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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 1 • JULY 2017
DIABETES NEWS
SA JOURNAL OF DIABETES & VASCULAR DISEASE
Diabetes News
H
aving a child or teenager with diabetes
adds a new and different dimension to
parenting. To love and care for the child and
promote all of his or her potential is one
dimension – to take good care of diabetes
is quite another. Often these goals seem
to contradict each other, yet they need not
do so.
This is the view of Rosemary Flynn,
a clinical psychologist at the Centre for
Diabetes and Endocrinology (CDE). She
says that while major advances have taken
place in recent years in the management
of young people with type 1 diabetes, one
cannot step away from the psychological
repercussions of a challenging, never-ending
condition that needs constant management.
‘Advances have helped lessen the burden of
everyday living for youngsters and reduce
their risk of long-term complications but the
condition still has an impact on behaviours,
self-esteem, sibling and peer relationships,
and family dynamics’, she adds.
Flynn says that an understanding of the
needs and emotions of children at various
stages of development can help us to better
identify and understand a child’s specific
needs and emotions at each age. ‘This is
particularly true for children between birth
and 12 years old. Diabetes management
in adolescence needs to be tackled very
differently’, she says. ‘Teenagers have a lot
to deal with just being teenagers. When
diabetes is added to the process, they
need both resilience and resourcefulness to
manage successfully. Emotional turmoil at
times is inevitable.’
Flynn says it all starts with seeing the child
as more than just a physical being. ‘There is
more tomanaging diabetes than coping with
the physical aspects’, she says. It involves the
whole of the teen – the physical, emotional,
social, spiritual and mental dimensions.
How well the body copes with the diabetes
is strongly linked to how the child thinks,
feels and relates to others. Each of these
dimensions will have an impact on how the
child behaves. She says although changing
emotions are a normal phenomenon for
anyone, in children with diabetes, they have
the potential to make blood glucose levels
unstable. The body reacts to emotional
trauma or even emotional excitement by
triggering chemical reactions, which make
blood glucose levels rise. ‘When working
Dealing with the emotions of children with diabetes
with a child with diabetes, it is so important
to try to understand the child holistically
to achieve and maintain optimum health.
Focusing on only the physical aspects of the
diabetes will never be sufficient to ensure a
well-balanced and healthy child who is at
peace with managing his or her diabetes.’
Flynn offers some crucial insights for
parents raising a child with diabetes:
Initiative and self-control: these develop
•
progressively with age and maturity and
are often influenced by the parenting
style of their parents. Both initiative,
being able to make the right decision
as needed, and self-control, being able
to follow the regimen of managing
diabetes, will be needed to enable the
child to negotiate his or her diabetes.
Developing a conscience: so much of
•
the successful management of diabetes
depends on a well integrated conscience.
Every day of their lives, children with
diabetes face the temptation to eat
too much, to avoid eating, to eat the
wrong foods, to avoid injections or
finger pricks, to have extra insulin, to
avoid exercise, to over-exercise, to falsify
blood glucose results, and so on. For
children to take responsibility for their
own health and make the right choices
depends to a large extent on values such
as honesty, success, achievement, self-
reliance and being co-operative. Having
a well-integrated conscience is the key
to developing these values.
Family
balance:
•
parenting that is
flexible but firm
works well in all
families.
Power
and responsibility is
gradually given to
the children as they
grow and develop.
Children
react
better when they
have clear limits,
expectations and
rules, which adapt
as they move into
their teenage years.
The relationship is
always respectful
and kind and it is
one in which the
family can solve problems together.
Feelings are valued and the connection
between parents and children is of
utmost importance. Like sailing a boat,
your family must roll with the wind and
weather the storms andmake continuous
adjustments as you try to keep the boat
balanced. If you can get this right, you
will truly be a flexible family and be
blessed with the benefits of that.
Sibling relationships: while siblings can
•
play a significant role in the process of
managing the condition, they can also
take a great deal of strain because of the
diabetes. Parents should find a balance
in the way they handle their children.
Somehow, they need to give each of their
children quality time. They need to find a
way to divide the time they have available
between all their children without
jeopardising the health of the child/
children with diabetes, to make each of
the children feel loved and nurtured, and
to make sure their own needs as a couple
and as individuals are met.
Managing anxiety: research on children
•
with diabetes has found that if too
much anxiety is present, such children
cope either by avoiding management
altogether to reduce their anxiety, or
else by becoming so frenetic in their
approach to self-management that
their stress levels become intolerable. In
either case, control of diabetes is lost.
Coping with diabetes is always a family
Support groups for children: Youth with Diabetes –
Youthwithdiabetes.comFacebook support group for parents: Kids powered with insulin.