Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional why does my child have to LOVE school?

I spent so much time and effort back in the fall to get DS4.5 into special ed preschool and he absolutely LOVES IT! I on the other hand keep wishing he's stop loving it so much so I could pull him out and keep him home! He's very bright (great!) but has far too many issues to keep things simple. Aside from PDD-NOS which we have pretty much under control, he has a bunch of allergic, including severe to eggs so we're constantly dealing with the stress of that (keeping him safe, epi pen at nurses office, no food residual in the school bus) ... he's missed probably half the school days due to being sick and on top of that, we have now discovered that he is allergic to COLD! And we live on the IL/WI border so freezing temps are a part of our winter season. So, now basically I need to figure out how to keep him safe on the bus too since there's always the chance that he'll have a strong reaction on his way home from school! His face got all puffy yesterday about 10 minutes after he came home from school. The reactions that this allergy triggers can be quite severe, to the point of needing an epi-pen! .... it would make our lives so much easier if he just stayed home for another year or two! .... if only would he stop loving school so much . I so want to pull him out but just can't do it to him!

ok, rant over ... anyone with similar issues? how did you / would you deal with it???

On the other hand, it may be easier to just keep him home (and safe) but it may not over the longterm be the best thing for him. He will likely have lifelong allergies, and you ultimately want him to be in charge/take care of it (obviously not at age 4.5).
My son started wearing a ($3000) hearing aid at age 6. Now four years later, he is in charge of it. At summer camps, he would go to a day camp at the YMCA where the kids would do a craft and then take a bus to the pool.
Then I'd be in a quandry- should I drive in the middle of the day to the camp or the pool and pick up the hearing aid (which isn't water proof)? I finally decided that, no, I wouldn't do that. Years later, knock wood, we still haven't lost a hearing aid.

I know, it will be so much easier once he's in that age where he'll be able to carry the epi-pen on him rather than us having to rely on other people

We are right there with you. Allergies are so frightening, and unfortunately they limit a child's activities. For me they helped in my decision to home school. I have no doubt that my five year old would socially love school, but at this age, for my sanity and his overall safety, we feel better keeping him out of school. Besides the fact that academically he is grades ahead, my biggest concern is his safety. When a point comes that I can 100% count on him to make appropriate food choices and see all cross contact safety issues, then we will look at other school options. I just hope he still loves HS then and we can continue on instead of subjecting him to the crazy social life of middle school. For me though, the peace of mind is much bigger than his need for daily social interaction. We play with friends lots, have people to our house so we know it's safe, and TONS of communication to others about the concerns and risks. Even with all that you never feel perfectly safe, and it's hard. You wish you could just keep them in a bubble and protect them forever...but, it is a hard balance. Personally, I would say at this age, it is better to protect, error on the side of safety. But, I personally have a hard time trusting others to recognize a reaction in time, or to recognize a threat. It is just as reality, as no fun as it is. Your life has to revolve around it. Yes you give them the most normal life possible, but foremost you provide a safe envirionment. I realize I am often in the minority...my friends with food allergy kids are moire relaxed and trusting of others... But their kids have had episodes because of it, and I personally hate that risk. Sorry for that scattered thoughts,..but you are not alone. Sometimes it scatters your brain;). It's a very hard balancing act...social vs safety and peace of mind. I don't have an answer, I can only do my best.

You'd think so, yes, but a LOT depends on the cooperation of others and the reaction threshold that your child happens to have.

How have we dealt with this?

On a not-so-awesome day, I'd answer BADLY. And with considerable angst and stress.

On a good day, that answer would be different. We just have. Homeschooling was a no-brainer; spending this time WITH my kid, versus spending it ON HER BEHALF, and still worrying terribly every time the phone rings? No question which of those is right.

Personally, our daughter has been self-carrying since she was three. This separates the idea of responsibility for CARRYING medication from the responsibility for using it. Oh, and if you have anything to do with a public school-- get a 504 plan in writing.

My daughter's asthma has been hovering in the low yellow zone for the past 24 hours because of a 2h meeting that she and I needed to attend-- we got there and one of her allergens was EVERYWHERE in the room. Being inhalation/aerosol sensitive to an allergen makes this a whole different ballgame; she wiped everything she touched and it still wasn't enough. All but two of her systemic reactions (and there are dozens) for the past decade have been as a result of an error in judgment-- they've all been "unavoidable" and mostly as a result of someone else's actions. This includes three near-fatal reactions that we've never fully determined a cause for. In other words, the rest of the world may think we're helicopter parents, but we live the way we do for a darned good set of reasons, and we STILL see plenty of evidence that we probably can't be "too careful" in light of what we're dealing with. Oh well. It is what it is.

On Monday, a peer at a community service event "helpfully" pulled out a bag filled with her allergen to "share" with the other participants. So yeah, I got a panicked phone call from my 13yo who was standing alone in the cold, waiting for fifteen minutes while I raced to pick her up and kept her on the phone with me so that she could tell me that she hadn't been exposed while she was frantically packing up her computer.

So yeah. They WON'T always control their surroundings any better than we can. The truth is that fleeing the room was the best of her options-- but it was far from a "good" one. She wound up standing all alone and trying to decide whether she was having any asthma problems, in the middle of a fairly deserted wooded park at the edge of a university campus.

I can turn over her allergies to someone else, all right-- HER. Because nobody else has as much on the line. That's harsh, but it's something that our kids have to learn, ultimately.


~Mom to an Anaphylaxis Frequent Flyer.

PS. Feel free to PM if you ever need to get specific advice on something that seems more allergic than GT-- or irretrievably both. I don't post about this openly here because of my DD's privacy.

HowlerKarma ... my son is aside from other things allergic to eggs, which is a fairly common allergy ... but so badly / unusually that he can react even to just egg smell. He'd get puffy just from the smell of scrambled eggs in the room. And that's something I can hardly control in the life outside the house so I completely understand!

We really wanted him in the preschool program and fought hard for it because he really needed that social interaction and we had big worries as to how he'd adjust in K next fall because of the pdd-nos and his issues with structure, directions, etc ... but now, adding worrying about him getting too cold or too warm on top of everything else, I'm thinking about not sending him to K and just homeschool since I'm home with the younger one anyways! We unofficially homeschool / unschool anyways since he's constantly learning something, asking something, taking something apart and it would put so much less stress on me ... which then carries onto the boys! I wanted him to learn the school structure and rules more than anything. He basically plays at school and learns at home but if we are to homeschool the next few years, than he doesn't really need it anyways! I'd much rather do museums and other social activities with both of them then constantly worry!

Been there done that-- got the same egg allergy teeshirt. For many years, we didn't eat in any restaurants-- ever.

The one good thing about egg and milk allergies is that there really is significant evidence to suggest that they get better (mostly "a LOT better") through adolescence. I'd never have believed that my kid could be one of them when she was five or six, though. We know that she probably won't ever have anything like "not allergic" tolerance, but the fact that she can get a flu shot is so amazing to us. (Yes, it makes her arm swell up and she is itchy, but allergist is okay with that as long as she waits an hour in the office afterwards.)

Anyway. Just wanted to let you know that. There IS a lot to be hopeful about with milk/egg allergy now. Much better than a decade ago.

So maybe try homeschool or virtual school as an alternative until your son is old enough to manage things better on his own?

thank you! that DOES give me a lot of hope! His allergist said if things don't improve, they may put him in their de-sensitisation program and see if they could train his body to have some tolerance. The flu shot would had come in handy this season ... he had such a bad case of flu, we were in the ER with 107.3F fever. The hardest day of my life and can't even think of how many times that day I thought to myself I so wish he could had gotten a flu shot!

thanks again for your support! I do think that we'll just homeschool after the preschool year. Rather be safe than sorry! At least this year he's on a tiny little school bus dedicated just to that preschool class and he doesn't come into contact with anyone else. Next year it would be regular bus for K-6. Can't even imagine!

I understand about wanting to keep things private to keep your daughter safe. Thanks for offering private messaging! I'll keep that in mind!

FWIW, I have a dear friend whose child was severely allergic to dairy and eggs (like, skin contact was an issue) and who now has no trouble with them (she is about 8). Just offering a ray of hope. They also successfully did desensitization therapy with nuts.

As an adult I successfully had desensitization shots for my main allergy, which had gotten so bad it had left me with a rather constricted life for a year or so. I am so thankful they have that.

It's too bad he likes school so much (though nice for him of course that he's had such a good experience) but if it's so dangerous as to be life threatening, it's not worth it. One can't know ahead how it will be and you've tried it out and you are clearly worried. If it was an inner city school he loved to go to and you realized other children turned out to be repeatedly bringing guns to class...

Polly