Dear Debbie;

I can sympathize with you completely.  I have a 4 year old son with anaphylactic
symptoms and have had to deal with quite a bit myself.  Luckily I have been able
to do all of the explaining concerning his allergies and asthma myself.  Fortunately his
pre-school teachers and the director of the pre-school are very educated in the
allergy and asthma field.  That's helpful!
As far as your question, whether a child should know the whole truth about their
allergies and how old they should be... I think that should always be the decision
of the parents.   No one knows your children like you do.  My son does understand
that a severe reaction could result in death.  I don't recall the exact conversation at
the time, but it happened when a family member passed away and he had a lot of
questions concerning death.  It all depends on the child, I guess.  My son is a conversationalist,
so we are able to talk about a whole lot of things, that maybe other children may not
quite comprehend.  He is not at all scared of the idea of his allergies causing death...
maybe just a bit more cautious.

Kelly