How to Talk to Children About Food Allergies and Death

This challenging and important episode concludes our spring season, "I Don't Want to Talk About It." 

We tackle one of the most difficult questions food-allergic families may face: “Could I die from my food allergy?” Though we hesitate to bring it up, kids often overhear scary headlines, which there have been far too many of recently. When they ask, avoiding the topic or lying can erode trust and leave them unanchored.

I share why considering your responses ahead of time is important, give insight into how to recognize that the time is right, and walk through what conversations might sound like at different ages. Highlights include:

• Signs your child might be worrying, even if they haven’t asked
• Age‑appropriate guidance from preschoolers through teens
• Why clarity, calm, and validation are essential—and when to use them
• How parents can manage their own anxiety about the topic
• Tips for creating moments when kids feel safe bringing up “the hard stuff”

This episode offers practical tools and compassionate insight, helping families deepen connection, create emotional safety, and bring confidence and groundedness to an important and challenging conversation.

Fatal Anaphylaxis: Mortality Rate and Risk Factors - PMC 

Special thanks to Kyle Dine for permission to use his song The Doghouse for the podcast theme!
www.kyledine.com

Find Dr. Whitehouse:
-thefoodallergypsychologist.com
-Instagram: @thefoodallergypsychologist
-Facebook: Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, Food Allergy Anxiety Psychologist
-welcome@dramandawhitehouse.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:18 Be Prepared
• 6:01 Mistakes to Avoid
• 11:15 Tips for Constructive Conversations
• 16:27 Infants and Toddlers
• 17:30 Preschoolers
• 22:54 Elementary Ages
• 28:37 Tweens
• 33:44 Teens
• 39:19 Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to the Don't Feed the Fear podcast, where we dive into the complex world of food allergy anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, food allergy anxiety psychologist and food allergy mom. Whether you're dealing with allergies yourself or supporting someone who is, join us for an empathetic and informative journey toward food allergy calm and confidence..

Amanda Whitehouse, PhD: 0:22

Welcome back friends, and thank you for joining me again for another episode of Don't Feed the Fear for What has been a Difficult Spring season, talking about all the things we don't want to talk about. We've covered a lot of difficult topics and I'm going to end the season on a real doozy. We talked about kissing, having the birds and the bees talk and the additional information that we needed to throw in that conversation when we are managing food allergies. But today we're going to talk about the conversation that food allergy parents dread even more than having the talk with their kids, it's unfortunately something that happens to most of us, which is our kids asking us if they could die from their food allergies. This season we had three different parents come and speak to us on the show about their heartbreak and grief over their children's death from their food allergies. Thank you to each and every one of them for helping to remind us that this is an important reality that we have to keep in our awareness I'd like to start the conversation with a reminder how highly unlikely death from food allergies actually is.

1:26

A study from 2017 by Turner and colleagues called Fatal Anaphylaxis. Mortality rates and risk factors, which I will link in the comments for You, indicated that even though food related anaphylaxis is relatively common, food allergy related fatalities remain extremely rare with a reported range of approximately 0.03. To 0.3 deaths per million person years in the general population, To give you another statistic to compare it to, the odds of being struck by lightning in the United States during one's lifetime are approximately one in 15,300. The odds of being murdered in the US are one in 18,989.

Amanda Whitehouse, PhD: 2:11

So while severe allergic reactions can be life-threatening, deaths from food allergies are not common, and the overall risk from death and food allergies is considered very low. Knowing this information can be helpful, but doesn't magically erase the fear that we carry about it because as we talk about constantly on this show, every near miss, every accident, every reaction, no matter how serious it is, is a reminder that the potential is there and can be a trauma that our body experiences and remembers. So regardless of the chance of this actually happening, the chance that you'll have to have the conversation with your child about this is 100%. And the chance that your child is thinking about it or has thought about it, is pretty high. I can tell you as a food allergy psychologist who has worked with so many families and children navigating food allergies, whether or not your kids are saying this out loud to you, expressing these fears to you, they're thinking about it. They're talking to me about it in session, and we wanna make it safe for them to talk to you about it too. At some point they'll likely have an experience, whether it's a food allergy experience or something that brings up the concept of death in their awareness, and it will bring that possibility to mind. They'll connect the dots and whether or not you talked about it, they will begin to understand So I want you to be prepared. I've had conversations with other food allergy parents about how this conversation is not only scarier than the birds and the bees talk, but we could also compare it to that day you're not ready for when your little one looks you in the eye and says, is Santa Claus real? And for those of us parents who have been through that, we know kids don't usually ask that question until they already know, or at least strongly suspect the truth. We want to be prepared, but it's so hard when we're caught off guard to know what to say and to give a response that's loving and supportive, acknowledges their feelings, and also takes that new awareness that's expanding and makes it into a positive thing. I find in my experience that the way that you handled the Santa Claus question, if you've reached that point yet, is a good indication of how you're likely to respond if your child asks you if they can die from their food allergies. What's natural for most of us is to lie. We want to avoid causing our kids any fear or pain at any cost. But if you're prepared, if you've thought through this and you've taken the time to consider your own values and beliefs, your child's unique makeup and awareness, if you've dealt with your own emotions about the topic and you know how you wanna approach this when it comes up, you've laid the foundation, you've created the space for difficult conversations with love and support in your family, then it will be much easier to respond to a difficult question in a way that you feel confident about and that will validate and support your child, even if the conversation itself is difficult or upsetting. Talking about death is just complicated. Most adults will avoid this topic and even when they're faced with it, with the loss of someone that they love, they typically don't talk about it directly. We talk around it. We use euphemisms. We spout beliefs that we maybe don't even carry the rest of the time, So today I'm going to talk you through age by age, developmental level, by developmental level, the indications that your child might be thinking about death and wondering if they could die from their food allergies, what it might look like in their behaviors, sound like in their heads, And how you can talk to them in an age appropriate and developmentally appropriate way that will be supportive and loving for them. Before we can ever be ready to discuss this with our kids, though, we have to face the reality that discussing food allergy deaths with our kids triggers our number one biggest fear, If we don't work through our own stuff and develop our window of tolerance for difficult emotions, then one of the mistakes that we're likely to make is avoiding this conversation altogether. If it hasn't come up yet, why would we bring it up? We don't wanna introduce fears that they're not already thinking about, and you think you're protecting your kids, but the reality is that kids pick up on the danger under the surface. They are so much smarter than we give them credit for. And they certainly pick up on our discomfort with a topic. By not talking, we send them message that it's not something that should be talked about. And kids can feel emotionally abandoned by that, or unseen, lied to deceived in our omission of these conversations. This really does become a delicate balance of not throwing this conversation at them, not introducing a worry that they don't already have in their heads, but listening and paying close attention to what they are saying to help us gauge whether this is something that's on their mind, even if they're not saying it directly. The way to do that is to be very proactive, to have lots of conversations that aren't specifically about death, but that are preemptive check-ins. Creating an environment and a culture within our homes and families of open conversation and comfort and support around difficult topics. That can look like regular check-ins where we say, Hey, sometimes you might worry. I want you to know, and we can always talk about it. I can answer any of your questions if anything ever comes to mind that's bothering you. If we haven't dealt with our own emotions, the opposite thing we might do rather than avoid the conversation is to overshare or flood our kids with our own emotions inadvertently. we don't want that all to come rushing out in an uncontrolled way that will overwhelm our children. So it is certainly okay to show your children that you have feelings. Then you can show and explain to them how you cope. They can see you putting those skills into action, what you do to manage difficult things. So we don't deny that it's scary or that we worry or we're afraid. Sometimes we say things like, sometimes I feel scared about that too. This is what I have found helps me. And then we let them see us doing those things. This might take some exploration from you. It might take some, Active consideration of how you are coping, what you do on a regular basis, or when things get difficult, you might benefit from some therapeutic support around that. There might be some room for exploration of your individual belief system, religion, spirituality, or whatever approach brings you some semblance of understanding or peace around the topic of death. That's individual for everybody and usually never a completely finished task. But again, something that we wanna model for our children, an active and healthy spiritual exploration If you are actively involved in these processes of self-awareness and understanding, you'll be a lot better prepared to demonstrate to your children that you have feelings and be able to express and show them what you're doing to manage it in healthy ways, and then teach those to your children. So we don't wanna have a conversation that will leave our children even more frightened, less sure of the situation by oversharing and flooding, or by avoiding the conversation. We don't wanna give the message or the impression either way that this is not a safe thing for our children to talk to us about. Another common mistake that we can make is being too vague or too euphemistic, so a lot of parents won't know what to say. Again, it's not just with kids. When we're speaking to other adults, we don't know what to say about death. We say things like,, He's in a better place, or these euphemisms that help us to sidestep our discomfort. We tend to do the same things with kids. One of the most common ones, and you've probably heard this before, is not to tell children things like they went to sleep and they never woke up, because then we can create a fear of sleeping. We don't wanna say things that are really vague, like passed away, crossed over, gone. We lost them. We need to make it clear to kids that that's what we're talking about. If we use language that's vague or confusing, what kids will often do is fill in the story in their head. They will make up the rest of the details that they don't understand, and that typically will make things even scarier, even worse than what the truth is. Using the words they died saying the word death is factual and it is as clear as we can possibly make it for kids. That doesn't mean that they can understand the concept of the word, but at least we all know we're talking about the same thing. And after we've made that clear that what we're talking about, this big, scary concept that's really hard for any human to wrap their minds around, if you do have a belief system that can be very helpful, it's okay to use that to shape this conversation if it truly is your belief system. But be honest and it's okay if you don't know or if you don't have a specific belief. If you're comfortable with it, you can explain that many people believe lots of different things and talk about what some of those are and admit to your child that you don't know for sure what the truth is. But sometimes it helps you to consider those possibilities and give them the opportunity to consider what they believe. And whether or not you have that to support you through this conversation, you can utilize what you know about regulating your own nervous system to help you do a better job at this conversation. So in addition to doing your emotional work and your self-exploration about your beliefs, your spiritual work, you need to do your nervous system regulation work. When you have grounding skills and breathing skills that you can use in the moment, you can achieve some regulation and loan that to your child. That's what co-regulation means, and your child's body can then calm down via your body. And your groundedness. And that will help their nervous system settle in the moment and learn how in the long term to settle their own. So before you have a tough conversation like this, it's okay to use those skills very openly and point it out to your kids. You can even model and give a name for the words and the regulation skills that you're using. So for ex example, if they ask you a difficult question, you can take a deep breath and tell them, I'm gonna take a couple deep, slow breaths because this might be a tough topic for us to talk about. I'm glad you asked me and I hope you'll breathe with me to help us stay calm and have a really good talk about this. So considering all of these possible wrong turns that we can make when we're having these conversations, what can keep us on track is always making sure that our responses, our words, our behaviors, our actions are centered on our child's needs and emotions, not our own. This shows children that you can handle the hard stuff. And so last a couple tips about making these conversations easier.. When you wanna have really hard conversations like this with your kids, the last thing we wanna do is sit them down, face to face, and have a serious conversation across the table, it's very confronting and it's very dysregulating for most people, not just for kids. We wanna choose natural moments like when we're walking side by side, when we're doing chores, when our hands are busy, when our bodies are moving, when there's food, or when we're in the context of play. Anything that we can do to make it feel less intense and activity that naturally regulates the nervous system and makes us more open to something that might be difficult. And then we want to ask open-ended questions. Not a yes or no question, not a question that suggests that we already know the answer, but very open questions the question, how did that make you feel is an open question, but it's very difficult for a lot of kids and adults to answer directly. A lot of people don't have the feeling expression skills to answer that one, and it might be tricky. Whatever answers our children give us, we want to normalize and validate what they feel, emphasize that it is okay to feel difficult emotions. We can do that by staying calm, most importantly, and present with them, restating what they've said to us, using their own words to show them that we really understand it and agreeing with them. It sounds like you felt really afraid when that happened. It makes sense that you would feel upset about that. I can understand why you would be angry. It doesn't seem fair. What we wanna do instead is jump to the thing that we think will comfort our child. But it's okay, honey, you were safe the whole time. I was protecting you at the phase of the conversation where they're sharing their feelings, we don't negate them with promises of safety because it feels like we're telling them that they're wrong or feeling the way that they do. So again, anytime you're having these difficult conversations, the key is to listen, not talk, and avoid steering the conversations off track or missing the opportunity to hear and understand our kids' thoughts and feelings by. Thinking that, expecting that we already know or can anticipate what they're thinking or feeling, instead of giving them the opportunity to tell us what's actually on their minds. And another side note here, remember the siblings, siblings often think and worry about food allergy safety and food allergy death, even more than the kids with food allergies, because the siblings are the ones watching from the outside helplessly when scary things happen. They're the ones who are a little bit removed from the situations, but watching, unable to help, seeing the ambulance arrive, seeing the facial expression that mom or dad is, is giving, seeing the physical symptoms that their sibling is displaying when they're not feeling well. And oftentimes having people rush outta the house without a full explanation of what's going on and their minds are left to wander as well. It's so natural for us as parents in an emergency to focus all that energy on the child who's having the emergency, of course, and making them safe. But in all of that franticness and stress and concern, a lot of times it's difficult to remember to come back and be with that sibling and process the experience. It's usually best to do that separately with each child and the family alone, rather than everybody together like a big family talk, because each person's perspective is going to be different. Their thoughts can be extremely different from one another. And again, if one of them shares a worry, we don't wanna introduce that to someone else. We wanna have all of our one-on-one attention to give each child when we're talking about something so difficult. So next let's go age by age through what's typical in terms of both kids' understanding of death and then what I've seen as a food allergy psychologist in terms of behaviors and questions and concerns specific to food allergies. We can go very quickly through the infant and toddler stage because of course children at this age have a very limited understanding. They will certainly experience the distress if there's something concerning going on around them, but they won't understand the concept of death What's most important at this phase is just that emotional regulation when stressful things are happening and of course, being really aware of the language that we're modeling when we discuss anything related to safety, death, food, allergies, any of those topics. If there's a scary or a traumatic experience, we want to reassure that child, nurture them, stick to routine, to make them feel safe and cared for lots of physical touch and co-regulation, and allow children a way to act out their difficult feelings through play. Preschool age kids are what we call magical thinkers. They often just simply cannot grasp the concept that death is, Permanent. They believe it's temporary or reversible. And they'll have this magical thinking to explain it because if they can't see the concept of someone being dead and staying dead forever, then they have no way to understand that concept in their head. So at this age, they may understand and even bring up the concept of potentially dying from a food allergy, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they would have panic and fear about it because they may not understand the finality of it. The way that things would most likely show up at this age would be through clinginess and fear of separation, difficulty sleeping, irritability, temper tantrums. Pretty tough to sort out from what might be going on with them anyway, because a fear like this might be just as big as a fear about losing a stuffed animal or not wanting to eat something that they're offered that they dislike. It's going to blend in with a lot of the other stuff that they're mastering at this age, but. It is very possible, and I've seen it many times where kids in this preschool, 3, 4, 5, 6-year-old range would begin to ask repetitive questions and curiosity about death. This is unlikely to be triggered by something that happened by their food allergies. However, this would more likely come up through exposure to the concept of death elsewhere. So if a pet has died, if the grandparent or a loved one has died, if they saw or heard something on television in a show. Again, because that concept is so abstract to them, they're very unlikely to tie it to something very specific. Like their food allergies or the symptoms that they've experienced when they've had an allergic reaction. We don't wanna talk about food allergies in terms of death. We just wanna say being healthy or making sure that they don't feel very sick. We do wanna communicate the seriousness of it, but it's most likely not necessary to draw that connection for them at this age unless they've specifically asked you. So in addition to that, open discussion and patient explanations. Be prepared for a lot of repetition. Kids at this age will ask the question they have in their mind over and over and over again, and. It might feel like they're testing you or they don't believe you, but really they want structure around it, and they wanna make sure that every time you ask the answer is the same. That helps'em to feel safer and more reassured in that information. If we are talking about death, even at this young age, we do want to, as I said, use those very clear words, death or dying. And if they ask us what death is, we can say that it's when someone or something's body stops working and explain to them that it's forever, One thing that you might have to clarify at this age, is that if someone has died, kids may anticipate that they can catch that. Remember that kids associate sick with something like catching a cold from someone or the flu I. And germs. So it's very important for them to understand that they can't catch death or catch something that would lead to death in the way that we talk about illness. It can be helpful to use play to work through these things. So if this is a concept that your child really seems to be exploring, you already have lots of tools handy in the house to help you with this, but you want to just give them the open opportunity for you to sit down, have your attention, give them humans and pets or something that can represent living things and see what theme they act out in their play. Follow their lead. Take what you can from what they act out and their questions, and then you can respond to that in a way that's helpful. So, for example, what that might look like in play is if you and your child are acting something out with two bunnies and they said that the toy bunny went to sleep and it didn't wake up, you would repeat those words. You, in this case, you would use the same words that they said. He didn't wake up. I wonder why he didn't wake up. And then you would try to engage the child further in a way that that would allow them to explain or further elaborate on what they're thinking or what their understanding of that concept that they're playing through means. If the child has their character, ask your character something you would. In turn, ask their character the same thing and give them the opportunity to express themselves. So if their character asks yours about worries, you would ask them about worries too. And do all of those validation and opening lists, open listening skills that we talked about previously, but just in the context of play in staying characters. And then depending on how that goes, you might move that later into a conversation between you. Do you ever wonder about someone not waking up? Reference it back to the play and the child feels in control because they know that that was something that they initiated if the child does ask you very specifically, can food allergies make someone die? What I would like you to do is first acknowledge the feeling that they're having, what they're expressing with that question. It sounds like you're feeling scared about that, or it seems like you're asking me because you might be worried about that, and that's really common for kids to worry or wonder these things, and then you can move on to answering the question very simply and very directly, but with age appropriate language.

22:33

If someone eats a food that they're allergic to, it can make them very sick and die if they don't get their medicine. And that won't happen to you because we always check your food and we keep your epinephrine with us wherever we go.

Amanda Whitehouse, PhD: 22:48

The next phase is between about six to eight years of age, These kids have more cognitive skills and have a clearer understanding of death, and They can start to understand concepts like permanence, the universality and foreverness of death, they might start to fear the broader implications of this. Kids are developing logical and reasoning skills, and they're decentering. They are realizing that they're unique. They're starting to have empathy. They do begin to grasp the finality of their own life and mortality, this is gonna show up in ways that are really curious, like wanting to watch TV shows about death playing zombies. Sometimes that can feel really morbid to us, but it's actually a good way to let them experiment with this and think through it. But they still are not gonna have that abstract thinking that's necessary to fully understand the concept at this age. It's really important to just be honest and to be patient and repeat. They might start checking their food labels very frequently at this age, or exhibiting those behavioral signs of food allergy worries. If it's specific to the food allergies, they might start asking and double checking with you or another adult if a food is safe with them, even if it's something that they eat all the time and they already read the label and they checked it before they took the food out of the box and they already eat a bite of it, but they wanna check again. They can have more logical thinking that can follow a step to step process in their head. So for example, I will have kids think things like, I don't wanna play with that toy. And again, this is where our listening skills come in really handy. What makes you not wanna play with that toy? Well, Joe touched it. What makes you not wanna play with that toy if Joe touched it, They'll come up with these elaborate, loosely connected explanations of how. The last time they saw that child, they were eating something and it might have been on their hands and they weren't sure if they washed them. And then they came over to our house and maybe they eat that thing all the time. And so if they touch that toy and if I played with that toy later, and somehow, then I would have a allergic reaction to that food from playing with the toy again. Even if your child shares an elaborate story like that, that expresses that they're feeling afraid, do not assume that it's about the possibility that they would die. Most of the time when kids at this age range begin to talk about this thing, what they're really afraid of is using their epinephrine and having to use a needle. They're afraid of seeing their parents feel scared. They're afraid of ambulances and hospitals, and a lot of times throwing up in public can be a very big fear if that's part of their history of allergic reaction. Sometimes it's I don't wanna miss school, or I'm supposed to go to grandpa's this weekend, and I'm afraid that I would miss that. So even if it's a very, very scary story that the child is weaving inside of their head about what might be worrisome, unless they say that they're afraid that that can make them die, that might not necessarily be the question. So again, use your good listening skills. Don't feed them words. So here's how we can respond We wanna do a lot of noticing out loud to our children. I noticed you've been starting to try to read the labels. That's a really good thing to know how to do if you have food allergies. And I've noticed you're doing it a lot more times for the same food than you used to do. What do you feel when you read the label? What are you looking for on that label, on the food? What are you thinking about when you decide to check that label again, even after you've already started eating it? If they're asking repetitive questions, we can say things like, I noticed that you asked me that even after I told you that your ice cream was safe and that you kept asking me about it when we were eating. A lot of times people ask a question over and over again when they're feeling worried, how are you feeling? And then once you've presented that question to them, you want to listen to understand without interrupting them. Any response that you give repeats the child's language back to them to show them that you're listening, ask for further clarification. Again, this is not a stage where we wanna jump in and reassure the child right away, or we might not get a full grasp of what it is they're actually thinking or feeling. Once we've really listened and validated what they're saying to us, we can say things like, it sounds like you're feeling afraid that you could get very sick from an allergic reaction, and if they say yes, or if they say no, we don't tell them that they're wrong, we never tell them how they feel. They are the expert on how they feel. So even if we have a more mature and thorough understanding of what's probably happening emotionally for them, we don't ever wanna tell them that they're not feeling the way that they said they're feeling. And thank them for telling us. I'm so glad you told me this so that I can help you with it. You're safe. So at this elementary school age, what's important is making it normal for their feelings to ebb and flow, to feel afraid and to be reminded that we're here helping them. We can encourage physical play as an outlet for when they're having these difficult feelings. Allow creative play through art stories, music. And if we've done all these skills and the underlying fear, genuinely and truly is death, and they're asking about that, then we use straightforward, honest language. At this age, kids are old enough to understand something very specific. If they heard about a child who died from food allergies, we can explain to them exactly what went wrong in the body that caused that to happen. They weren't able to breathe, and so their heart stopped beating. We don't need to give them a long, detailed explanation but we can explain that directly if that is truly the underlying fear. we wanna help kids strike that balance by both reassuring them that it's unlikely, but also helping them to take it seriously and to understand the weight of this risk. And then making that tangible to them by giving'em the steps we take to reduce that likelihood of danger as much as we can. Next up, we have those tricky tweens, those 10, 11, 12 year olds, maybe even into 13. Kids in this age range are now able to understand deeper concepts related to the idea of death and the impact of it. They'll have a lot more questions about details and discussions, a much more broad sense of wonder about what death means, and kids can often get really stuck thinking about this because they have this newfound capability to think about some Really mind-bending concepts like eternity and different spiritual beliefs that they might have been exposed to, but they might not have the emotional capacity to comprehend those things and how it makes them feel when they start to consider those ideas. So this can get really tricky at this age. This is most likely the time when you'll be talking more directly about death from food allergies, because kids again, also have that cognitive capacity to connect the dots about what food allergies can cause in the worst of scenarios. A lot of times kids at this age will start a conversation like that, not even coming from a place of fear, but just a place of curiosity. But then the more they get their brain going and they talk through these big ideas themselves and they expand outward more and more, they pull in different concepts and more and more different ideas. That's when the emotions start to get going. As they start chewing on these topics that they aren't ready to emotionally digest, And they might start wanting a lot of specifics. How many kids died from food allergies? What's the chance of that happening to me? There's a strong possibility that they're going to ask us questions that we don't know the answers to one trick that you can always use when kids are asking tough questions is, what makes you wanna know? Or Why do you ask that? And try to get a better understanding of the motivation behind what they're asking. A lot of times these things will center around their social experiences, worrying about what might happen when they're with others, the fear of a reaction from other people to what is happening to them. They're thinking about things like school events, sleepovers, social gatherings, and having some nervousness about going and feeling at risk there, but not wanting to miss out on social experience as wanting to fit in, and then feeling torn between those two difficult things. Kids can start to feel like they're in a no-win situation with some of these worries at this age, so for those tweens, we wanna keep an eye out for things like avoiding social experiences, backing out of plans and obligations, stopping activities that they used to enjoy, avoiding eating in certain situations and what. Seems like kind of a contradictory response of wanting responsibility, not wanting to be reminded by parents told what to do, and yet feeling emotionally overwhelmed at the thought of doing it themselves or having difficulty following through with completing that themselves. We have to be really careful at this age that we're empowering them and we're treating them like they are individuals who are capable of problem solving, and we are here to support them in doing that, This is a point where kids are finding themselves more and more able to express their thoughts and their feelings verbally so we can start to have a lot better conversations about this, where they're able to express to us their questions and their emotions and welcoming them to talk to us. We can say things like, how do you think we're doing handling all your food allergy stuff? Is there anything you wanna talk about? We can even directly ask them, is there anything that worries you that you want me to know about, because I wanna help you with things like that. Most of the time they're gonna say no when you put them on the spot like that and ask them directly, but just the act of asking and accepting any response that you get from them lays the groundwork that they can come and talk to you, that you do care. You wanna hear and you'll listen when they do speak up to you about something that worries or concerns them. And if we continue to check in in these ways, we make it more likely that they will open up to us. And when they do, we don't wanna jump to our first reaction, which again, is to reassure them and make them feel better right away. We want to reflect their feelings and show them that we fully understand what they're feeling, what their experience is like, and that's valid. We say things like, it makes sense that you would feel like that., We wanna let them lead the conversation, treat them as if they have good ideas, and they might help us figure that out because they do. So that's something that looks and sounds like questioning. What do you do when this gets on your mind? What have you tried at school when that happens? Is there anything that helps when you start thinking that way? Conversations like that don't rush to a sense of resolution and immediate calm for the kids, but it gives them a sense of agency and clarity about their thoughts and their feelings. And then feeling involved in the planning helps to reduce those vague anxieties they have because they feel empowered. For most of the things that there's an actual risk for, there's also an actual solution, and they're more likely to utilize that if we help them come to that conclusion on their own with our support, rather than us constantly telling them what to do. when we get to the teenage years, we have a lot more complex emotion, a lot more intense emotion due to hormonal changes teens are absolutely capable of understanding nuances of really difficult topics. They might start having deep philosophical questions and conversations about the meaning of life, or Why am I here? What's my purpose on earth? Concepts like justice and fairness and all of these things that they couldn't grasp before. And yet they're still holding onto some of that teenage distance from the concept even though they recognize that they'll die someday It's so far off that they can't even imagine. And so they may exhibit what we hear often about as a concern within food allergy community, those risk taking behaviors. Because even though they understand these concepts at a big thinking type of level, they never believe that it could happen to them. They think that they would be the exception. So those teens might take those risks, particularly in social situations, feeling like it can never happen to me. The kids will start saying things like, I'll be fine. They'll minimize or ignore or conveniently forget safety rules. I don't need it. I'm just, I'm just not going to eat anything while I'm there, so I don't need to take my epinephrine. The other extreme is that they might take this very, very seriously and they might withdraw from those social scenes. they really do take worst case scenarios, very extreme, unlikely things that they think are going to happen, and then they might be avoiding things like social experiences and dating and relationships when all their friends are entering into that phase of life Either way, teens are likely to fall into some kind of an extreme around this, and therefore we might get a lot of resistance to talking about it when tough subjects come up. It can be outright and spoken. They can say no. I'm not gonna talk about this with you. Or we might just get that checked out, glazed over. Look in their eyes, the slouch and staring off into the distance. When we try to have these conversations, what's really going on there is that natural development of a sense of autonomy At these years, there's some shame or embarrassment in talking about food allergy related safety in any kind of social or romantic context or continuation of those preteen years where their social identity is such a big part of what they're going through developmentally. Another way that this can show up really indirectly is avoiding planning the future, avoiding talking about it. Avoiding taking concrete steps toward the next phase of life. So this age of life, kids really wanna be treated like adults and they almost are. So we want our conversations with them to really sound the way we would talk with another adult or with a peer. This is an okay to age, to just ask directly. And we can ask and we can say things to them too, like, I know it's weird for you to talk about, but I'd love to know if you'd ever thought about what could happen in this scenario. And this is when it's particularly important for us to point out the risks if necessary, explaining to them that death is a possibility if they don't take their precaution seriously. But we still wanna do that with the concept of bringing them into the equation as the head problem solver. Buddy, I know it's hard to hear, but there are kids who have died from kissing someone who ate their allergens, and that's not something that we're gonna let happen to you. So what feels reasonable to you? What do you think is manageable in approaching this? How can I support you in doing that? So we can avoid that very rare, but real risk. We wanna make sure we're acknowledging and including an awareness of how important their social experiences are to them. It's totally valid. Every teen wants to have normal experiences. They don't wanna feel like they're standing out in any way. So again, let's talk about, together about what might help you do this safely in a way that you don't feel left out, You can never say enough to them while you're having these conversations. You're right. I can see how you feel. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for trusting me with all of this. I really appreciate it when you talk to me, I always wanna know what's going inside of your head. It matters so much to me. We want them to know that we're listening and. We're going to listen without jumping to discount their feelings or tell them what to do. To us, that feels like reassuring them and taking the fear away but to them, it just feels like we're saying, you're wrong. The most important part about approaching it this way with teenagers is that it helps them to learn, to self-advocate, to show acceptance and a sense of teamwork with them around this problem solving. It creates a foundation for emotionally healthy independence. We give them a sense that we believe in their ability to handle this on their own, and that that doesn't mean not relying on us for any help, Having gone through all those age ranges trying to give you a general idea to help you with some sort of structure around this. Obviously all kids are different, and then if we factor in any kind of developmental communication, social skills, differences, anything unique that our kids might be dealing with that can change what might be showing up even more. So I want to remind you, it's not as simple as finding the point in this conversation where I said, your child's age, and following that guidance. Or if your child does have some cognitive difference and you've been told that they're around this mental age, then following the guidance for that age range, it's just not that simple. All children really have a unique profile and combination of where their cognitive understanding is compared to where their emotional capacity to understand is, what their emotional regulation skills are, their curiosity, their communication skills, both expressing themselves and understanding, and the unique way that this combines into one individual and the way that they communicate and cope with things. I want you to take all of this in and then trust your gut. I hope that this conversation, has helped you visualize a little bit better how you can handle this in your own home and family within your individual belief system for the individual children that you have and what their needs are. I welcome any follow up questions or conversation about this tough topic. I will do some posts on my Instagram page at the food allergy psychologist and I'm happy to answer any more specific questions that people might have about this, I've been so thankful for all of the great guests that we've had this season. I'm amazed at the way that the podcast is growing. Even though this was a difficult season full of difficult conversations, I'm glad that I took the leap because m ore and more of you are listening and it's showing me that you wanna really have deep in depth conversation about topics that matter, even when they're hard to hear. So thank you for listening and sticking with me for that. The statistics on the show are demonstrating to me that even though I've got all these amazing guests on consistently, the episodes where I speak alone get the most downloads. And so I'm going to try to keep incorporating more of that for you into the show. Thank you for finding value in all of the amazing guests that I've had on the show. And it seems also in what I'm sharing with you. It means so much to me that you're listening I look forward to talking with you more, beginning with our next episode for our summer season, all about the exciting and hopeful and optimistic things that are ahead of us in the allergy and asthma world. Many, many choices are on the horizon. Treatments are available, new treatments are in the works and will be soon available, and we are going to explore all of those choices that didn't exist for us five, 10, or 15 years ago. It's a very exciting time and I've got an amazing lineup of episodes to help you sort through the many decisions that are on your plate or that you may find on your plate in the near future, which can be exciting, but can also be a little bit difficult to sort through. So I'm going to be here to help you get started with that next week. Thanks for listening.

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the content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any questions about your own medical experience or mental health needs, please consult a professional. I'm Dr. Amanda White house. Thanks for joining me. And until we chat again, remember don't feed the fear.