Keys for living with diabetes (parents, family and children)

Living with diabetes is not easy, whether in children or couples, here are some keys that help better understand situations and recommendations to manage them.

Problems in diabetic children

- Loss of self -esteem
- Overprotection and isolation
- Chantagism

recommendations

- Family cohesion
- Communication
- Rigidity in treatment, flexibility in activities
- Optimism
- Attention to the brothers

The stress of the parents
Causes

- Feeling of incompetence
- Fear of complications

Emotional symptoms

- Tensíon, threat
- Irritability, humor changes
- Inability to rest
- Aggression
- Inability to concentrate

 physical symptoms

- Inappropriate, nausea
- Bad digestions
- Insomnia
- Palpitations, pain or chest oppression
- Headache

social symptoms

- Isolation
- Problems in sexual relations

Prevention

- Normalize life and schedules
- Physical exercise
- Relaxation exercises
- Avoid medications
- Social relations
- Family cohesion

treatment

- Diabetes information
- Psychological help

anorexia and bulimia

- It affects 3 % of adolescents
- It affects 7% of diabetic adolescents

Causes

- Restrictions
- Weight gain for frequent declines

Recommendations

- Good communication in the family
- Give freedom
- Give prominence to the teenager in treatment

Family separation

- It is normal for parents of diabetic children to feel great anxiety in moments of separation from their children, but it must be taken into account that these separations are very important for the psychological maturation of children.

- Sleeping at a friend's house is a quite recommended first step.It is advisable to reduce slow insulin dose because children usually move more and fall asleep later.

- Summer colonies.Children learn that they can survive without their parents and parents who can survive without their children !!If the first colony is carried out with diabetic children and specialized personnel, it is recommended that the colonies of the following years be with non -diabetic children.

The Adolescence Challenge

Adolescence, with its sexual and emotional changes, is a source of problems for anyone.The diabetic adolescent, although he has taken his treatment very well for years, can be revealed and refused to compliance.
The largest number of ups and downs in glucose leads to feeling frustration.

The teenager lives the present and is not aware of what may happen 20 years later.

The best attitude of a father is to form a team with his son, encourage him, support him, establish short -term objectives and strengthen the achievements.Let it communicate openly, be consistent as well as flexible and patient.The daily conversation between parents and children is essential, using open questions of the type "how you feel with your diabetes, what your problems are, what is the most difficult and how you could seek help."

Parents are the main influence on children, transmitting experience and knowledge.If they do not fulfill this function they are replaced by friends or media.

If parents have doubts about how to treat their children should ask for psychological help.

No one likes to be judged

To a child who arrives with very bad grades we cannot humiliate him but motivate him to improve them.

A large proportion of children and adolescents falsify their glucose analysis because they have a great sense of guilt.We must not use glucose analysis to judge the behavior of our child but to serveGuide to see the insulin you need.

Children need to feel loved by their parents.Continuously they seek the approval of their parents.If they do not receive it, they begin to feel that they are bad children and do not meet their expectations.Many parents, unconsciously, give messages that humiliate their children.

label the children

Like a child who has had problematic behaviors, he cannot live marked by bad reputation, a diabetic child cannot succumb to the tag of chronic or incapacitated patient.

For children and adolescents it is very important to fit in a group.Being diabetic can produce a sense of difference, especially if things that separate you from the rest are prohibited.

Parents must support the child in the idea that they can participate in all the activities of their age having diabetes.

It is demonstrated worldwide (scientific works carried out in Europe, America and Japan) that children and adolescents who best control their diabetes are those who have a strong sense of normality.

school performance of diabetic children

Iowa University, United States.Posted in January 2002.

Study: Comparison through school performance tests of 244 diabetic children with respect to 110 diabetic brothers and 209 non -diabetic classmates.

Results:

Diabetic children in general have normal school performance, both globally and in mathematics and language.

Nor do they show more aggressiveness, opposition to teachers, hyperactivity, lack of attention, anxiety, or depression.

Among the diabetics, those with frequent glucose declines (more than 3 a week) have worse global school performance, greater rejection of teachers, more changes in humor and tiredness in school hours.

Diabetes and Employment

Entrepreneurs discriminate against diabetics when using them.They fear above all that a loss of sudden glucose incapacitates them for their function.

Recommendations of the American Diabetes Association:

Diabetics have the right to be employed for any work for which they are qualified.

Most diabetics recognize the warning symptoms of the descent.

Only those who do not recognize these symptoms must have their jobs restricted.This condition must be evaluated individually.

praise and reward

- Children from one year begin to develop a strong sense of independence.That is why they say "no" (sometimes without knowing their meaning) in the face of parents' recommendations.One way to demonstrate that independence is to refuse punctures or eat.

- It is advisable to use "positive reinforcements" when the child collaborates with punctures and analysis, for example, "you are a good boy."

- However, it is not recommended to scold them the day they do not cooperate and or punish them for it.

- An idea would be to reward him with a point or a little star that will collect and when he reaches an agreed number to take him to the zoo.

- A small child cannot understand diabetes or their treatment.

- We have to get them to see insulin punctures and glucose analysis as a game.

"A Children's Game"

- It is advisable to give the child a syringe (without needle) and to click his wrist or stuffed animal.

- Observing how the child clicks to his doll we can see the feelings he expresses during the punctures (which are the same as the parents transmit to him when they prick him).

Maintain trust in parents

- Children, since the year of life, begin to develop the sense of trust and security with their parents.

- Parents who, when clicking, are insecure and anxious, run the risk of losing this feelingof trust and security by their children, which can lead to serious problems in their psychological development.

- When clicking you have to feel and transmit that it is being done is good and painless.You have to reaffirm communication with the child, show them affection during the punctures with warm words, hugs and tender gestures.

- Puncts should be done when parents can spend time to their child, focus their attention on it and not be distracted by other house problems.Not punctures should not be given at times when parents are very linked or occupied with other family members.

domestic problems

- Saying before the tears of a child who asks that he "forgive" a glucose analysis is to invite him to manipulate us again and again, because he already won on one occasion: the control of diabetes can never be negotiable.

- If the father or mother is not equally rigid in the treatment and control of diabetes the child will play with this situation.Tensions that underlie all couples will easily air around this issue.

- Separate parents can decrease the level of demand to attract their children.

- The couple must unify the treatment and control criteria by talking, but never in front of the child.

- Children are better if the two parents collaborate in diabetes.

the whole family involved

- A child should not eat "diabetic diet" while his parents and brothers eat "normal."The whole family should eat healthy diet.

- Sports activities must be organized regularly, for the whole family.

- It should not be said that the controls have come out "good" or "bad", but "high", "normal" or "low."The whole family should be involved in thinking and deducting what circumstances they have been able to have high or low and propose measures to improve them.

Gan independence

Independence to handle diabetes is a gradual process.

During childhood, diabetes management corresponds to the whole family that must work as a team.

When he turns 8 or 9 years old, the diabetic child has to be independent to perform all the techniques (analysis, insulin administration) but parents must continue to form a team:
- helping to collect glucose values ​​on the agenda,
- Reasoning about their variations
- Changing dose of insulin
- Changing the treatment when a weekend or a holiday period arrives, for example.

This team work does not only help the adolescent, also parents allow them to stay “up to date” in the management of diabetes.

grandparents and kangaroos

- The parents of diabetic children have to instruct grandparents or kangaroos.

- grandparents and kangaroos must accompany parents to visits to the endocrine and educator, as well as the talks or other diabetes related activities.

- It is very important that grandparents have a normal relationship with their diabetic grandchildren, staying with them the necessary periods as they would with the other grandchildren.

- It is only essential that they know the symptoms of the descent and how to solve it, as well as the techniques of measuring glucose and putting the insulin.They do not need to know how to change the doses if they maintain telephone contact with the parents.

Law on the Diabetic Child Attention to School (approved on 08-29-02 by the North Carolina Parliament, having to put into practice in all public schools in this State at the beginning of the 2003-04 course)

- All school staff should know how to treat glucose.

- Diabetic children will be allowed to measure glucose, ketone, administer insulin or take a supplement in any school dependence, including the classroom and bus.

- At all times there will beAccess to glucagon.

* Recommendations of the American Diabetes Association

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