Friends Help Friends Stop Food Allergy Bullying

The other day I received a call from a concerned parent. Her child was not dealing well with having celiac disease at the Holidays and she called me for some venting. We discussed how the mental aspect of having a disease comes back to haunt no matter how positive we try to keep it. And then there is, of course, being the parent and dealing with loving a child and knowing they occasionally feel "left out" or "different" some times, especially at Holidays.

These moments of sadness are unavoidable and are a natural part of loss in all of our lives. We lose a friend when we thought we had one. Someone jabs out at us to hurt us just where we are weakest. We have a moment succumbing to the one thing we know is bad for us and then pay the price physically. Or, we just feel sad because we can't sink our teeth into something that we really envy others having the ability to have so easily. These are ALL normal human responses to loss.


Holidays associated with food aside, statistically, our children will run into bullying over their food sensitivity or intolerance from their peers at school or friends. Three days ago CNN ran a story from TIME, Bullying Over Food Allergies, and at least half of all children with food allergies will experience bullying of some sort. A shocking, but not an unexpected, portrayal of what they face daily. Being picked on or ridiculed in any amount strongly affects our children who have food limitations.

Propoerty of A.A. Milne

As a self-confessed "Mama Bear", my first response is to want to fight my child's battle for her. I could justify and say most parents across the world feel that way about their young, but that is obvious. It is even harder for parents in the tween and teen years to balance the knowledge of when to let them fight their own battles, or when to step into the picture. As the parent of a budding teen girl I realize, more now than ever, how much she needs to feel a part of something to gain identity of her own. And I know how much she needs to take her own disappointments and learn how to face the world...but, but...see what I mean?

Tragedies have resulted from of our worst nightmares fueled on by many hundreds of examples to be offered on bullying and suicide."Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University."

The complexities of growing up with celiac disease require us, as parents, to become an ally and a protector for way longer than we thought necessary. By no means am I considering that perhaps another awful tragedy like suicide will be the outcome of bullying against any child, but these statistics are emblazoned on our minds and deep fears.

Property of A.A. Milne

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT OUR FEARS AND SADNESS IN A HEALTHY MANNER?

Of course we don't want to expound upon our fears as parents, but we want to know if things in our child's world are not as peachy as they seem. So, one way to always deal with this is to listen and be your child's sounding board. We don't want to absolutely discount any claims of it made by our child. If she makes a claim, I am skeptical, but probe further. One incident had me calling the principal because it had escalated beyond a three time occurrence, but we allowed her the opportunity to try and sort it out by herself first.

Support groups are places that allow our children moments to breathe in all that good peaceful feeling of letting their guard down without fear of being less. They allow a place of refuge to feel feelings of being the norm and all that normal is made of. One way we bridged the gap for our daughter, was to bring my daughter's friends with us to R.O.C.K. meetings. That way they identified with other kids and also had a blast learning about food allergies.

Be My Gluten Free Valentine Party is from 3 pm-5pm on February 10th, 2013.
For our next meeting, we will be addressing these issues by asking that each GFKR (Gluten Free Kids ROCK) member invite a friend and/or teacher to come learn about ways to address bullying in relation to their food allergies. Membership is always free and all it takes is an email request.

Please check Where We Meet link for more details.

We will also be accepting email entries up until February 1, 2013 from any member or child under 18 years of age on problem solving and giving us ways in which he/she deals with bullying and food allergies. We will post some on the GFKR web site in a series with the best answers given.
Please email them to irresistiblyglutenfree@gmail.com. 

Help us make a difference, one child at a time...

Property of A.A. Milne

Good Grief! Opposing Arguments on Dr. Drew/Jennifer Esposito Petition Gives Food For Thought

This post will be long, so bear with me, because there are many important points to cover...

As many of you know, we have a petition that we started on Change.org which can be found here:
Shame On You Dr. Drew
The petition caused a major movement that was on the brink of starting anyway due to Jennifer Esposito's treatment from CBS over her inability to work full time.

When I took the initiative to start the petition, I did so because of my family's own frustrations without considering that it would take on a life all its own with people who were in agreement and not in agreement on our position. Naive as that may sound, all I knew was that in all of my events and meetings I had heard a resounding echo from celiac children and their parents about their own frustrations in navigating a health care system that was slow to catch up.

That isn't to say there aren't physicians and dietitians that have devoted their studies and time to helping those with their ailments. Of course there are the more well-known: Dr. Alessio Fasano of the Center for Celiac Disease, Dr. Peter Green of Columbia University, and my local favorite, Dr. Ivor Hill, of Wake Forest Baptist Health.

Being that we take the stance in our R.O.C.K. groups to positively face the challenge of gluten free and the challenges of celiac disease, I also understand fully the power of remaining positive on the situations at hand...

But, when I was told that there were people who felt adamantly that my petition and Jennifer Esposito's campaign were offensive because they felt it made celiac disease into a disability and had taken celiac disease awareness a step backward, at first I took offense. I can understand their point on a certain level based on positive thinking only.

But, is it possible to always remain positive?
Is it healthy for anyone to completely sweep their less positive feelings to the side and keep a smile on their face no matter what?

You see, I believe that the grief process is a healthy step to embracing a more positive attitude in the end. When we experience a loss, be it through death, illness, or even food, there is a grief process which happens.

As quoted from Psyche Central: "Coping with loss is an ultimately and deeply personal singular experience — nobody can help you go through it more easily or understand all the emotions that you’re going through. But others can be there for you and help comfort you through this process. The best thing you can do is to allow yourself to feel the grief as it comes over you. Resisting it only will prolong the natural process of healing."

I have watched my daughter fluctuate through the seven stages of grief many times over. They were more pronounced when she was new to being diagnosed and it seemed to her that her world had been discombobulated beyond her comprehension. The constant marketing directed at children makes the process even harder for them to accept, in my opinion. Not to mention, they are trying to figure out who they are and are suddenly thrust into being different. But, I have seen the same process revealed for adults, especially at the Holidays when family gatherings take place and food is presented that they can not eat. But even more than that, the loss of abilities to be a normal, healthy person who, as Dr. Drew so mistakenly surmised, is "OK now that you are gluten free", sent a shock-wave of anger through many people.


The best post that was inspired by our petition that made me impassioned to write this post was Debbie Simpson, author of Adam's Gluten Free Surprise, No More Apologies Dr. Drew and I recommend that as a Must-Read.

I personally thank everyone who have signed our petition, but more than that, those who have left hundreds of comments from all over the world about their personal struggles with diagnosis and the disconnect they have felt with the medical community at large. I cannot count how many times that a person has written that they ARE disabled by refractory celiac disease or leaky gut syndrome due to years of misdiagnosis. The numbers are seemingly higher than reported or discussed within our own celiac community.

If it weren't a type of disability, then why are our children allowed to file a 504 Plan with their schools?
If you are afraid of being labeled as having a disability, will there ever be change in the medical community awareness?

As a result, I will no longer take the stance that positive is the only way to deal with someone and their grief from losing their health or gluten in their lives. To do so, would be discounting others and the stage of acceptance they are in or coming to. If you feel differently, I welcome your comments to me in an email. I may not agree, but I will always remain open and listen.

But back to the point I tried to make with the petition in the first place: We need more diagnosis and not sweep that under the rug either. We have an opportunity, as Jennifer so correctly stated on Twitter, to come together as a community and expect change to happen rather than argue among one another over semantics of our purpose. I hope you will join us.

Hopefully, I have given some food for thought either way.