Mean Girls and Bully Boys: Cyberspace Doesn't Help

What is bullying?

According the U.S. Department of Education, bullying can be physical, verbal, emotional or sexual in nature. Now it’s on the Internet, too. “I think the worst thing ever to hit the Internet is a blog called MySpace. It has no filtering system, so when kids post mean stuff they can use it as a means to bully. Cyberbullying is the same thing as bullying when we were kids; the only difference is that the tools kids have access to now are more sophisticated,” says author Jodee Blanco. http://jodeeblanco.com/

Before, the note was passed around the back of the classroom. Now, an insult can be posted on a blog or sent as an e-mail to the entire student body. “It’s made it easy to bully on a larger level,” she says.

Physical bullying includes everything from punching and poking to hair pulling or even tickling. Verbal bullying can include name-calling, teasing, rumors and taunting. Emotional bullying can include humiliating, defaming, ranking of personal characteristics, manipulating, isolating and peer pressure. Sexual bullying can include all other elements of bullying and exhibitionism, propositioning, harassment and abuse and even sexual assault.

Government Survey on Bullying

According the U.S. Department of Education, 88 percent of a group of Midwestern junior high and high school students reported having observed bullying. Three-fourths of the teens indicated they had been a victim of bullying while at school. A survey of fourth-through-sixth graders in the South indicated that a fourth were bullied with “some regularity” and 10 percent were bullied weekly. Among those surveyed, about 20 percent admitted to bullying another child with some regularity.

Respect & Protect, a violence prevention and intervention program developed by the Johnson Institute of Minneapolis identified actions that enable violence — actions such as denying, rationalizing, justifying, avoiding or blaming.

When a child is bullied, grades may suffer because attention is drawn away from learning and towards survival. Self-esteem suffers as victims are made to feel isolated from others, and that there is something wrong with them. They may become depressed. Victims of bullying are likely to veer away from taking risks in many areas where they need to grow — socially or vocationally, for example, as young people and later as adults, and are more likely to be anxious or insecure and depressed. If the problem continues, victims may even feel compelled to fight back or take drastic measures.

How do I know?

There are several "tests" that you can do to determine if your child may be a bully.

• Casually ask your child if there's anyone at school who gets picked on or teased for being "weird," or "different," someone who seems lonely, or who your child would describe as the outcast. Wait a week or 10 days, then ask your child if they'd like to invite their friends over for pizza and suggest they ask the outcast to join them. If your child is open to the idea, chances are your child is not a bully. If your child aggressively resists inviting their lonely classmate, you may have a bully, or at the very least, a "follower" or “bystander.”
• Pay attention to your child’s telephone conversations. Keep an open and curious ear. Does your child laugh with friends at someone else's expense? Do they gossip about others?
• Be a vigilant parent and keep track of your child's Internet communications. Does your child post nasty opinions on blogs, or use Instant Messaging to put others down or exclude them behind their backs?
• Does your child exhibit compassion when talking about anyone at school who's “different,” or do they express disdain for the unpopular?

How Do I Know If My Child is Being Bullied?

Do they exhibit any of the following symptoms?

• Sudden increase or decrease in grades
• Major change in weight
• Extreme make-over attempts
• Inexplicable fits of rage
• Frequently sick; makes excuses to avoid going to school
• Doesn't want to ride the school bus
• Doesn't talk on the phone or communicate with friends via the Internet

Responses That Won’t Help:

• “Ignore the bullies and they'll go away.”
• “They're just jealous.”
• “Years from now, you'll be so successful, and these kids who are picking on you will be in jail, scrubbing floors or worse.”
• “I know how you feel.”
• “Be patient”

Strategies for Bystanders:

No one should have to endure being teased, bullied, or abused. Cruelty violates a person’s sense of self and others. If you or someone you know — perhaps your son, daughter, student, or a friend — is being bullied at school, you can help.

• Listen to them. Let them know they are not alone in their struggle.
• Be compassionate, supportive, and strong.
• You must also …Get immediate help from an adult. Report bullying to school personnel.
• Offer support to victim of bullying. Offer words of kindness or condolence.
• Don’t feed the fire by joining in mean laughter, teasing or gossip
• Ask the bully to “chill”

An Englewood, Colorado antibullying program put into place the “caring majority” concept, training the 80 percent of students who were neither bullies nor victims to set an antibullying climate by sticking up for others. As a result, the perception of safety increased among all students. — Source: U.S. Department of Education, Jodee Blanco

Why Kids Bully

Gender, religion, age, size, clothing, development, income level — all ripe for excuses for students to single out fellow students — but a lack of empathy is the real problem with bullies, says author and speaker Jodee Blanco.

“The real scourge is empathy-deficit disorder — that’s our real problem and we’d better deal with it,” she says.

“Bullying isn’t about aggression, it’s about fitting in. It’s a bonding ritual. They want to feel they belong to the clique, so they start to make fun of someone. It shows your allegiance to the clique and shows you’ve got the courage to be mean. Cruelty is currency to the young — they use it to gain entry to clubs. Only by exposing kids to the joy of being kind can we start to curb bullying trends in school.”

A new study reported on MSNBC reveals that there may be a link between ADHD (Attention-Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder) and bullying. See the story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22813400/

What to tell those in the bully cycle, courtesy of author Jodee Blanco:

• Message for the bully: “It’s not just joking around. You are damaging each other for life.”
• Message for the victim: “You do not get shunned and singled out because of what’s wrong with you. You get shunned because of everything that’s right with you. You are excluded because you are misunderstood because you rise so far above them.”
• Message for parents and teachers: “Cut the clichés; the worst thing you can tell a kid who’s being bullied is, ‘Ignore it and it will go away.’ All you’re doing is escalating the fate. They need to look the bully in the eye and tell them to stop.”

For more articles on bullying by J. Louise Larson, check these links:

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/mean-girls-and-bully-boys-if-your-child.html

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/mean-girls-bully-boys-why-cant-we-all.html

Resources

Here are some resources for additional research and help with bullying:

Kidspeace National Center for Kids Overcoming Crises, general Web site: http://www.kidspeace.org/; teen Web site: http://www.teencentral.net/; crisis hotline: 800/334-4543 National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 800/SUICIDE http://www.bullying.co.uk/ features extensive information on the subject, including advice for parents, students, and teachers: legal advice; helpful links and tips; and ideas for school projects to stop bullying. http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/

- J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/

Mean Girls and Bully Boys: If Your Child Is Bullied

It's Not Natural
One of the fundamental mistakes adults make is to assume that bullying is simply a natural part of life.

“Teachers, like parents, don’t recognize that bullying does affect kids for life,” said Jodee Blanco, author of Please Stop Laughing At Me. http://jodeeblanco.com/ “The worst thing a parent or teacher can say is, ‘Ignore it and they’ll go away.’ It works in the adult world, but in the world of teens, if you ignore it, it makes the bully work that much harder and makes the bullying escalate in depth and dimension.”

Ignoring bullying may have long-term consequences, as well, Blanco warns. Since the young brain is developing neurologically until age 25, it doesn’t perceive nuance the same way an adult’s would, she explains. To tell a teen bullying is “okay” and should be ignored sets a precedent for putting up with abuse, she says. “When they are at an age when you develop courage, they have parents who tell them to ignore people who are abusing them,” she says.

What You Can Do About Bullying

Here are some practical steps to take if your child is being bullied:

• 1) “Aggressively seek another social outlet for your child. Go one town over, because you want your kid to be exposed to new kids. Call the park district, the chamber of commerce, the YMCA, the community center, the library. Look for organized activities for kids and teens and find an activity your kid would enjoy, where they can meet new kids. Give your child something to look forward to — so, on those lonely, frustrating days there are new friends to share activities with,” she says. “A renewed, more confident child is harder to bully. Once you get involved with these other activities, make an effort to meet the other parents and socialize as a group to help support the new social nucleus your child is developing.”
• 2) “Beware of sibling rivalry — it breeds victims, bullies and bystanders, and it’s a fertile practice ground where bullying takes root. If left unchecked, bullying creates a numbing effect. It disables the empathy mechanism,” Blanco says. If you decide to get the help of a health care professional to help your child deal with the aftermath of being bullied, Blanco suggests having the entire family go to the first session, and making sure the professional is not an advocate of “tough love.” “The child who’s being bullied already has it tough enough. The bully obviously has it tough enough, because that’s what’s motivating them to be mean,” Blanco says. Without using other techniques, relocation is not enough. “Who you are goes with you wherever you go and your kid could feel like a failure twice,” she says.

If Your Child Is a Bully

Here are some steps you can take to help your child overcome a tendency to bully.

Rather than punishing a child, expose them to the joy of being kind. “Compassionate discipline is the key,” says Jodee Blanco. “If a kid acts up, they’re doing so because something else in life is already punishing them and they’re acting out. When you punish a kid who’s bullying, you’re just make an angry kid angrier and they will take their anger out on an outcast, someone who’s socially expendable,” she says.

One of Blanco’s favorite “compassionate discipline” techniques is to put the student who bullied on a one-week compassion program. Each day for a week, they have to go out of their way to do one nice thing for someone else. On paper, they then document the incident, writing a paragraph about what they did, a paragraph about the person’s response and a paragraph about how the response made them feel. The student doing the program must write the name and phone number of the recipient on the paper, and the parent then follows up by spot-checking with a few calls to verify.

“Bullies suffer from empathy deficit disorder. We need to find innovative ways to discover their own empathy and develop it like a muscle,” Blanco says.

A student who gets in trouble at school for bullying a child with an eating disorder can be taken to meet patients in a facility for patients with pediatric eating disorders or do a project online about eating disorders.

When a group of Blanco’s high school peers ganged up on her for sticking up for a Down’s syndrome student, they “whitewashed” her with snow, pushing snow down her throat and shirt. The ringleader in the incident was suspended from school for 10 days — and, when he came back to school, he had dropped 10 pounds. He was hungry and school was his source of food. “His dad had lost his job — he wasn’t being mean to a kid, he was angry about being hungry. The principal never asked him why he behaved in such a way, never gave him an opportunity to share what was going on,” Blanco says. Furthermore, with his inner conflicts unresolved, he was bent on retaliation, and when an opportunity arose, he pushed Blanco out into traffic. “The principal should have exercised compassionate discipline, driven by curiosity,” Blanco says.

A more appropriate disciplinary scenario? Start a nonintimidating conversation with the student. “That’s not like something you would do —what’s wrong and how can I help you?” When the kid confessed to being hungry, the principal could have gotten the family into an emergency food program. He could then have had the troublemaker give up study hall time to do volunteer work with the special-ed students “so you can understand why Jodee loves those kids.”

“Let’s exercise some curiosity so we can figure out why the kid is acting out and expose them to the joy of being kind and being generous,” she says.

For other articles by J. Louise Larson on bullying, check out these links:

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/mean-girls-bully-boys-why-cant-we-all.html
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/mean-girls-and-bully-boys-cyberspace.html


- J. Louise Larson - J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/

Mean Girls, Bully Boys: Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Most People Know What Bullying's Like

Teens might not know this, but most adults can remember a time where they were ridiculed, picked on or ostracized — or when they did this to someone else — or watched silently as it was done to someone else.

That horrible feeling as a flush rises until your whole face feels like it was set afire … the sick sensation in the pit of your stomach when you realize people are making fun of you behind your back … the twisted thrill of watching someone squirm from embarrassment, accompanied by a guilty tweak that your mother taught you better …

... The mute helplessness of not having the guts to intervene while someone else’s self-esteem is squashed like a bug … the deadened conscience as empathy takes a beating along with the victim

This is the emotional collateral damage from bullying, one of the worst problems plaguing American teens — and experts say parents and teachers need to remember what it was like and take it seriously.

In 2006, a spat over a soda escalated to a bench-clearing cafeteria fight that sent a dozen McKinney High School girls to jail. This was a spectacular occurrence framing the kind of emotions that can run high among young people. However, the most damaging incidences of violence happen every day in every school in the form of bullying.

A School Where Something's Being Done About Bullying

At Barbara Bush Middle School in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district, antibullying is more than a program — it’s an attitude.

Teachers and students became stars on the Dr. Phil show, when, as part of a middle-school study the TV-advice guru did, his son Jay McGraw spent the day at the school and did a seminar on bullying and its effects on kids who were bullied and on those who do the bullying.

“The Phil McGraw organization wrote a nonbullying pledge, and it hangs proudly in our front hallway,” says Principal Lynda Opitz, who is careful not to describe antibullying as a “program.” “It has to become a philosophy and it has to be the culture of your building. We do a lot of talking with our staff about what bullying looks like and what it sounds like. We ask our staff to take bullying seriously. We make an effort to … make a bigger presence in the areas where kids hang out.”

Adjusting supervision practices means the school has cut down on times when students are sent somewhere there are no adults. Whole classrooms of students are now escorted down to the cafeteria for lunch.

“We’ve cut down on the times kids have an opportunity to be blatant. They don’t act like that in front of grown-ups, they only do it to kids when there’s no one around, when ‘there’s no one in the hallway with me so I can talk to you however I want to,’” Opitz says.

As the school year opens, incoming students get a legal seminar on bullying. “We talk to them very frankly about it, not only from the viewpoint that it’s not nice and people don’t like it — but it’s against the law,” she says. “We walk them very carefully through the district code of conduct book section on harassment, [and explain] that it’s not just sexual, it’s verbal and physical.”

“It’s something we have zero tolerance for. We go about the business of investigating seriously when kids report bullying. Normally, when kids are confronted, they will apologize and drop it. But when we deal with the same child repeatedly, we up the consequences. After we have tried to mediate, we work with the principal and the parents. We will bring in the child, the parent, the victim and the other parents. It’s really tough to sit across a table and tell a victim’s mom, ‘Here’s what I’ve been doing to your child.’”

Opitz says she hasn’t had to take the intervention to the next step, which would be sending the bully home in expulsion — although she would do it if necessary, because “we can’t have a situation where a kid feels unsafe.”

“It’s not a program,” she stresses again. “It’s about a foundation and a philosophy and it’s about everyday work. Bullying is part of the social misinteraction that occurs among kids at this age, and if we ever lose our vigilance, it will crop up again.”

Among the many reasons for bullying, Opitz sees middle school as a time when a larger student body and a “bigger pond” gives kids a greater sense of autonomy. The kids aren’t under the watchful eye of just one teacher all day, with someone bigger and stronger to put a stop to misbehavior.

“They’re beginning to flex some of their social interaction muscles — some politely, some not. They’re beginning to play with power, and bullying is the ultimate abuse of power,” she says. “If you don’t cultivate an atmosphere where it’s not okay, then pretty soon it’s just okay to treat people that way.”

Stephanie, 14, is a talented teen. She is a soprano in the choir, plays violin in symphonic orchestra and piano, and she plans on being a voice major with a minor in piano in college.

Stephanie also knows firsthand how painful life can be on the lower rungs of the pecking order. She is an eighth grader at Barbara Bush Middle School and a former bullying victim.

“There’s so much drama between girls,” she says, recalling how miserable school life was when she first transferred from San Antonio. “At first, I felt really alone. At my old school, I was friends with everyone. I moved here and people were singling me out and judging me about everything in the world. There was never anything open, they were just secretive — spreading rumors, not coming up to me face to face and talking about it. I got really down on myself — I was thinking of trying to kill myself and I didn’t feel good about myself.”

Thanks to the prevailing antibullying attitude at school, Inmon was able to face her victimizers. “I went to Ms. Opitz to get it straightened out. After I got to Ms. Opitz, I made good with the girls. I made friends with one of the people and now she’s my ultimate best friend,” she says.

Conner, 13, is also an eighth grader at BBMS. He’s into band and voice and he’s a talented dancer — ballet, tap and jazz — but few of his classmates knew that. When they decided to single him out, the excuse they found was his voice. He was one of the younger members of the class, and before he hit puberty, his voice was high.

“I witness people calling me a girl or gay and making fun of me about it. And since I don’t like sports, they’ve made fun of me not being the ‘right’ kind of boy … They do it so they could get better social status and to try to make an impression [with their peers.] Before, it used to really bother me, but now, I’m pretty used to it, and I just blow it off and not let it get to me. But if they keep on doing it, I get really angry. If my friends are there, they’ll tell me, ‘Don’t let it get to you’ — they stick up for me a lot,” he says.

As soon as he reported the harassment to Linda Opitz, she made plans to confront his bullies and give them a chance to demonstrate they understand the pain their actions cause and to show remorse. “I’m going to call the parents should this persist or should there be retaliation and the punishment will get much more severe,” says Opitz.

Interviewed for this article, Stephanie and Connor were glad to get a chance to share their stories. If it could help other kids, that would be great — besides, they say, “We finally got to vent.”

Getting the Message Out About Bullying

From fifth grade to the end of high school, Jodee Blanco was bullied. That’s not the only word she uses, though. “I was the school outcast. I was shunned, rejected, tormented — simply for being different, like so many kids,” she recalls.

She overcame her horrific memories, eventually becoming a celebrity publicist for such well-known entertainment figures as Jim Carrey.

After two students opened fire on their classmate at Columbine High School in April, 1999, killing 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves, the nation’s attention focused intensely on the outcasts who executed the tragedy. Blanco saw it as a call to action.

“My primary message to kids is that ‘It’s not just joking around.’ Bullying damages you for life,” she says. “Columbine had nothing to do with the availability of guns. It had to do with a faulty school system that allows bullying to flourish and a faulty parenting system that doesn’t teach enough empathy in the home.”

Blanco wrote a memoir of her experience as a victim of bullying. http://jodeeblanco.com/ Please Stop Laughing At Me went straight to the New York Times bestseller list. Soon after, she started working with kids, parents and teachers with an antibullying message, doing seminars in school districts across America.

If bullying were an iceberg, the innocuous bully would be the tip of the iceberg. He’s the schoolyard menace who steals everyone’s lunch money. This kind of bully is innocuous because he’s the outcast, Blanco says. Everyone recognizes him as the bully. More dangerous, Blanco says, is the part of the “bullying iceberg” adults don’t see. This is the group of kids from the “cool” crowd who adults love and kids want to emulate — the group that make their victims’ lives a living hell.

Bullying isn’t just about the mean things you do; it can be about the nice things you never do. It’s what Jodee Blanco calls “aggressive exclusion.” It can include treating a student like they’re invisible, or inviting almost everyone to a party except for one, or rolling your eyes when you see the student in the halls or when the kid says something.

“These things may do far more damage than overt forms of bullying, because they force the victim to questions ‘What’s wrong with me?’”

Blanco says that, in almost all cases, victims of bullying are ‘old souls trapped in young bodies.’ They are more mature intellectually and emotionally; they need to fit in, but they have an adult sense of compassion. When the moment of truth arrives where they have to make fun of someone else to fit in themselves, they can’t do it because they have a grown-up sense of compassion.

“If you have a sensitive, adult-like kid, you can bet that kid is getting ostracized at school. Sensitivity and compassion are wonderful as an adult, but for a kid, it’s the kiss of death,” Blanco says. Her primary message to the victims of bullying? “You get singled out because of everything that’s right about you.”

For more articles by J. Louise Larson about bullying, check out these links:

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/mean-girls-and-bully-boys-cyberspace.html
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/mean-girls-and-bully-boys-if-your-child.html

- J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/

Allergies and the Fine Print: Parent Alert

For parents of kids with allergies, labels get confusing.

Two cans of chicken broth, same brand, side by side on the shelf. One is 99 percent fat free, one is 100 percent fat free. In this case, you’d have to read the label to know that the one that is 99 percent fat free contains soy. The parent of a child allergic to soy would want to read both.

Lists of ingredients are perhaps the most boring reading material in the world, but for the parents of children with food allergies, it’s required reading – and lifesaving. It got less confusing with federal laws passed this year that demand food manufacturers called a spade a spade – and a peanut a peanut.

However, there is misunderstanding about recent federal laws ordering changes to food labeling, says Donna Zinke Cowman, the founder of FAST of Texas. “All that did was make people use the real, live word – they have to say milk and eggs instead of (food industry terms) … What people don’t understand is that they see some of those warnings on prepackaged foods and they think it’s required by law but it’s not. People think if it doesn’t have that warning that it’s safe, but that may not be the case. Warnings are not required, they’re voluntary,” she says. Some companies like Nabisco and Hershey do use the warnings, she says. “If it’s a brand I don’t know, I call and ask. That’s what parents are still in a position to do, because those shared equipment/cross contamination warnings are not required by law.”

Fort Worth allergist Dr. Susan Bailey says in some ways labeling is getting clearer and more specific. “For peanut allergies, the awareness of this is so much better than it was 10 years ago. Most companies realize they’re going to be liable if someone has a reaction to something that’s in their food but not on the label,” she says.

General Guidelines for labels and products:

• 
  Don’t keep anything in the house that could be a problem for your child.
• 
  Even though you’ve checked the label for a product before, check it again the next time you purchase it.
• 
  Contact manufacturers to check on the cleaning process of their lines. For example, some of Barilla’s pastas are processed on the same lines they produce egg noodles with.
• 
  If a label says nuts, and a child is allergic to peanuts, parents should take no chances, because peanuts are among the most plentiful and affordable “nuts” – even though, officially, they’re legumes and a member of the bean family.
• 
  The higher an ingredient is on the ingredient list, the more there is in the food. For someone whose allergy is not life-threatening, they need to know the threshold amount that will trigger an attack, which an allergist may be able to determine.
• 
  The ‘Ingredient Notices’ button on the website for the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (http://www.foodallergy.org/) leads to a wealth of the latest information voluntarily provided by allergy-aware companies hoping to help families stave off anaphylactic attack.
• 
  When in doubt, contact the company by website or 1-800 number to obtain more information about products and the chance of cross-contamination.

Mom Marnie Freeman has become an expert at sussing out troublesome ingredients that might send her daughter into a fatal anaphylactic reaction.
“Every label gets read,” she says.

Test your allergy IQ here: http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/test-your-allergy-iq.html

For more articles by J. Louise Larson on kids and allergies, see these links:
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergy-safe-at-school-be-prepared.html
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergies-kids-and-most-dangerous-nut.html

- J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/

Allergy Safe at School: Be Prepared

Worried about your child’s serious food allergy while he’s at school? You should be.

The most typical place for adults to accidentally exposed to allergens is at a party where there are a large number of foods coming from many different sources. The most likely place for a child to be exposed to an allergen is school.

Nut-free zones are becoming popular both among parents of children with nut allergies and with schools, said Dr. Michael Ruff, M.D., a professor in the allergy division at UT-Southwestern Medical Center. “More and more good preschools and daycares are going to become a peanut-free facility, because kids are such messy-eaters, they get food all over,” he said.

“Find a preschool where they don’t allow peanut products, or where there’s a peanut-free table. I want these kids to be integrated into the other kids, and I don’t want them to be ostracized. It’s a fine line we walk, letting them be normal kids,” he said.

Ruff says teachers everywhere need to lay off crafts with potentially deadly allergens. “Why make bird feeders with peanut butter? Every year we have reactions from that,” he said. “A lot of people naively think this is just hocus pocus – they don’t realize how explosive these things can be.”

Mom Alison Davis finds it disconcerting to see schools and churches still using peanut butter for projects. “My son would walk in there and tremble,” she says. “I am an overprotective mom. As a first-time mom, you’re freaked out anyway, then when your kid has this thing that they could die – I think most people would be overprotective if they had these situations.”

Kristie Serio agrees. “A lot of school art projects contain food. Everything goes back to just educating people. Typically, once they’re aware, it’s not a problem – it’s just getting the education out there,” she says.

Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays … all special days of celebration fraught with anxiety for the parents of children allergic to peanuts or tree nuts. “Why does it have to be about food?” Serio wonders. “What we all want to do is just keep our kids safe. We’re trying to educate parents and schools.”

Fort Worth allergist Dr. Susan Bailey says that as a society, we’re so much more aware about all this than we were just 10 years ago. “I think people understand if Johnny’s allergic to peanuts and his mom brings him own snack for birthday party, she’s not being overprotective and paranoid,” says Bailey, adding that children should be taught to understand and speak up about their allergy. “It’s amazing how quickly the child become their own best advocate. Their friends become very protective and help look out for them … it’s amazing how caring and nurturing children can be.”

Just because a school has declared its classrooms peanut-free zones doesn’t mean parents can let down their guard. “Something that can kind of concern me is when people say ‘This is a peanut-free environment’ – I’m very thankful, but I worry that will lead to a false sense of security. Those situations make me a little more nervous than not,” says mom Lisa Hotchkiss.

Here are some tips to helping your child’s school experience a safer one.

• Train the teachers and principals; encourage them to make their classrooms peanut-free zones, especially in the younger years.
• 
  Orient the child’s teacher at the beginning of each school year.
• 
  As food holidays approach, revisit the classroom to discuss how to handle it for your child.
• 
  If a child has a life-threatening food allergy, everybody that child comes into contact with needs to be informed – the secretary, the nurse, the cafeteria workers, the PE teachers, the playground monitor. “It’s important because food allergy can be fatal. It’s very often trivialized – people just don’t realize the seriousness,” says Bailey.
• 
  Parents and teachers need to remind children to wash hands really well before and after they eat, not only for their sake but for those around them who may be radically affected by allergens.
• 
  Be creative. When her kids were younger, Hotchkiss kept a stash of home-made, peanut-free cupcakes frozen for “emergencies.” On the day of a friend’s birthday party, they’d pull out a cupcake, have fun decorating it with peanut-free sprinkles, and head out to the party, forewarned and forearmed.
• 
  Halloween and other candy occasions are a little easier with goodies ordered from companies like the Vermont Nut Free Company, which makes a nut-free candy-coated milk chocolate button, among other treats.

Test your allergy IQ here:

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/test-your-allergy-iq.html

For more articles by J. Louise Larson on kids and allergies, check out these links:

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergies-kids-and-most-dangerous-nut.html

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergies-and-fine-print-parent-alert.html

- J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/

Allergies, Kids and The Most Dangerous Nut in America

Deadly Aversion: Allergies That Kill

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.

A teen girl dies after getting a kiss from her boyfriend, who was unaware she was deathly allergic to peanuts.

A little boy dies after eating a bologna sandwich prepared with a knife that had been wiped clean after being used for a peanut butter sandwich.

A university student dies after consuming chili that had been thickened with peanut butter.

They’re media stories that sound surreal to families who don’t have a child allergic to peanuts. But for many American families, they are a worst case scenario that could occur at any moment.

As it turns out, America’s most dangerous nut isn’t even a nut. The peanut is a legume, and an allergy to it can spell death by anaphylaxis, a sudden, severe, potentially fatal, systemic allergic reaction that can involve the skin, the respiratory tract, the gastrointestinal tract and the heart.

According to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) a food allergy is “an immune system response to a food that the body mistakenly believes is harmful. Once the immune system decides that a particular food is harmful, it creates specific antibodies to it. The next time the individual eats that food, the immune system releases massive amounts of chemicals, including histamine, in order to protect the body.”

Fort Worth resident Lisa Hotchkiss has two daughters who are allergic to peanuts, allergies detected with one single bite of a peanut butter sandwich given unwittingly by grandparents when they were just a year old.

“Their eyes swelled shut, their ears turned bright red and they had trunk hives,” says Hotchkiss.

Her second daughter had been tested with a skin test which gave a false negative. “We were cautious, but we thought it should be fine – unfortunately, it wasn’t fine,” she recalls.

More Common Than You Might Think

Scientists estimate that approximately 11 million Americans suffer from true food allergies. Reactions to peanuts send more of the 30,000 anaphylaxis victims to hospital than any other allergies, and it’s a problem that’s on the rise. By some estimates, sensitivity to peanuts has doubled in the last 10 to 20 years, and food allergy is increasingly present in the population as a whole in western society.

UT Southwestern allergy division professor Dr. Michael Ruff estimates that six percent of all children have a food allergy, and while many will lose their sensitivity to food as they get older, 20 percent or fewer with peanut and nut allergies may outgrow their allergies in five years, even with strict avoidance.

One hypothesis on the hike in anaphylaxis is that as hygiene standards have increased, allergic reactions have increased correspondingly. This theory is based on research that shows in Third World countries where exposure to pathogens is high, allergies among children are low. Children descended from farming stock in rural societies like Bavaria, where the barn was located under the living quarters, appear to be the most protected, Ruff said. Those who were exposed to more pathogens through daycare and older siblings and having multiple pets in the household may tend to develop immunities that protect them as they get older.

Many people don’t realize there is a difference between the terms “food allergy” and “food intolerance.” Food intolerance is a food-induced reaction that doesn’t involve the immune system; lactose intolerance would be an example of this. People with lactose intolerance lack an enzyme needed to properly digest milk sugar, and may experience gas, bloating and abdominal pain after ingesting milk products.

Vigilance At Home and Away

Forth Worth allergist Dr. Susan Bailey said parents with peanut, tree nut and other allergies need to be vigilant; food allergy reactions trigger about 150 fatalities in this country per year, the majority of those are due to peanut allergy. “Food allergy can be fatal. It’s very often trivialized – people just don’t realize the seriousness.”

Part of the problem is that peanuts, tree nuts and other allergens like egg whites and milk are common – and they tend to hide in all kinds of places -- pastries, candies, snack foods, breakfast cereals, ice cream parlors, restaurants. That’s why parents should carry a supply of safe snack foods and Epipens with their child at all times, she says.

When it comes to being prepared at home, parents need to maintain that heightened state of awareness. A recent study showed that while common household cleaners removed peanut allergens, but in one in 12 cases, dishes washed with dishwashing liquid left traces of the notoriously sticky substance.

Peanut protein passes quickly into breast milk, so breastfeeding mothers are encouraged to avoid peanut products lest they sensitize their infant to it as an allergen. Children with allergies are susceptible to other allergies, so diagnoses should be backed up with the newer blood tests allergists give to get a more definitive answer.

Families should avoid unapproved therapies that purport to “cure” allergies. “I don’t want them to go to anybody that injects or puts food under tongue – that can be dangerous,” says Dr. Ruff.

Instead, the lifesaving device allergists recommend most for controlling a severe anaphylactic reaction is Epinephrine, also called "adrenaline.” It’s available by prescription as a self-injectable device (EpiPen® or Twinject™).

Caregivers need to be sure to take allergic reactions seriously, not just with a dose of Benadryl, an over-the-counter medicine often administered for quick relief of non-life-threatening allergic reaction. “If you have a rapidly progressive reaction, you need to get to the emergency room. But I would never fault a parent for doing the EpiPen – that’s truly a lifesaving medicine,” Ruff says.

Protecting Our Allergic Kids

Keller mom Marnie Freeman learned her daughter Madysen, 4, had the peanut allergy from one terrible phone call. “They called one day when she was in school – they said, ‘Something’s wrong with her, can you come? We’ve called 911,’” she remembers. Freeman’s husband sped to the school, arriving at the parking lot as the ambulance was pulling out. He rode to the hospital with her. “Her whole face was swollen like a little basketball and it affected her breathing. The EMT kept saying, ‘I don’t know if she’s going to make it, I don’t know.’”

At the hospital, blood tests determined she had a peanut allergy – but she hadn’t eaten a peanut product. The little boy next to her at the table had one, though. “She didn’t ingest it, which is the scary part,” Freeman says. “She could have touched her face and her eyes.”

Now Freeman has her own peanut-free recipe for victory over peanut allergies with Madysen. “We take it day by day – you learn something new every day. and we rely on resources from FAAN (the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network) and FAST of Texas.”

The Freemans have encountered some skepticism from people who don’t take their daughters allergies seriously -- “We’ve had to deal with some of the emotional issues with people who don’t understand it,” she says.

Madysen is aided in her own quest to stay healthy by her own determined little memory. “She remembers going to the hospital. She had eight epinephrine shots that day – her peanut allergy was off the chart,” Freeman says.

FAST leader Kristie Serio’s son, Nathan, 3, is allergic to peanut, tree nuts, egg, soy, fish, shellfish, paprika, watermelon, cantaloupe, peas and beans. She understands what it’s like to be on guard. “For parents with food allergic children, it’s constantly a fight-or-flight response. Every morsel of food the child puts in his mouth could potentially be fatal.”

That’s why groups like FAST and FAAN (the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, http://www.foodallergy.org/) are vital, Serio says. FAAN’s website offers everything from allergen-free recipes and the latest research results to notices of food ingredient changes provided by manufacturers.

“The issues change over time and at different stages of the allergy. A lot of parents of teens deal with different issues – they have to worry about sons or daughters going out and kissing, and that’s another issue,” she says. “It’s a life-changing, family-changing thing. We’re trying to get everyone under the same umbrella so we can all share the same information,” she says.

“One thing we have to be very, very careful with is not to give medical advice … We’re not here to give medical advice .. we’re here to share experiences and ‘what worked for me.’ There are so many issues that we need to share, because there’s a huge learning curve when you are first diagnosed with a food allergy.”

For parents of children with allergies, the problem isn’t going away any time soon.

“You have to strike a balance. I realize this is life and this is how it’s going to be. It’s not an issue when you learn how to manage it – it’s the learning curve, it’s the unknown that’s difficult,” Serio says. “You try to have a life that’s as normal as possible.”

Dr. Ruff agrees.

“I want these kids to lead a normal life, I don’t want them to be hypochondriacs but I want them to be protected,” he says.

Lisa Hotchkiss identifies one possible silver lining to the cloud of peanut allergies. “As my older daughter’s approaching adolescence, she is able to say ‘No’ to things a lot of people might not say no to. I’m hoping that will correspond to some of the temptations later on in life. It’s a very neat character-promoting self discipline-building thing,” she says.

“I have to think of the positives, otherwise it’s a bummer.”

Test your allergy IQ here:
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/test-your-allergy-iq.html

For more articles by J. Louise Larson about kids and allergies, check out these links:

http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergy-safe-at-school-be-prepared.html
http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/2008/02/allergies-and-fine-print-parent-alert.html


- J. Louise Larson http://raisingthinkers.blogspot.com/

Test Your Allergy IQ

Test Your Allergy IQ
How much do you know about food allergies? Test your allergy IQ with this quiz. Note: This is not medical advice. Consult your child’s allergist for advice on your child’s condition.
1) True or False: Parents get their kids overexcited about allergies. An itchy nose or sneezing is nothing to worry about.
2) True or False: You’ll know right away if you have an allergic reaction.
3) True or False: If your child has hay fever, you got off easy and don’t have to worry about other allergies.
4) True or False: Severe anaphylaxis is only caused by bee stings.
5) True or False: A child who has had hives is at risk of a more serious anaphylactic reaction.
6) True or False: The older my child gets, the more I have to worry about him having an anaphylactic reaction.
7) True or False: An anaphylactic reaction can progress over hours.
8) True or False: If the hives go away, the episode is over and you don’t have to worry any more.
9) True or False: A child has to actually eat the food to have an anaphylactic reaction to it.
10) True or False: Allergic reactions can easily be treated at home.
11) True or False: You can gradually build up an allergic child’s tolerance to an allergen.
12) True or False: Food allergies are the most common allergies.
13) True or False: Food allergies are not interrelated with other allergies or conditions.

Test Your Allergy IQ
Answers
1) FALSE. Anaphylactic reactions can range from mild to life threatening Anaphylaxis is a sudden, severe, potentially fatal, systemic allergic reaction that can involve various areas of the body (such as the skin, respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, and cardiovascular system).
2) FALSE. Symptoms occur within minutes to two hours after contact with the allergy-causing substance but, in rare instances, may occur up to four hours later.
3) FALSE: Individuals with asthma, eczema, or hay fever are at greater relative risk of experiencing anaphylaxis.
4) FALSE. Anaphylaxis can be caused by allergens that can include things like:
 Food
 Medication
 Insect stings
 Latex
5) TRUE. Anyone with a previous history of anaphylactic reactions is at risk for another severe reaction. Individuals with food allergies (particularly allergies to shellfish, peanuts, and tree nuts) and asthma may be at increased risk for having a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction.
6) TRUE. A recent study showed that teens with food allergy and asthma appear to be at highest risk for a reaction because they are more likely to dine away from home, they are less likely to carry medications, and they may ignore or not recognize symptoms.
7) TRUE. An anaphylactic reaction may begin with a tingling sensation, itching, or metallic taste in the mouth. Other symptoms can include hives, a sensation of warmth, asthma symptoms, swelling of the mouth and throat area, difficulty breathing, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping, a drop in blood pressure, and loss of consciousness. These symptoms may begin in as little as five to 15 minutes to up to two hours after exposure to the allergen, but life-threatening reactions may progress over hours.
8) FALSE. Some individuals have a reaction, and the symptoms go away only to return two to three hours later. This is called a "biphasic reaction." Often the symptoms occur in the respiratory tract and take the individual by surprise.
9) FALSE. Without knowing it, a child can come in contact with an allergen by inhalation or touch and suffer a severe reaction. Only a trace amount of a problem food can cause a reaction in some individuals.
10) FALSE. In the United States, food-induced anaphylaxis is believed to cause about 30,000 trips to the emergency room and between 150 to 200 deaths each year. A study of 32 cases of fatal food-allergy induced anaphylaxis showed that adolescents who have peanut and tree nut allergy and asthma, and who don't have quick access to epinephrine during a reaction, are at highest risk for a fatal reaction.
11) FALSE. Strict avoidance of the allergen is necessary for avoiding a severe reaction. Read food labels for every food each and every time you eat it. Ask questions about ingredients and preparation methods when eating away from home. Some children may spontaneously outgrow allergies, but testing by an allergist is the safe way to determine if that’s the case.
12) FALSE. It is estimated that up to 10 percent of the population may be at risk for allergic reactions to medications. Other common allergies include insect stings (50 deaths a year in the U.S.) and Latex, which affects 1 percent of the U.S. population.
13) FALSE.
Some individuals with latex allergy will also develop reactions when eating foods that cross-react with latex. These foods commonly include bananas, kiwi, avocados, and European chestnuts; and they less commonly include potatoes; tomatoes; and peaches, plums, cherries, and other pitted fruits. Food-dependent, exercise-induced anaphylaxis is very rare and occurs only when an individual eats a specific food and exercises within three to four hours after eating. Individuals experiencing this type of reaction typically have asthma and other allergic conditions. Although any food may contribute to this form of anaphylaxis, foods that have been reported include wheat, shellfish, fruit, milk, celery, and fish. Food-dependent, exercise-induced anaphylaxis appears to be twice as common in females as it is in males and is common in individuals who are in their late teens to thirties.
SOURCE: The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN); www.foodallergy.org.
RESULTS:
0-1 wrong: You work at keeping well-informed about allergies.
2-5 wrong: You might need to brush up on allergies that could affect your family’s health.
6 or more wrong: Get more information so you can be aware of the risks allergies pose to those around you.
This test was originally published with my article in Dallas Child and Fort Worth Child magazines in 2006. - J. Louise Larson