Parenting is Hard

I know I’ve talked a lot about Mason’s allergies over the years. We’ve recently added some new ones to the list and his list of food allergies now includes: Milk, Egg, Peanut, Citrus, Tree Nut (especially coconut). He also has more environmental ones that we can count, with the most dominant being mold, dust, dust mite, grass, trees and all animal dander. The list really is extensive though.

Sending him to school was tough. We worried about his safety, we worried about him feeling different. At first he was ok with having a different snack than the other kids. But then it started to wear on him. And he started noticing he was different. A 4-year-old doesn’t understand the concept of fatal food allergies and why he’s “different” and that it’s not a bad thing. All he understands is that he’s being separated because something is “wrong” with him and he can’t do the same things other kids are doing.

It nearly broke my heart to watch this unfold. The thought of Mason having to go with a teacher to play in another room by himself because he couldn’t participate in the craft or activity of the day because it was food related nearly tore me to pieces. Mason’s allergies are not just ingestion related. They are contact and airborne. The school is allergy friendly- peanut free. Which is great. The staff and teachers understood Mason’s condition and tried their very best to come up with things within their set curriculum that were safe for him. But he still had problems. His chronic cough and asthma have been in full force since he started school. His eczema and hives got worse. We had to increase and add many medications to his daily regimen just to make school easier.

It just wasn’t worth it. Some upcoming activities that he was going to have to be excluded from and the fact that the older building obviously had dust and possibly mold issues (because he’s been perfectly healthy in the 3 weeks he’s been away from there) was just too much for us…and him.

So we made the decision to pull him from preschool. Which really wasn’t a big deal. Mason knew all the skills that they would be learning this year before he even started. We sent him more for the routine and the social aspect. Which he did great with. But this gives us even more to think about since he starts Kindergarten in the fall. Dave and I have talked and I’ve had several conversations with his immunologist. We’ve made a joint decision that him immune system just can’t take it all right now and needs a break. You can’t force an allergy kids immune system to just “toughen up” in cases like this. Mason’s allergist, immunologist and pediatrician all agree that he needs a few months, if not more, for his immune system to be healthy, stay that way and build itself up even stronger. He can’t do that in a public environment where he’s constantly exposed to allergens that make his body weak. It’s working so hard to fight that it can’t keep up and it’s making him sicker.

So that’s led us to the decision to home school the rest of this year and for Kindergarten. I’ve found a great private home school program that we love. We’ve got our materials in the mail on their way to us. We’re all really excited. There are so many opportunities for home schooled children. Individualized education, more opportunities to take educational field trips and travel. We’ve got Mason in t-ball and gymnastics, plus all his church activities and we plan on adding other things as they come along for socialization purposes. He really does well with those situations anyway, so we’re not worried about him.

It was a hard decision and the past few months have been hard to get through. We’re confident in our decision though and feel we’ve made the best decision for our son and our family. We are actually getting excited. We set up a desk for Mason with all his school supplies and he’s excited to start having school from home next week!

So, here we go! Just another one of the many parenting decisions to make!