If your kid has Type 1 diabetes, you already know it’s a life-changer.
Managing the disease means negotiating a complex and ever-changing balance between diet, physical activity and medications including insulin to keep your child’s blood sugar at healthy levels and prevent potentially fatal complications.
Much of the burden of managing the disease initially falls on parents. The Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston offers these 10 tips to help parents and caregivers manage kids’ diabetes:
- Take an active role in managing the disease, regardless of how old your child is. Even independent and responsible teens need oversight from time to time.
- Work with a healthcare team that understands how to treat children and adolescents with a chronic, life-threatening illness. The team should include your pediatrician, as well as a dietitian, a child life specialist and others, including, if necessary, mental health specialists.
- Check in with the team at least four times a year to make sure treatment is on track. Good control of diabetes means managing blood sugar levels throughout the day and over the long haul.
- Be honest with the team ““ let them know what the problem areas and sticking points are in managing the disease, both for you and your child.
- Be positive with your child. Emphasize what they’re doing right as far as managing the disease instead of harping on their weak points.
- When checking blood sugar levels, watch your words and your facial expressions. Make sure your child understand there is no “bad” blood sugar level, because you want them to be honest with you about the numbers they’re seeing when they do the tests themselves.
- Make time to check in with your child about managing the disease and explaining what needs to be done and why.
- Don’t just talk about diabetes; ask about their day at school, their hobbies and their friends ““ just like you do with your children who don’t have diabetes. No one wants to be identified by a diagnosis.
- Let your diabetic child do everything they’d do if they didn’t have the disease, including sports, dance, music and other activities. Living with diabetes means learning to live a well-rounded life.
- Don’t single out the diabetic child by diet; a diabetes-friendly diet is healthy for the whole family, and it’s a good way to teach everyone about healthy nutrition.
