Growing Up Ben: Living a Full Life, With Food Allergies

Growing up with, and raising a child with, a life-threatening food allergy comes with unique challenges. There is anxiety, the need to protect and advocate, and the reality of being and living differently in the world. Without being mindful, it is easy to train ourselves into anxious and disordered thinking, and easy to bump into conflict in our relationships. It takes an earnest perspective to feel safe without viewing the world as toxic. Growing Up Ben is written by a mother of two boys with life-threatening food allergies, who also happens to be a licensed clinical social worker, who has worked for over ten years therapeutically supporting children, adolescents, and families. Her first-person account follows a version of her family’s process through anxiety and restricted living to autonomy and intentional living. She hits on topics such as the following: Dealing with anxiety after diagnosis Accepting the realities of life and how it’s changed Overcoming the feeling of “burden” Managing social situations in school and with the family Handling teasing, exclusion Increasing awareness and advocacy Coping when your food allergic teen starts to date Learning how to equip your child “good enough” and then letting go. This book is geared toward adolescents and their parents. Using truth, humor, insight, and purposeful parenting, Kauke shares a mom’s reflections about raising her son while navigating along his developmental life stages from infant to teenager, and living with a serious food allergy. Kauke uses evidenced-based strategies throughout her narrative in order to offer sound advice to readers. While the book is written from the perspective of living a full life with a food allergy, the morsels gained from reading Growing Up Ben can apply to anyone who wants to live an intentional life, whereby we become who we are meant to be.