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Medical Video: Living with Diabetes: Molly
If your child has recently been diagnosed with diabetes, you may have some concerns regarding how this will affect your child's life. What can surprise you is that children with diabetes can do whatever children do in general, and live a normal and active life. They just have to be more careful in planning their daily activities.
If you are like most other parents who have just been told your child has type 1 diabetes, it is only natural that you are currently feeling a little surprised. Only about 10% of these diseases come from a family history of type 1 diabetes. There is still much to be learned about the causes, prevention, and treatment of type 1 diabetes.
First, children need to know that this is not their fault if they suffer from diabetes - there is nothing they can do to prevent this. They need to know that with the help of you and your doctor, they can control diabetes and live healthily and actively.
Treatment depends on your child's age and maturity. Some children can learn how to measure and inject their own insulin when they are in their early teens. However, it is recommended for parents and nurses to share responsibilities with their children in terms of insulin injection until puberty passes, usually in the middle of adolescence.
Every child has a different capacity to handle the demands of diabetes, but all children need and deserve their parents' help and support until adolescence. Before you give your child the responsibility to measure and inject insulin yourself, remember that this is a serious and complex problem. Your child needs to be mature enough to handle this work, and generally, children cannot bear the responsibility for insulin injections until they enter the final stages of adolescence.
What about checking their blood sugar?
Children need to understand routine checks, related to whether or not they can do this examination themselves. More importantly, they need to understand the symptoms of low blood sugar reactions (also called insulin reactions) and how to take the right steps. Furthermore, when they begin to understand all the goals of diabetes treatment, they will receive a greater role in their care. In fact, children usually learn quickly that maintaining good health is something they need to do in order to be able to join their friends in their daily activities.
Children with diabetes can do all the activities carried out by children in general. It is our job to adjust your child's diabetes management plan according to their daily routine.
The general misconception is that diabetics cannot eat anything with sugar, including birthday cakes, pastries, and ice cream. The fact is, children with diabetes can eat these foods in moderate amounts; they only need to be careful when planning other meals for the day, and adjust their insulin dosage. A healthy eating plan for children with diabetes is like other children without diabetes.
Children can exercise and be active in physical activities like other children. Again, you only need to plan it. First, talk to your doctor, and then learn about the routine glucose tests, meal plans, and insulin, which works for them.
Of course children cannot and should not handle their own diabetes. Diabetes affects the whole family, and it is important for all family members to play an active role in your child's life. One of the most important ways parents and children with diabetes can do it is to stay involved in managing diabetes daily and find solutions together with your child.
It may look heavy now, but diabetes treatment will quickly become part of your child's daily routine.
