When a Child is Diagnosed with Diabetes

Getting a diagnoses of diabetes is always a very severe blow to parents or guardians of a child who has developed the disease. Many emotions rise to the surface – anger, fear, sadness, guilt. You realize that the sudden invasion of this dreaded disease into your lives is going to make a big difference it your family. At this point it is only natural to look for solutions to try and soften the blow.

One of the first things you and other affected family members should do is to learn everything that you can about childhood and adolescent diabetes. Indeed, all family members should do this for this is definitely going to be something the entire family will be involved with. The more facts that you understand about your child’s illness, the greater equipped you will be to assist your child to face the difficult tasks he must cope with in order to thrive while living with the disease.

For example, children are not accustomed to attending a birthday party and then not consuming their share of the birthday cake. Nor are they used to not being able to play sports with their friends because their blood glucose level might drop. Children may be terrified of having their finger pricked once or more a day to test their blood sugar levels. If a child needs to have an insulin injection during the school day, he or she may be quite sensitive about any comments his classmates may make when they find out he is diabetic. Most of all, some children may probably feel as though they are “different” somehow due to their diabetes. Coping mechanisms will be necessary to assist a child to deal with the above mentioned situations and other pressures he or she will face.

Many adults do not come to realize how deeply children who have diabetes can be affected by the disease. Depression is a common occurrence due to the fact that so many aspects of the child’s life will change when he or she is diagnosed. One way to counteract a bit of the depression is to allow the child to become a participant in his or her own care as much as possible. This is easier to actually do than it sounds, and can also give you the chance to work in a little nutritional education as you discuss the important need for good eating habits with the young person. The more he can share in his treatment plan with more maturity.

It is often a wonderful idea for the entire family to change their exercise and eating habits in order to support the child with diabetes. Nothing could be better support for the child struck with diabetes than to have a family who is centered on healthy living.