Arthur: Binky Goes Nuts

I have been a paramedic for 17 years. My 6 YO son has a peanut allergy that keeps worsening, from ingestion only to touch and ingestion last year. When he went off to school it was a scary moment for me. I had to work with the school to keep his Epi pen on him, rather than locked up in the office. He sits at a peanut free table, but a child with peanut butter hands grabbed his wrist causing a localized breakout. Other parents sometimes resent the snack restrictions because of my child.I learned that educating them about the seriousness of this potentially deadly allergy was necessary. I was lucky and the school was open to my presentation to the class. I was worried about the 6 YO attention span and presenting the information at an age appropriate level without being too dramatic.This video and companion printable .PDF of activities for the kids (available from PBS) were absolutely perfect. The video runs about 13 minutes. It discusses many things from discovering the allergy to why precautions in school and at home are so important. It shows an allergic reaction at school and how to react! It also shows why allergy parents worry about our children. The PAL cards in the PBS companion activity printout can be carried by children and taken home to parents to help educate them as well. For this age range, I recommend this material.Thank you to PBS for making this DVD and to Amazon for selling this important information.

Our four year old daughter has multiple food allergies, some of which are life-threatening. Being a preschooler, she absolutely ADORES Arthur and his friends. Binky is one of her favorites as she, too, is allergic to nuts. I strongly recommend this video to teachers, parents, etc. who desire to better educate non-food allergic children to the challenges their friends face daily. It is also a wonderful source of comfort to children who are food allergic as they see through being entertained that there are other kids (and cartoon/book characters) who are like them. Thank you, Marc Brown, for bringing attention and understanding to food allergic children all across our country through Arthur and his pal, Binky!

We bought this DVD because Binky learns that he has a peanut allergy. My daughter has a peanut allergy (and I feel like Binky's mom in the show! LOL). and this was a great DVD to play for her and for people who might not understand (especially other little kids).

This DVD is a great tool to teach older elementary-aged students (age 8-11) about food allergy awareness and education. As a school nurse, I presented this to the 5th grade class in order to increase awareness and a greater understanding of fellow classmates affected by food allergies.

My neighbor's little boy has severe nut allergies. I wanted something that would help explain the problem on a 3year olds level. I am happy to report that my neighbor and her son loved it!

I have a 5 year old that is pn/tn allergic. This was great!! I'm so glad that we found it. We loved it so much that we bought an extra copy and donated it to the local library!

I am amazed by the excellent reviews this terrible DVD has received. I was so excited to find "Binky Goes Nuts" soon after our then almost 3-year-old had a severe reaction to eating only two Peanut Butter M&Ms, his first taste of peanut ever. Because he does not like sliced bread, we had not yet tried p.b and jelly sandwiches. He is also not overly fond of candy but he wanted to try the M&Ms, and I gave him two. This required a trip to the ER immediately upon his swallowing them, his reaction was so severe--clawing inside his itchy mouth, holding onto me, coughing as though something was stuck in his throat, then projectile vomiting, all within four minutes of ingesting two M&Ms. So, at that moment we entered the scary, difficult world of peanut allergy and forever carrying two Epi-pens, and as I said, I was so glad to find this DVD to help teach him about the allergy. I ordered not one but FOUR of them,since our boy loves "Arthur". I was planning to share them with his pre-school and other contacts. Upon watching it,however, I found it to be only a 13-minutes film and the remainder was made up of THREE TOTALLY DIFFERENT STORIES, none of which had anything to do with allergies! Since the title of the DVD, as well as the cartoon illustration on the cover, were related to Binky's peanut allergy, with Binky even holding up a "No Peanut" sign, I assumed that this was all a peanut allergy-enlightening DVD. It is most definitely not. Now, for the content of the 13 minutes that were dedicated to peanut allergy (sort of). The first five minutes were confusing to a 3-year-old in that it started out with a big butterfly landing on Binky's arm and he immediately developed hives. But a trip to the doctor assured him he was not allergic to butterflies (why then, the butterfly at the moment he first broke out in hives exactly where the butterfly landed? Why didn't it depict Binky eating peanuts or peanut butter, instead? We will apparently never know). It was all very silly, but not in a teaching way, and very confusing and difficult to pick out the few good points being made amongst the irrelevant parts. Then, after it was established by testing that Binky was allergic to peanuts instead of butterflies(!), he whined and balked at everything his Mom was trying to teach him. He went to the candy store and instead of buying candy, he bought cashews, and very soon broke out again with hives and had to be rushed to the hospital. He pointed out that he did not know he was allergic to cashews and his Mom said he was not. But she had apparently failed to teach him (a 10-year-old) about also not eating food processed in the same plant with peanuts due to cross-contamination! Are you still with me? That night he had a very bad dream, again featuring butterflies--I think. Note: Even I was getting lost here, and I am an adult and an RN. Then, to top it off, there was yet ANOTHER dream (remember, the entire show was only thirteen minutes) this time a NIGHTMARE, about awful monsters and mean peanuts and somewhere in there a very bad man was talking about SODIUM CHLORIDE allergy! What does any of this have to do with peanut allergy? Binky took up precious viewing time asking, "What is sodium chloride?" From at least one of these horrible dreams, he woke up screaming. I also want to add, his caring mother (and Moms usually bear a very heavyload in peanut allergic children) was treated like a totally annoying ditzy airhead throughout, always peaking in windows at him, and just being a general nuisance and a comic character and being made fun of. I really don't dislike this DVD, I actually detest it! Possibly, if an older child watched it and had a pretty good handle already on peanut allergies, it might be fairly amusing to watch. But as for little children confused by this sudden life-change, and for older ones who are not allergic, but whom you are trying to enlighten--this video is really, really bad in the opinion of one who has to deal with a precious little guy whom she had to give an Epi-pen on his 3rd birthday, and rush him to the ER again, and who loves Arthur but who got absolutely nothing but confusion from this scary, often irrelevant, very short DVD. Perhaps you and your child will love it, but buyer beware.

The DVD has other shows that are about school but only the first one is about a nut allergy so it was shorter then I thought maybe like 15min however my son still liked seeing a character that goes through he does on a daily basis

My son loved this, using it to teach him about his peanut allergy

thanks