College Related

[GingerPye]

Just thinking of the university/town where I went for undergrad . . . now, there are far more apartment buildings than dorms or greek houses.  It's amazing how many apartment buildings there are and there are more springing up.  There is a great campus bus system and it is fairly easy to ride your bike around town (even in the snow!).  It's a town that doubles its population when the students are there.  But I look at all of those apt buildings and am stunned that there are enough students to fill them.  They seem to be a very popular housing option now for students.

The largest dorm there also has remodeled and instead of dorm rooms, there are dorm suites with kitchens.  3-4 students share a suite. 

[Arkadia]

Well, until recently, even a year ago, I thought I would just make sure that dd goes to a college nearby and lives at home.  But when your child hits 10th grade and gets their 10th grade PSAT scores, then if their scores are very high, they start getting the recruitment letters.  Tons of them.  I have thrown away dozens and dozens.  And then I realize that I am depriving my child of an opportunity to attend dozens of excellent colleges by forcing her to pick one where she lives at home.  The fact that I was depriving her of an opportunity that she would have if not for the food allergies is not something I anticipated.  I didn`t anticipate feeling guilty for telling her that she must attend a school close enough to live at home, because she has LFTA.  The reality hits when your kid reads the letters from all the schools that want them and you have to tell your kid that you won`t let them go due to the allergies and your child looks so sad.  If your kid works hard to have a high enough GPA, test scores,  community service, and extracurricular activities that will get them into almost any school, then I really believe that they deserve to go.  She works so hard that it makes it very very difficult to tell her that she can only go to a few schools, not the ones that are too far to live at home.  I am not sure I am there yet.  It is much harder than you could imagine, when you really have to do it.

No quoting.

this sounds so poignant until you're the one cleaning blood and bone fragments from a gaping face wound on a freshman who reeks of cheap alcohol, while the organ bank sets up. You know, while their head is being held together by kerlix. That's not specific, that's general. That's a picture rolled into ER's nightly. Early morning, even.

It's just another red herring as to why society *thinks* we should be shoving kids to the front of the line. I maintain that grades, paper accomplishments and accolades mean squat when determining whether an young adult is *fit* for experential living on a college campus.

Hell, smart kids probably are probably more prone to thinking they are invincible. Our society is so sheltered, so sterile, kids don't learn to be adults until much, much later than expected.

Guaranteed asynchronous development. High achievers probably being more sheltered than the rest.

But, especially when you consider what pitfalls are available that never were back in the day. Hell, I didn't even have a cellphone, palmsize connection to every evil available, instant access, and now, it's considered the status quo. Twitter me/Sext me that, batman. 

Are the credit card companies still allowed in the Student Union? <shudder>

Cuz you won't have control over anything remotely related to that.

[CMdeux]

... and to add to that, there is definitely peer-reviewed science that now suggests that the HIGHEST ability students may, really and truly, have the slowest executive function maturation curves.

Asynchrony, indeed.

Anyway.

I still think, though, that parents who REALLY know their own kids well are likely (with other adults who know them outside of the context of parents) the best judge of which kids are likely to succeed (like my DH) and which are likely to fail (his brother).  Some kids really do have better judgment than others at 18-22 yo, but some of them are just luckier than others, too.

It's hard, hard, HARD to ignore the pull of the Ivy league when it's your own kid.  It is.  It's hard even for parents like my DH and I, and we KNOW that most of that shimmer isn't really gold.  So what will we do when Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, and MIT come calling for DD?  I don't really know.  From three years out, I can honestly say that I think that we won't be star-struck by it.  But I don't know for sure.  I remember very well the sheer allure of thinking that little old ME was "Ivy League" material... I was dazzled.

[Carefulmom]

Well, you all bring up a really good point.  I trust dd and she has shown great judgment, but what about her friends?  It was brought up at the FAAN Conference in the Teen Session about what if you are at a party and you need your epi, are unable to self administer, and your friend who knows how is drunk?  Actually, dd has two friends who were epi trained in middle school, and now at age 16 they seem pretty unstable.  Of course, all this could happen if she is living at home---it is not like she will be locked up in her room when she is not attending classes.  She could still go to a party and her friends get drunk.  That could even happen now in high school.  But at least I would be nearby if something happens.

[CMdeux]

   Exactly.  Our kids have to maintain a bit of a margin for error even with close friends.  The bottom line is that nobody else is going to wind up dead from a food-related mistake.  Just DD.  So no matter how much her friends love her and treasure her (and they do), it just isn't necessarily enough for her because it really isn't "real" to them.  Not really.  Therefore, we've really stressed to her that if she drinks-- even ONE drink-- she must not eat anything afterwards.  Because her judgment is impaired at that point.  Better not to drink at all, but if she does, she needs to have a complete plan for her own personal safety in place-- and then she needs to follow it to the letter.  That plan should NOT depend on other people's discretion or cooperation.  Of course, that is really just an extension of how LTFA teens already have to exist.  It's just that at the moment, she knows that she can always call us on her cell and we will come to her aid-- no questions asked.



The largest difference between "nearby" college and "far away" is that at the latter, there will be virtually NO safety net unless you have extended family or close friends who live nearby.  Someone off-campus that your child could go to in an emergency-- someone that first responders or campus officials could call locally.

Otherwise, they'll call YOU (250, 500, 1000, or even 3000 miles away) to "notify" you of problems with the law or of a hospital admission, at least one that takes place from the campus.  Probably.  The college, by the way, may not call, preferring to avoid dealing with parents at all under such circumstances.  I have personally known students who were assaulted in parking lots whose parents were not notified, as well as students who were expelled from the institution for academic (or other) reasons whose parents were clueless until it had already happened.   

Bottom line-- PARENTS calling the campus with concerns are probably (also) going to be met with stonewalling.  Polite stonewalling, no doubt; but that is what it will be.  The institution's hands are tied legally once a student is 18 years old.

[Carefulmom]

But what if your dd has a reaction from the drink itself and needs her epi?  And alcohol does not come with an ingredient label.  I have no idea what wine is safe or unsafe from a peanut/tree nut standpoint.  Not like I want dd to be drinking at age 16, but I/she will really need to know this at some point.  So CM Deux, about your rule for your dd, aren`t you worried about her needing her epipen from a reaction to whatever she drank?  I have no idea if any alcohol is or isn`t safe---vodka, tequila, etc.  I may have mentioned that dd at 15 had a friend (one of her two unstable epi trained friends) who made a margarita for another girl at her house.  I know that I looked at Kahlua one time, because I was baking a chocolate cake that called for Kahlua.  I saw that there was a tree nut kind, and decided that the non-tree nut one was probably cross contaminated.

[CMdeux]

Again-- exactly.

Most "beers" are probably going to be fairly safe... but liqueurs, wine, and liquor?  Mixed drinks?

Not with DD's allergens.   

I really hate that her allergy means that this is yet another thing that she'll never be able to do as spontaneously as her peers-- if only because it is yet another way in which she's been excluded socially and set apart.  Then again, it's more normative now to simply not drink at all.  That's actually the angle that we're trying to sell her on.  That being the person who DOESN'T drink means that she'll automatically not be at the mercy of others-- ever.



Sort of like a lot of cosmetics, this angle we've used...

"Why would you want to {use/do whatever it is} anyway??  Isn't that faintly-- er, or more thna faintly, come to that-- RIDICULOUS?"

Hair dye seems to be the only thing she really seems pretty convinced that she truly wants to do.

Ergo, she needs to see what goes into making that kind of judgment call.  It's a LOT of work to do the legwork and investigate product safety, and one doesn't always get much in the way of information even with all of that work.  Sometimes, it just isn't worth it to bother in the first place-- it's just easier to abstain.

[Carefulmom]

It really bugs me that alcohol does not require an ingredient label.  Hair dye I can sort of understand.  Ignorant people may think that as long as you don`t eat or drink it, you don`t need to worry about what is in it.  But alcohol, if you are going to drink it and you have LTFA, you obviously need to know what is in it.

[Janelle205]

Alcohol not having an ingredient label really irritates me as well - luckily, the few companies that I have contacted about safety have been very helpful, but this is only my experience.

Please remember to advise your students that even if a liquor or other mixer is safe, at college parties, large batches tend to be mixed in whatever vessel is available - you know, like trash can punch.  I wouldn't have a mixed drink at any party that I didn't mix myself or watch an actual bartender make - and even then, there are restrictions.

Also, things get spilled at bars/parties - If I was as allergic to apples in college as I am now, I would have been terrified at a few of the bars that we frequented that had specialty apple drinks.

[Arkadia]

Ive bartended. Bar glasses are f.i.l.t.h.y.

Ive also seen the wine rack TEAMING WITH FRUIT FLIES.

I drink bottled beer only. Skip the glass.

[kouturekat]

The luckiest of them are the peanut allergic kids. Because people take that one seriously.

I feel that really is true.  That is Ryan's only FA at the present time, and I had to work with food services at our university's local cafeteria when he attended baseball camp two years in a row.  I spoke with the manager, discussed the procedure for him eating there (which initially scared the daylights out of me), he met with the manager on both first days and he walked Ryan through his "safe" eating choices.

I do think it's probably safest for a PA child than any other FA kid.  PA's have received so much attention, in a way I felt the school was able to cater to his needs safer than any other FA. 

That being said, I told Ryan that no place is 100% safe.  Be aware, be safe, have those epi's.  Because, after all, sometimes people think they know about food allergies but really don't.   Even though he was guided to the safest food choices, they are just that.  The safest ones, not necessarily 100% safe.  If my child were milk and egg allergic, then forget about it.  It's just all over the place.  I can't imagine.

[Carefulmom]

We just had a young man die here due to a cross-contaminated meal at a small-medium campus that was supposed to be aware of his milk allergies.  Combined with an epi-pen failure (needle bent) it was a series of events that led to his death.

I think the only way DS1 could be safe and eat a balanced diet at this point would be to have access to a kitchen of his own which might ultimately limit where he goes to school if we have to add in the cost of an apt as well.  Trying not to think that far in advance though.

YKW, are you able to find any articles that say it was a milk cross contaminated item?  I can`t find any.  Since dd is allergic to milk, I really need to know--was milk an ingredient or was it cross contaminated.

[YouKnowWho]

I will search again tomorrow on the local tv show links and see what I can find.  I know it was milk and I know it said cross contaminated but the other part is I am wondering if it was from my local board as the spokeswoman who mentioned posts there as well.  That one can take awhile to search.