I talk a lot about communication with allergies, especially food allergies. I also talk a lot about communicating with your child’s school if they have allergies and especially if they are in elementary school. However, there are more to communicate with besides teachers and staff and those are the other parents. Because a lot of food can be dangerous that is brought in by other students, it’s important that the parents of the kids in your child’s class know what is going on with food allergies, and there are a couple of ways to get that across.

For starters, you can send a letter out to the parents in your class. Clear this with the teacher, but there shouldn’t be any reason why it’s not OK. You will probably want to do this within the first week or so of school, when parents are a little more vigilant of what is coming home, also for safety’s sake. Include what your child is allergic to and what happens if he or she comes in contact with it. You don’t need to go into emergency medical plans here, they won’t be taking care of your child, but you do need to make other parents aware of the dangers of food allergies. You may want to suggest they keep the allergen out of the class, and to definitely stress the fact that if their child has it, to wash hands with lots of soap and clean their area. A lot of parents will just decide on their own to not send in the allergen due to dangers. You can ask for them to please call you with what they are sending in for birthday celebrations so you can check with them and determine if your child needs something else.  Ask for their help in keeping your child safe.

Another thing you can do is speak at open house. You may choose to do this just in your classroom, grade level or even school wide. You may choose to do it all three. Again, check with your teacher beforehand if it’s in the class and an administrator if you want to go bigger. Again, stress the dangers of food allergies and specify what it is your child is allergic to. Discuss cross contaminants and the dangers they pose. You may choose to partner with the school nurse and have her send home extra information. Some parents take it more seriously if it comes from “professional.”

You can find some great information on food allergy awareness for classrooms and schools on FAAN’s website. There are emergency medical procedures forms (actually the same ones our school uses), teacher hints and even a packet for a presentation. You have  a lot of valuable that needs to be shared to help keep your child safe this year, go ahead and do it.