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  I mean, sure, there are some who say it’s not personal hygiene that’s the big concern, but the general environment we’re living in. Want to talk First-World problems? Our food and water supply has never been cleaner, our day-to-day living environments never more sterile, which is fortunate, yes, but actually not so great because we’re no longer allowing our intestines to mingle with parasites in the same way they used to. As for those hand sanitisers we’ve all become so crazy about? Save your money. A University of Michigan study recently linked the use of triclosan, the chemical used in anti-bacterial products with – wait for it – allergies. So stick that in your pie hole, Andrea! Which is exactly what I would say if I wasn’t all grown-up and mature and stuff. Which I am. So THERE.

  How do we protect our kids from allergies?

  Q&A with Professor Katie Allen, paediatric gastroenterologist/allergist and co-author of Kids’ Food Allergies for Dummies

  Why are we seeing such a huge increase in severe allergies in Australian children?

  The short answer is we don’t exactly know, but it looks as though it’s got to do with our modern lifestyle. A rapid rise in allergenic conditions has occurred in the last half of the twentieth century – mainly in countries with a Westernised lifestyle. Rates of asthma were the first to rise in the 80s, but by the 90s food allergies and anaphylaxis began to increase and are rising at an exponential rate. This rapid rise in allergy problems tells experts it must relate to modifications in the environment rather than in people’s genes because this timeframe is too quick for our genes to change to any great degree.

  There’s evidence to suggest at least three factors are at play here. The first is a delayed introduction to solids and allergenic foods – recent studies reveal earlier introduction of foods, including the foods that commonly cause allergy, to babies may reduce the chances of developing an allergy to that food. The second is reduced UV exposure – again, research has shown that some allergenic diseases correlate inversely with the level of vitamin D in the blood – that is, people with low levels of vitamin D have higher rates of allergenic disease. And thirdly, there’s the hygiene hypothesis. This is an interesting area because although we don’t have sufficient evidence that anti-bacterial wipes are bad, we have indirect evidence that our exposure to microbes has changed over time. Our food and water supplies are cleaner than ever, and we’re all using more antibiotics, so these factors may have had an effect on the type of bacteria we carry in our bodies.

  If you have two children who grew up in exactly the same environment and only one of them has allergies, what gives?

  Genes aren’t the only factor that determines whether or not a child will have a food allergy. Environmental factors also play a role and while children may seem to have been provided with exactly the same environment, it is likely to be different in many ways for each child. The environment that matters is not just the environment the child is exposed to, but also the environment a mother is exposed to while she is pregnant. In fact, what the mother is exposed to can have long-lasting effects on the baby’s gene expression and be passed on through many generations.

  Do you think there’s anything we can do in pregnancy or during the early stages of our children’s life to increase their immunity to allergies?

  My first recommendation would be to breastfeed for at least six months (if you can) because there’s evidence to suggest breastfeeding for the first four months of life and also introducing a food while your baby’s still breastfeeding may prevent food allergies. I realise modern guidelines recommend you should delay the introduction of allergenic foods such as eggs and peanuts, but it’s actually better for your kids if you don’t. The problem with guidelines is that we have around eight of them regarding the introduction of solids within Australia alone and most of these have been written for the vast majority of the world where a clean water supply isn’t available and formula is expensive and unregulated, therefore potentially dangerous. Our parents had most of us on solids at four to five months and from an allergenic point of view, we should follow their lead.

  The other important thing parents need to do is allow their little ones to spend plenty of time in the outdoors, getting down and dirty. Playing with mud, cuddling animals and sharing their germs is important, as is sun exposure to maintain vitamin D levels. To that end, pet ownership is a great idea or if that’s too much responsibility, go out on the weekends and visit farms.

  Do you think schools are being too cautious by banning particular products?

  I don’t agree with banning food products and you’ll probably find not many medical experts do, either. Food banning is dangerous because it’s not enforceable and it provides a level of complacency for kids. The best way to ensure safety is to teach kids to be food aware and not to share food. It’s a good health practice to undertake regardless of whether your child has an allergy or not – you need to empower your child to say, ‘I don’t know what’s in this so I can’t eat it’. They need to have the confidence to ask questions such as, ‘Was this food made especially for me?’ and this works for religious reasons as well as dietary.

  I’m hopeless at playtime

  The wardrobe appears one rainy afternoon while I’m at school. A brown mahogany abomination my mother has picked up from the side of the road, it has stained-glass windows and endless shelving options. I stare at it in horror, its bulky wooden frame clashing dreadfully with my peach bedroom. ‘Surprise! It’s a doll’s house!’ Mum exclaims as she begins opening the doors of the wardrobe with a flourish. ‘We can take the doors off, paint the interior and glue rugs down on each section – it’s going to be amazing!’ Mum is excited about the project but I’m not so sure. I’ve seen doll’s houses and they don’t look like this unwelcome beast. To my eight-year-old knowledge, they’re often pink, plastic and branded, and blonde, Caucasian children with American accents play with them on television commercials. This is so far removed from that vision, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  But my initial horror is quelled when within a week, Barbie has a hot new address courtesy of my mother and her creative interior design. As promised she takes the doors off, and together we paint windows and doors onto the interior walls, glue shag pile fabric on the floors and tulle curtains on the ‘walls’. But something feels like it’s missing. When my mother’s attention turns back to her work, I quickly set about converting the home into my interpretation of a roadside bordello. I place my Barbie spa in one of the rooms and lay out tissues as towels for the clientele. A couple of the rooms feature four-poster beds – complete with pink love-heart detailing on the fabric simply because that shit is HOT! A waiting room is lined with three sofas for my Kens to park themselves on as they wait their turn, and downstairs, I build a roomy parking station for their plastic red Ferraris (my dolls are very affluent, I’ll have you know). Mum takes a look at the finished product and gives me a bear hug as she raves over my design aesthetic. She has no clue my ‘girls’ are working, and puts my enthusiastic use of animal prints down to my ethnic heritage because, as every Turk worth her salt knows, more is more.

  Life in my Barbie bordello is hectic from day one. After school, I hurry home to my magical wardrobe where my Barbie sluts service the Kens in every room of the house until they are red raw. A psychologist would have a field day with this, no doubt, but let me state for the record I have never been abused by anyone in any way, shape or form. What I have been regularly exposed to, however, is adult entertainment. My brothers are eight and 13 years older than me respectively (I’m what people might refer to as a ‘surprise’ baby or a ‘mistake’, depending on whether you’re feeling particularly cruel), so although I adhere to the PG movie rule during the light of day, late at night when everyone thinks I’m asleep I sit at the top of the stairs quietly where no one can see me and watch whatever movies my brothers are into, all of them R-rated. Slasher flicks, soft porn masquerading as ‘psychological thrillers’ and endless repeats of Duran Duran’s ‘Girls on
Film’, I watch them all saucer-eyed. Wow! I think as two coked-up models pillow-fight on a pole covered in shaving cream. I can’t wait to grow up!

  Hardly surprising, then, that I soon find seemingly age-appropriate games boring and come up with new and imaginative ways to entertain myself. While all the other girls dress up their dollies and take them for afternoon walks in their prams, I paint my dolls’ faces like Alice Cooper and hang them from curtain rods with homemade nooses. Somebody say dress-ups? I don a black and red striped jumper and fashion a knife glove I’ve made out of lace Madonna gloves and slivers of cardboard and terrorise the street (and all the local princesses and fairies) dressed like Freddy Krueger, the burnt villain in Nightmare on Elm Street. And when other kids hand in stories at school about dragons and castles, I write a short story about Pedro the junkie cat addicted to inhaling Exelpet and am subsequently hauled into the principal’s office.

  Most parents would be out of their mind with worry that their daughter has seemingly sociopathic tendencies, but my parents in all their eternal wisdom do not bat an eyelid. ‘You have a terrific imagination, Dilvin,’ whispers my mum that night as she tucks me into bed and kisses me on the forehead. Looking into her eyes, I can tell she means it and isn’t just saying this because she’s worried I’m going to kill her in her sleep. ‘There’s nothing worse than being ordinary, love,’ says my dad, equally proud. They know I’m not evil, and I know I’m not evil. The fact of the matter is, I’m just not very good at being a kid. When other kids come to play, I have difficulty falling in line with the ‘let’s take the dolls shopping, and push these cars around a track’ status quo. It bores me to tears, and although I try to fit in and get involved, after 20 minutes of playtime I’m usually ready for them to go home so I can play by myself and croon along to George Michael songs in front of the mirror.

  Considering how badly I did childhood as a child, I don’t think it will surprise anyone if I admit I’m not exactly great shakes at doing childhood as an adult, either. In the last 25 years I’ve calmed down a lot, but despite the vast social advancements, I hardly have the kind of cheerful disposition that will ever land me a job working in a childcare or preschool environment. When I was pregnant, I became so worried I wouldn’t know how to play with my baby properly, I actually rushed out and purchased piles of instructional titles such as, Fun Activities to Try with Baby and 364 Games to Play with Little One. Just as well, really because as soon as Cella was born, I mostly just stood around staring at her in shock, not knowing quite what to do to entertain her (martinis and Sinatra are out for the under-12-month crew, apparently). ‘The carer who spends most of the time with the child is the person they will look to and want to play with most,’ the books sang out to me in an authoritative tone as I frantically flipped through them looking for ideas on what to do. ‘Your baby will look to you for guidance on what’s okay and safe to try out and they’ll often get the information with just a glance at your face to read your facial expressions.’ Wow, these babies really are cluey! I thought as I did a mad dash to the shops to buy overpriced black and white cardboard mobiles and an array of neon animals complete with loud, clashing patterns and cellophane ears. Soon, our house became a sea of primary colours as I consulted the books daily, trying to come up with engaging games for our newborn – but to no avail. ‘Children who do not respond to these gestures could have something neurologically wrong with them,’ mocked the words from one book and I freaked out until my babycare nurse helpfully pointed out newborns aren’t actually supposed to do much at all and Cella was right on track. I threw the books out after that. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that just gets easier as your child grows older?

  Or perhaps not. It turns out you’re either the kind of parent who loves and is very good at playtime, or you’re just not that into it. Me? I fall into the latter category and it’s taken me years to accept that this is okay. Simply put? I detest spending hours down at the playground pushing swings; I can’t stand pretending to be a wizard or a fairy and talking in that Play School/massage therapist ‘I wouldn’t harm a flea’ voice. Try as I might, I still can’t find joy in having fake tea parties and doing dramatic re-enactments of grocery trips with plastic money and food items. I always go along with it because I’m aware my daughter loves nothing more than playing with her mummy, but I’m always worried she’s going to cotton on to the fact that her mummy has been faking it the whole time.

  According to researcher types who have many letters after their names on their business cards, playtime is a vital tool that teaches children how to interact with the world around them – kinda helpful if you want them to grow up to be a somewhat adjusted individual with a hope in hell of holding down a job and, possibly, a family one day. If we actually break it down, the benefits of regular playtime (I’m guessing this is where mum isn’t staring at her iPhone, but actually engaging with her kid/s) are endless. Playtime:

  * Helps children to learn to trust and depend on you.

  * Makes them feel loved and secure.

  * Assists them put together ideas as they learn to make sense of the world.

  * Helps them express ideas.

  * Develops speech and coordination.

  * Teaches kids how to behave.

  * Teaches cooperation and sharing.

  * Allows them to develop their imaginations.

  * Helps them reduce stress. Acting out stressful situations such as death and conflict can help them become more familiar and therefore less frightening.

  Fortunately I then come across a research article that states, ‘You should give your child plenty of time on their own and let them play without interference in order to learn how to amuse themselves.’ The premise of the paper is if adults spend too much time playing with a child, the child will become bored and miserable when left on their own and instead of playing happily during these times, they will demand your undivided attention (most likely the minute you make a phone call, or place your derriere on the couch). Freakin’ A!

  I’ve since worked out playtime can be enjoyable if you throw out the books and concentrate on the things you’re good at. For example, I’m highly talented at lying still for long blocks of time, so doctors and nurses and mummies and babies are very popular in our household (I play the patient or the baby or any other role that involves me lying on my arse and being looked after by my loving child). Unfortunately I’m still not so great at Barbies: if Cella presents me with two bride Barbies she would like the two of us to play with, I see it as an opportunity to teach her an important life lesson. ‘Well Cella, it’s nice you’re marrying these two Barbies because that automatically makes you more liberal than most of the governments of the free world – for example, did you know that in Australia, two persons of the same gender cannot get married or even access one another’s superannuation?’ Poor Cella just looks at me blankly while holding her dollies, wondering why I can’t just help her dress them and shut the hell up.

  It’s often said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and as I watch Cella blossom into a little girl, I can see the sense in this. One day she draws a picture of herself jumping out of her bedroom window because she’s sad the fireworks are over for another year. Most parents would be concerned their child is one step away from strangling the family cat, but not me. I just put my arms around her and squeeze her tighter than ever. She’s her mother’s daughter and I know she’s going to have the kind of imagination no tea party or Lego can give her. And I can’t wait.

  Is playtime really that important?

  Absolutely, says former CEO of Playgroup Victoria and author of Everyday Play, Kaye Plowman, and the benefits are plentiful. ‘Play enhances all aspects of a child’s physical, social, emotional, intellectual and creative development. It crucially influences a young child’s brain development, determining future behaviour and affecting their attitude and confidence levels in approaching new situations.’

  Need another excuse to get your hands dirty? Kaye says furthe
r benefits include:

  * Open play experiences, freely chosen by the child, provide great opportunities for learning. Children become self-aware and gradually make sense of their world which can often be quite confronting and confusing. They learn to develop their own ideas, problem solve, negotiate and ask for help. With freedom and stimulating environments to explore and experience, learning not only becomes fun but a lifelong love of it begins.

  * Essential social skills are developed and practised through play in meaningful situations. With adult guidance and modelling, children learn respect for others and their property, along with empathy and how to be fair, share and take turns.

  * Well-supervised play provides a safe place for children to take risks and develop new skills. Proficiency of these new skills is gained through repetition and practice as the child chooses.

  * Imaginative play allows a young child to be in control of the situation, choose the dominant powerful role to work through difficult or fearful situations or relive pleasurable events. Pretending and imitating gives expression to a child’s natural curiosity and creativity.

  * With thoughtful adult planning, play prepares children for formal learning. It lays the foundation for language, literacy, music appreciation, mathematics, science and environmental responsibility.

  That all sounds great, but what do you do if you’re the kind of parent who would rather eat a glass sandwich than see another tea set? Any activities you’d recommend?

  Playing with a toddler doesn’t come naturally to many parents, particularly if play is trivialised and its importance overlooked. Part of a parent’s role is to provide time, space and stimulating environments for their child to develop their own ideas through solitary, partnering or group play. A parent who fills this vital role will reap many rewards, including closer attachment and bonding.