fear that he or she will accidentally come in contact with the food that he or she is not supposed to have. It can be tough enough to monitor everything at home, but you might be even more concerned about something happening while your son or daughter is at school. Luckily, following these tips can help.
1. Talk to Your Child's Teacher
First of all, it is important to talk to your child's teacher at the beginning of the school year. Many beginning-of-the-year school forms provide fields where you can enter this information, but you can provide more details and gain more peace of mind by talking to the teacher yourself. Then, your child's teacher can help ensure that your child does not come in contact with any foods that he or she is not supposed to. Some teachers will even ban certain foods from the classroom, such as if a child has a particularly dangerous allergy or if multiple children in the class are allergic to a certain thing.
2. Pack Your Child's Own Lunch
Even though many school cafeterias go to great lengths to ensure that children do not come in contact with foods that they are allergic to, it can still be smart to send your child to school with his or her own lunch. Then, you can feel confident that the food that you are sending does not contain any ingredients that it shouldn't and that the food was prepared in an area away from these foods to help prevent contamination, and you can ensure that your child is getting acceptable substitutes for these foods that he or she will actually eat.
3. Talk to Your Child
It is important to start working with your child now so that he or she understands the foods that he or she is not supposed to eat. Even very young children can be taught about this. Plus, if your child is going to have to deal with a lifelong food allergy, now is a good time to start talking to him or her about it to help prepare him or her to watch out for these ingredients later on.
You might be concerned about your child coming in contact with foods that he or she should not have due to a food allergy. This is definitely an understandable concern, but luckily, following these tips should help keep your child safe and should help provide you with peace of mind as well.