When your child is diagnosed with diabetes, it is very important for them to learn to accept responsibility for their disease. It is just as important for the parent to know how much responsibility they should expect their child to have with their day to day care.
When my son was first diagnosed with diabetes, I was very impressed at how quickly he was able to pick up on the knowledge of the disease, as well as how to test, inject, count carbs, and learn high/low symptoms. I think what really helped was that he already had to monitor his diet because of his peanut allergy.
Yet, he still is only a thirteen year old boy who craves to be a normal kid. Kids would prefer to pretend that they are not diabetic. If a parent assumes that their child will always do what they need to in order to maintain their health, they may find that they may end up with serious health issues. One should not assume, as in my situation, that when your child is with the other parent, there will be the same level of involvement as your own.
When your child goes to a friend’s home, you also cannot assume that the friend’s parent will be as watchful over your child as you are. Unless they are familiar with this disease through personal experience, or are in the medical field, you may not be able to rely on them to make sure your child does what they need to do.
It is very important to understand that if your child is a new diabetic, they are still trying to cope with having this disease. It is so much easier for them to not bother doing testing, because they still have not done this new lifestyle very long. That is why it is critical to monitor their care, no matter what their age.
If your child is of elementary age, they will most likely be able to give their own injections. It is really amazing the abilities of young diabetics. Yet, you would never consider not watching over their handling of their diabetes. You still need to watch them perform the testing and injections, to make sure that everything is being done correctly.
Where parents start to slack off on monitoring their child’s diabetes is when they reach middle school age or older. They assume that the child is mature enough to pretty much be in control of their care. They are, but to a point. Sometimes they may get too involved in their activities to want to bother. This is going to be more common when they are away somewhere.
I went through this, several times, in fact, when my son was at the other parent’s home, as well as at a friend’s. Diabetics should test themselves a minimum of three times, but four or more is better. Upon my son’s return, I discovered that there were several days that he had only tested once or twice. It was worse when he went to his friend’s farm. He did not test for almost two days! You can imagine the explosion that happened when I discovered this. I had asked his father to remind him to test, and of course has father ASSUMED that his son would test. I told him that my son would get to involved with what they were doing and would not test. This is not something that I enjoy saying “told you so”.
When you have a teenager, it is even harder to monitor their care because of the lesser amount of daily contact you have with them. Again, check their meter for their test results. This is the best way to check if they are caring for themselves correctly. Especially if they are changing their activity level, or are going through puberty. You need to be aware of any adjustments that are necessary and how to make them.
With all ages, the between meal snacks is hard to control. Your child has to know what they can have for snacks and how often. You need to watch out for food cheating. They need to understand that if they want extra food that was not in their original carb count, they have to cover it.
If your child does not want to accept the extreme importance of controlling their diabetes, you may have to resort to scare tactics. Of course, this depends on the age of your child.
Because my son is still considered a new diabetic, we have not tried to overload him with possible complications of his disease. He did already experience a scare when he took a nap after swimming, without testing himself first. His step mom had trouble waking him! Even with this happening, it is sometimes difficult to get my son to test himself before bed. After his recent lack of testing, in order to get him to understand the importance of it, I finally brought up the possibility of the different complications that could happen over time: neuropathy, which is nerve damage of the feet and legs, retinopathy, which is damage of the blood vessels in the eyes, or diabetic coma. I was very blunt about the fact that if his sugar levels are not controlled, he could lose his eye sight or have his feet amputated.
It is important to not be so protective that your child is not able to learn how to care for themselves. You also don’t want them not be the normal, happy child that they can be. But it is worse if you leave your child’s care of his diabetes completely up to them. So, learn as much as you can about your child’s diabetes. Keep tabs on their numbers. Learn how to make changes in their meds depending on the situation they are in.
“Let them be responsible but remember they are still kids at heart. And remember: NEVER ASSUME!!!”
xoxo